and he likes to have a definite reason for what you do. If I were to tell him of the repugnance I have to the notion of getting married just now, he would call it mere sentiment, and try to argue me out of it - then we should have a quarrel. But if, as you say, a girl may fairly refuse in point of time 66 66 you stay here for a minute; and I'll run down to the foot of the hill, and get a match? "How can you get a match at the foot of the hill? You'll have to go on to the inn. No, tie your handkerchief round the foot of one of the trees, and come up early in the morning to look." "Early in the morning?" said Mabyn. "I hope to be in I mean asleep then." Twice she had nearly blurted out the secret; and it is highly probable that her refusal to adopt Wenna's suggestion would have led her sister to suspect something, had not Wenna herself, by accident, kicked against the missing brooch. As it was, the time lost by this misadventure Now, I'll tell you," said Mabyn, was grievous to Mabyn, who now insisted plainly; no girl can get married proper-on leading the way, and went along ly, who hasn't six months to get ready in. She might manage in three or four months, for a man she was particularly fond of; but if it is a mere strangerand a disagreeable person-and one who ought not to marry her at all then six months is the very shortest time. Just you send Mr. Roscorla to me, and I'll tell him all about it." Wenna laughed. I "Yes, I've no doubt you would. think he's more afraid of you than of all the serpents and snakes in Jamaica." "Yes, and he'll have more cause to be before he's much older," said Mabyn, confidently. They could not continue their conversation just then, for they were going down the side of the hill, between short trees and bushes; and the path was broad enough only for one, while there were many dark places demanding cau tion. "Seen any ghosts yet?" Wenna called out to Mabyn, who was behind her. "Ghosts, sir? Ay, ay, sir! Heave away on the larboard beam! I say, Wenna, isn't it uncommon dark?" "It is uncommonly dark." "Gentlemen always say uncommon; and all the grammars are written by gentlemen. Oh, Wenna, wait a bit; I've lost my brooch!" It was no ruse, for a wonder; the brooch had, indeed, dropped out of her shawl. She felt all over the dark ground for it, but her search was in vain. "Well, here's a nice thing! Upon through the bushes at a rattling pace. Here and there the belated wanderers startled a blackbird, that went shrieking its fright over to the other side of the valley; but Mabyn was now too much preoccupied to be unnerved. Keeping a lookout ahead?” Wenna called. “Ay, ay, sir! No ghosts on the weather-quarter! Ship drawing twenty fathoms; and the mate fast asleep. Oh, Wenna, my hat!" It had been twitched off her head by one of the branches of the young trees through which she was passing, and the pliant bit of wood, being released from the strain, had thrown it down into the dark bushes and briers. "Well I'm no, I'm not!" said Mabyn, as she picked out the hat from among the thorns, and straightened the twisted feather. Then she set out again, impatient over these delays; and yet determined not to let her courage sink. "Land ahead yet?" called out Wenna. 66 Ay, ay, sir; and the Lizard on our lea! Wind S.S.W., and the cargo shifting a point to the east. Hurrah!" 66 Mabyn, they'll hear you a mile off!" It was certainly Mabyn's intention that she should be heard at least a quarter of a mile off, for now they had got down to the open, and they could hear the stream some way ahead of them, which they would have to cross. At this point Mabyn paused for a second to let her sister overtake her; then they went on arm-inarm. "Oh, Wenna," she said, do you remember young Lochinvar' ?" They'll have fleet steeds that follow,' quoth young Lochinvar. That was a lover now!" "I think he was a most impertinent young man," said Wenna. "I rather like a young man to be impertinent," said Mabyn, boldly. "Then there won't be any difficulty about fitting you with a husband," said Wenna, with a light laugh. Here Mabyn once more went on ahead, picking her steps through the damp grass as she made her way down to the stream. Wenna was still in the highest of spirits. "Walking the plank yet, boatswain?" she called out. "Not yet, sir," Mabyn called in return. "Ship wearing round a point to the west, and the waves running mountains high. Don't you hear 'em, captain?" "Look out for the breakers, boatswain !" "Ay, ay, sir. All hands on deck to man the captain's gig! Belay away there! Avast! Mind, Wenna; here's the bridge!" Crossing over that single plank, in the dead of night, was a sufficiently dangerous experiment; but both these young ladies had had plenty of experience in keeping their wits about them in more perilous places. "Why are you in such a hurry, Mabyn ?" Wenna said, when they had crossed. Mabyn did not know what to answer; she was very much excited, and inclined to talk at random merely to cover her anxiety. She was now very late for the appointment, and who could tell what unfortunate misadventure Harry Trelyon might have met with? "Oh, I don't know," she said. 66 don't you admire young Lochinvar ? "Like the Lacedæmons, that were neither cold nor hot. Why don't you admire young Lochinvar?” other man's property." "That man had no right to her," said Mabyn, talking rather wildly and looking on ahead, to the point