list,
who was sure to be playing at the Club any time before daylight. It
happened that the drawer at the 'Chocolate-house' had been himself
lately robbed, and therefore stole to George with fear and trembling,
and muttered mysteriously to him, 'Mr. Walpole's compliments, and he has
got a housebreaker for you.' Of course Selwyn obeyed the summons
readily, and the event concluded, as such events do nine times out of
ten, with a quiet capture, and much ado about nothing.

The Selwyns were a powerful family in Gloucestershire, owning a great
deal of property in the neighbourhood of Gloucester itself. The old
colonel had represented that city in Parliament for many years. On the
5th of November, 1751, he died. His eldest son had gone a few months
before him. This son had been also at Eton, and was an early friend of
Horace Walpole and General Conway. His death left George sole heir to
the property, and very much he seemed to have needed the heritage.

The property of the Selwyns lay in the picturesque district of the
Northern Cotswolds. Anybody who has passed a day in the dull city of
Gloucester, which seems to break into anything like life only at an
election, lying dormant in the intervals, has been glad to rush out to
enjoy air and a fine view on Robin Hood's Hill, a favourite walk with
the worthy citizens, though what the jovial archer of merry Sherwood had
to do with it, or whether he was ever in Gloucestershire at all, I
profess I know not. Walpole describes the hill with humorous
exaggeration. 'It is lofty enough for an alp, yet is a mountain of turf
to the very top, has wood scattered all over it, springs that long to be
cascades in many places of it, and from the summit it beats even Sir
George Littleton's views, by having the city of Gloucester at its foot,
and the Severn widening to the horizon.' On the very summit of the next
hill, Chosen-down, is a solitary church, and the legend saith that the
good people who built it did so originally at the foot of the steep
mount, but that the Virgin Mary carried up the stones by night, till the
builder, in despair, was compelled to erect it on the top. Others
attribute the mysterious act to a very different personage, and with
apparently more reason, for the position of the church must keep many an
old sinner from hearing service.

At Matson, then, on Robin Hood's Hill, the Selwyns lived; Walpole says
that the 'house is small, but neat. King Charles lay here at the seige