The widely discussed possibility of an invasion of England through a Channel tunnel has more than once recalled old Solomon Selby’s story to my mind.  
The occasion on which I numbered myself among his audience was one evening when he was sitting in the yawning chimney-corner of the inn-kitchen, with some others who had gathered there, and I entered for shelter from the rain.  Withdrawing the stem of his pipe from the dental in which it rested, he leaned back in the behind him and smiled into the fire.  The smile was neither mirthful nor sad, not humorous nor altogether thoughtful.  We who knew him recognized it in a moment: it was his smile.  Breaking off our few remarks we drew up closer, and he thus began:—
 
‘My father, as you know, was a shepherd all his life, and lived out by the four miles yonder, where I was born and lived likewise, till I moved here shortly afore I was married.  The cottage that first knew me stood on the top of the down, near the sea; there was no house within a mile and a half of it; it was built o’ purpose for the farm-shepherd, and had no other use.  They tell me that it is now pulled down, but that you can see where it stood by the of earth and a few broken bricks that are still lying about.  It was a and place in winter-time, but in summer it was well enough, though the garden never came to much, because we could not get up a good shelter for the vegetables and currant bushes; and where there is much wind they don’t thrive.
 
‘Of all the years of my growing up the ones that clearest in my mind were eighteen hundred and three, four, and five.  This was for two reasons: I had just then grown to an age when a child’s eyes and ears take in and note down everything about him, and there was more at that date to bear in mind than there ever has been since with me.  It was, as I need hardly tell ye, the time after the first peace, when Bonaparte was scheming his descent upon England.  He had crossed the great Alp mountains, fought in Egypt, drubbed the Turks, the Austrians, and the Proossians, and now thought he’d have a slap at us.  On the other side of the Channel, scarce out of sight and hail of a man on our English shore, the French army of a hundred and sixty thousand men and fifteen thousand horses had been brought together from all parts, and were drilling every day.  Bonaparte had been three years a-making his preparations; and to ferry these soldiers and and horses across he had a couple of thousand flat-bottomed boats.  These boats were small things, but wonderfully built.  A good few of ’em were so made as to have a little stable on board each for the two horses that were to haul the cannon carried at the stern.  To get in order all these, and other things required, he had assembled there five or six thousand fellows that worked at trades—carpenters, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, saddlers, and what not.  O ’twas a curious time!
 
‘Every morning Neighbour Boney would his multitude of soldiers on the beach, draw ’em up in line, practise ’em in the of , horses and all, till they could do it without a single .  My father drove a flock of ewes up into Sussex that year, and as he went along the drover’s track over the high downs thereabout he could see this drilling actually going on—the accoutrements of the rank and file glittering in the sun like silver.  It was thought and always said by my uncle Job, of foot (who used to know all about these matters), that Bonaparte meant to cross with on a calm night.  The grand with us was, Where would my gentleman land?  Many of the common people thought it would be at Dover; others, who knew how unlikely it was that any general would make a business of landing just where he was expected, said he’d go either east into the River Thames, or west’ard to some convenient place, most likely one of the little bays inside the of Portland, between the Beal and St. Alban’s Head—and for choice the three-quarter-round Cove, screened from every mortal eye, that seemed made o’ purpose, out by where we lived, and which I’ve climmed up with two tubs of brandy across my shoulders on scores o’ dark nights in my younger days.  Some had heard that a part o’ the French fleet would sail right round Scotland, and come up the Channel to a suitable .  However, there was much doubt upon the matter; and no wonder, for after-years proved that Bonaparte himself could hardly make up his mind upon that great and very particular point, where to land.  His came about in this wise, that he could get no news as to where and how our troops lay in waiting, and that his knowledge of possible places where flat-bottomed boats might be quietly run , and the men they brought marshalled in order, was dim to the last degree.  Being flat-bottomed, they didn’t require a harbour for unshipping their of men, but a good shelving beach away from sight, and with a fair open road toward London.  How the question posed that great Corsican (as we used to call him), what pains he took to settle it, and, above all, what a risk he ran on one particular night in trying to do so, were known only to one man here and there; and certainly to no of newspapers or printer of books, or my account o’t would not have had so many heads shaken over it as it has by who only believe what they see in printed lines.
 
‘The flocks my father had charge of fed all about the downs near our house, overlooking the sea and shore each way for miles.  In winter and early spring father was up a deal at nights, watching and tending the lambing.  Often he’d go to bed early, and turn out at twelve or one; and on the other hand, he’d sometimes stay up till twelve or one, and then turn in to bed.  As soon as I was old enough I used to help him, mostly in the way of keeping an eye upon the ewes while he was gone home to rest.  This is what I was doing in a particular month in either the year four or five—I can’t certainly fix which, but it was long before I was took away from the sheepkeeping to be bound prentice to a trade.  Every night at that time I was at the fold, about half a mile, or it may be a little more, from our cottage, and no living thing at all with me but the ewes and young lambs.  Afeard?  No; I was never afeard of being alone at these times; for I had been reared in such an out-step place that the lack o’ human beings at night made me less fearful than the sight of ’em.  Directly I saw a man’s shape after dark in a lonely place I was frightened out of my senses.
 
‘One day in that month we were surprised by a visit from my uncle Job, the sergeant in the Sixty-first foot, then in camp on the downs above King George’s watering-place, several miles to the west yonder.  Uncle Job dropped in about dusk, and went up with my father to the fold for an hour or two.  Then he came home, had a drop to drink from the tub of sperrits that the smugglers kept us in for housing their liquor when they’d made a run, and for burning ’em off when there was danger.  After that he stretched himself out on the settle to sleep.  I went to bed: at one o’clock father came home, and waking me to go and take his place, according to custom, went to bed himself.  On my way out of the house I passed Uncle Job on the settle.  He opened his eyes, and upon my telling him where I was going he said it was a shame that such a youngster as I should go up there all alone; and when he had fastened up his stock and waist-belt he set off along with me, taking a drop fro............