CHAPTER TWELVE.
FALLEN AMONG THIEVES.
A GRANDFATHER'S YARN.
Sub-Chapter I.
"When I was a young fellow," began my grandfather-- There was a general silence and a settling of ourselves in our seats, as the wavering voice of the old man uttered these magical words.
No one had asked him to tell a story, some of us had almost forgotten that he was sitting there in his big chair, one of the group which crowded round his own Christmas fire at Culverton Manor.
He was an old, old man, was my grandfather.

The proverbial "threescore years and ten" was an old story with him, and even the "fourscore" awarded to the strong was receding into the distance.

Yet there he sat, in his old straight-back chair, hale and bright, as he looked round on us his descendants, sons and daughters grey-haired already, grandchildren, who some of them were staid heads of families themselves, and the little group of great-grandchildren, who knew as well as any one that when their father's grandfather began to talk of "the days when he was young," it was worth their while to hold their peace and prick up their ears.
"When I was a young fellow," began my grandfather, stroking his old grizzled moustache, "I was a cornet in the Buffs.

It was in the year-- heigho! my memory's getting rusty!--it was in the year 1803, I believe, when every one was expecting the French over, and I was quartered with my regiment at Ogilby.

Ogilby is an inland town, you know, thirty miles from here; and as there was not much immediate danger of Bonaparte dropping in upon us there without good warning, we had a lazy rollicking time of it in that bright little place.
"We young officers, boys that we were, thought it a fine thing to live as grand gentlemen, and spend our pay half a dozen times over in all sorts of extravagances.