him to his room.

"`You're late,' he said, reaching down some keys from a nail. `Where
are the rest?'

"`Outside,' I replied in a low whisper.

"But, low as it was, the voice was not disguised enough to escape the
quick ear of the steward. He turned sharply round and looked at me,
while I at the same moment, throwing off my cap, sprang towards him and
presented my pistol.

"He was too stunned and terrified to do anything but drop on his knees
and utter incoherent entreaties and ejaculations for pity.

"`How is my father?' I inquired, not heeding his entreaties, and
pointing the pistol still at his head.

"`Better,' he faltered--`much better. Oh, Master--'

"`Come with me,' I replied, turning to the door.

"He accompanied me like a lamb. Had my father been worse I had intended
to lock him up a prisoner in his own room. As it was, I took him
silently and stealthily through the village and delivered him up then
and there into the hands of the watch.

"This villain secured, it only remained to make sure of the other two.
And this, as it happened, was a very easy task. For both, exhausted by
their long, forced march and utterly benumbed by the cold, had fallen
into a drowsy stupor under the hedge where they had been left, crouching
beside my faithful steed for warmth. In this state it was simple work
to secure them and march them off to custody, where at any rate they
were not less comfortable for a time than they had been.

"A further visit next morning to the `tower by the river,' which was
well known to the watch as a rendezvous of thieves, served to secure the
rest of the conspirators: and the law of the land shortly afterwards put
it out of their power one and all to practise their wicked craft again.

"As for me, that night taught me a lesson or two that I've not forgotten
to this day, and which in my turn I've tried to teach to some of you
here. I went back to Ogilby a wiser man than I had left it, and, thank
God, a better one."

"And what did the poor horse do?" asked the youngest of the Culvertons.

"Why, he carried me back as merrily as if he'd never seen snow in all
his life."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

OUR NOVEL.

A SUMMER HOLIDAY ACHIEVEMENT.

Sub-Chapter I.

THE PLOT.

It was a bold undertaking, no doubt, at our tender age, to propose to
take the world by storm. But others had done it before us.

We had read our _Wonderful Boys_ and our _Boyhood of Great Men_
carefully and cri