him, exclaiming, "Villain! what mean you by this outrage?" Fortunately it passed beneath his arm, and he found no difficulty in seizing and wrenching it from the feeble grasp of his assailant. At the first clashing of swords, the lady had fainted away, so that Lord Rochester encountered no opposition, but bore her to his own carriage, while her grandfather was engaged with Jocelyn.

The prize being thus successfully secured by a coup-de-main, which had hardly occupied three minutes in its execution, the dismounted horsemen hastily regained their saddles; the vehicle containing the rich heiress, for whom so many noble suitors had been contending, set off at full speed, guarded on either side by the armed riders; while Jocelyn and his Lordship brought up the rear, keeping at some distance from the cavalcade, that they might have the first notice of any intended pursuit. In this manner they travelled forward with undiminished rapidity

upon the Uxbridge road, until they had nearly reached that town, when Jocelyn, in the darkness of the night, missed his companion, and though he immediately pulled up and called aloud several times, he received no answer. Such was the obscurity of the road, that his lordship might easily have passed him unperceived; he therefore deemed it not improbable, that he had pushed forward to join the coach; and urging his horse to a full gallop to do the same, he soon overtook it. The object of his search was not, however, to be found, and in the midst of his parley with two or three of the horsemen, he was utterly astonished at seeing a female thrust her head from the carriage, shrieking and calling for assistance, in an agony of distress and terror that incontestably proved she was no willing actress in this scene of abduction. Instantly clapping spurs to his horse, he rode up to the leading postilion, and compelled him to stop, when he returned to the coach, imploring its ter

rified inmate not to be alarmed, as she was in the hands of men of honour, and assuring her that a momentary delay would enable her friend, Lord Rochester, to come up.

"My friend!" exclaimed the lady indignantly. "If this be his contrivance, as I suspected it was, he is a villain, and a most unmanly dastard!”

"Is it possible, Madam," said Jocelyn in a whisper, "that this flight has been undertaken without your consent? that you are no party to his lordship's arrangements ?"

you

"The very supposition is an insult !” replied the lady. "If you are the man of honour profess to be, I appeal to you as a christian and a gentleman for assistance. If it be denied me, my cries and shrieks in every town through which we pass shall ultimately ensure my deliverance."

"Gentlemen," exclaimed Jocelyn, drawing his sword, and addressing the horsemen, "we

will go no further in this business: he who proceeds, does it at the peril of his life. I have been betrayed and deluded, as much as this lady has been outraged, and we must seek his lordship, that we may consider the most honourable method of restoring her to her friends."

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Certainly, certainly," cried several of the horsemen, who neither liked the threatened outcries of their prisoner, nor this apparent desertion of their employer-" we must see his lordship: we will not stand the risk of passing through Uxbridge, just as the day is breaking, and on a market-morning: besides, our horses are blown."

"Then, remain here while I return to seek our principal," said Jocelyn: "he cannot be far behind; and I am anxious that he should make some reparation to this lady, by conducting her back in person, and explaining to her friends the circumstances of her disappearance. You must all, I am sure, be as anxious as my

self, to stand acquitted of so serious an offence

as a forcible abduction.”

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All, all!" cried the fellows, who had become mightily moral as soon as they saw the enterprize was likely to be abandoned, and that they had been deserted by their employer.

"Madam," said Jocelyn, bowing to the lady, "we all pledge ourselves for your safe reconveyance to your friends. I go to seek his lordship, and will return to you with all speed."

At these words he hastened back, repeatedly calling out the name of his missing friend, but without effect. After proceeding about a mile in this manner he came to a public-house, and observing that some of the inmates were stirring, inquired whether any traveller had lately stopped there. A horseman had alighted, he was told, some little time before, who called for spiced Canary, of which he drank three halftankards in quick succession, and had then quitted the house, and struck across the fields opposite