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النشر الإلكتروني

BOOK I.

ENLISTED BY CUPID.

O'er crackling ice, and depths profound,
With nimble glide the skaters play;
O'er treacherous Pleasure's flowery ground
They lightly skim and haste away.

JOHNSON.

VOL. I.

B

THREE RECRUITS.

CHAPTER I.

THE OLDEST AND THE NEWEST FASHION.

But there's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream :

No, there's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream.

MOORE.

T was years and years ago in an old

IT

Midland town; though it might have been to-day, judging from the topic they were discussing at the Angel Inn, while the London mail was dashing along the Northern road.

Bad times. All the ports of the world closed against English commerce. Ministers denounced and defended. The nation without allies. Everything and everybody going to the dogs, except those who had already gone. Such were the themes of the local politicians who smoked their pipes and emptied foaming beakers of strong ale at the principal hotel, waiting to see the coach come in and hear the news from town.

It was I said years and years ago. Before railways. Not before Love. That is as old as Hate, or how should we keep a check on villainy? It was in the good old days of rural simplicity, mail coaches, port wine, and tie-wigs; in the bad old days of trade riots, civil strife, religious persecutions, and hanging for robbery. There were time-serving politicians then as now, and hard, cruel, bitter bad times un

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