“’Twas on a Christmas eve, and the birth-day too of my son’s little boy.  The night was piercing cold, and it blew a storm, with showers of hail and snow.  We had made up a cheering fire in an inner room; I sat before it in my wicker-chair; blessing providence, that had still left a shelter for me and my children.  My son’s two little ones were holding their gambols around us; my heart warmed at the sight:  I brought a bottle of my best ale, and all our misfortunes were forgotten.

“It had long been our custom to play a game at blind man’s buff on that night, and it was not omitted now; so to it we fell, I, and my son, and his wife, the daughter of a neighbouring farmer, who happened to be with us at the time, the two children, and an old maid servant, who had lived with me from a child.  The lot fell on my son to be blindfolded:  we had continued some time in our game, when he groped his way into an outer room in pursuit of some of us, who, he imagined, had taken shelter there; we kept snug in our places, and enjoyed his mistake.  He had not been long there, when he was suddenly seized from behind; ‘I shall have you now,’ said he, and turned about.  ‘Shall you so, master?’ answered the ruffian, who had laid hold of him; ’we shall make you play at another sort of game by and by.’”—­At these words Harley started with a convulsive sort of motion, and grasping Edwards’s sword, drew it half out of the scabbard, with a look of the most frantic wildness.  Edwards gently replaced it in its sheath, and went on with his relation.

“On hearing these words in a strange voice, we all rushed out to discover the cause; the room by this time was almost full of the gang.  My daughter-in-law fainted at the sight; the maid and I ran to assist her, while my poor son remained motionless, gazing by turns on his children and their mother.  We soon recovered her to life, and begged her to retire and wait the issue of the affair; but she flew to her husband, and clung round him in an agony of terror and grief.

“In the gang was one of a smoother aspect, whom, by his dress, we discovered to be a serjeant of foot:  he came up to me, and told me, that my son had his choice of the sea or land service, whispering at the same time that, if he chose the land, he might get off, on procuring him another man, and paying a certain sum for his freedom.  The money we could just muster up in the house, by the assistance of the maid, who produced, in a green bag, all the little savings of her service; but the man we could not expect to find.  My daughter-in-law gazed upon her children with a look of the wildest despair:  ‘My poor infants!’ said she, ’your father is forced from you; who shall now labour for your bread? or must your mother beg for herself and you?’ I prayed her to be patient; but comfort I had none to give her.  At last, calling the serjeant aside, I asked him, ’If I was too old to be accepted in place of my son?’