old

Some half-dozen of his brothers and kinsmen had gone to the wars, of whom only one had survived to come home, with a small pension, and three bullets in different parts of his body; he had shared Benjy's cottage till his death, and had left him his old dragoon's sword and pistol, which hung over the mantelpiece, flanked by a pair of heavy single-sticks with which Benjy himself had won renown long ago as an old gamester, against the picked men of Wiltshire and Somersetshire, in many a good bout at the revels and pastimes of the country-side.

Here then in his kitchen, the only room where a spark of fire took off the chill of a November evening, poor Peter Goldthwaite had just been visited by his rich old partner.

Troy answered, looking at the old rogue who had disgraced an honorable profession, as he might have looked at a reptile which had just risen rampant at his feet.

"My dear boy, I can't make all old horses young; besides, Ladybird was not so very old, as she was run down and badly used."

The old prince disputed it chaffingly, but without getting angry.

It ain't fit that I should." The old man drew himself erect.

But no poverty in him, and no coat on him that never was the mode, and no Old Men's Ward for his dwelling-place, could quench his daughter's admiration.

'That was the fever, my dear,' said the old lady mildly.

It was an old man with long grey hair, whose face and figure as he held the light above his head and looked before him as he approached, I could plainly see.