at which the path through the meadows went up to the road; "he was a wretched animal, I know; I believe he was a sugar-broker, and had just come home from Jamaica." "I believe," said Wenna, "I believe that young Lochinvar She stopped. "What's that!" she said. "What are those two lights up there?" "They're not ghosts: come along, Wenna!" said Mabyn, hurriedly. Let us go up to this road, where Harry Trelyon, tortured with anxiety and impatience, is waiting. He had slipped away from the house, pretty nearly as soon as the gentlemen had gone into the drawing-room after dinner; and on some excuse or other had got the horses put to a light and yet roomy Stanhope phaeton. From the stable-yard he drove by a back way into the main road without passing in front of the Hall; then he quietly walked the horses down the steep hill, and round the foot of the valley to the point at which Mabyn was to make her appearance. But he dared not stop there; for now and again some passer-by came along the road; and even in the darkness Mrs. Trelyon's grey horses would be recog nized by any of the inhabitants of Eglosilyan, who would naturally wonder what Master Harry was waiting for. He walked them a few hundred yards one way, then a few hundred yards the other; and ever, as it seemed to him, the danger was growing greater of some one from the inn or from the Hall suddenly appearing and spoiling the whole plan. Half past ten arrived; and nothing could be heard of the girls. Then a horrible thought struck him that Roscorla might by this time have left the Hall; and would he not be coming down to this very road on his way up to Basset Cottage? This was no idle fear; it was almost a matter of certainty. The minutes rolled themselves out into ages; he kept looking at his watch Why every few seconds; yet he could hear nothing from the wood or the valley of Mabyn's approach. Then he got down into the road, walked a few yards this way and that, apparently to stamp the nervousness out of his system, patted the horses, and, finally, occupied himself in lighting the lamps. He was driven by the delay into a sort of desperation. Even if Wenna and Mabyn did appear now, and if he was successful in his prayer, there was every chance of their being interrupted by Roscorla, who had without doubt left the Hall some time before. Suddenly he stopped in his excited walking up and down. Was that a faint "Hurrah!" that he heard in the distance. He went down to the stile at the junction of the path and the road; and listened attentively. Yes, he could hear at least one voice, as yet a long way off; but now he had no more doubt. He walked quickly back to the carriage. "Ho, ho, my hearties!" he said, stroking the heads of the horses, "you'll have a Dick Turpin's ride to-night." All the nervousness had gone from him now; he was full of a strange sort of exultation the joy of a man who feels that the crisis in his life has come, and that he has the power and courage to face it. He heard them come up through the meadow to the stile; it was Wenna who was talking; Mabyn was quite silent. They came along the road. "What is this carriage doing here?" Wenna said. They drew still nearer. "They are Mrs. Trelyon's horses and there is no driver At this moment Harry Trelyon came quickly forward and stood in the road before her; while Mabyn as quickly went on and disappeared. The girl was startled, bewildered, but not frightened; for in a second he had taken her by the hand, and then she heard him say to her, in an anxious, low, imploring voice: "Wenna, my darling, don't be alarmed! See here, I have got everything ready to take you away and Mabyn is coming with us and you know I love you so that I can't bear the notion of your falling into that man's hands. Now, Wenna, don't think about it! Come with me! We shall be married in London - Mabyn is coming with you " For one brief second or two she seemed stunned and bewildered; then, looking at the carriage, and the earnest suppliant before her, the whole truth ap peared to flash in upon her. She looked wildly round. 66 Mabyn" she was about to say, when he guessed the meaning of her rapid look. "Mabyn is here. She is quite close by - she is coming with us. My darling, won't you let me save you! This indeed is our last chance. Wenna!" She was trembling so that he thought she would fall; and he would have put his arms round her, but that she drew back, and in so doing, she got into the light, and then he saw the immeasurable pity and sadness of her eyes. 66 'Oh, my love," she said, with the tears running down her face, "I love you! I will tell you that now, when we speak for the last time. See, I will kiss you — and then you will go away "I will not go away not without you this night. Wenna, dearest, you have let your heart speak at last-now let it tell you what to do!" "Oh, must I go? Must I go?" she said; and then she looked wildly round again. "Mabyn!" called out Trelyon, half mad with joy and triumph," Mabyn, come along! Look sharp, jump in! This way, my darling!" And he took the trembling girl, and half lifted her into the carriage. "Oh, my love, what am I doing for you this night!" she said to him, with her eyes swimming in tears. But what was the matter with Mabyn? She was just putting her foot on the iron step when a rapidly approaching figure caused her to utter a cry of alarm, and she stumbled back into the road again. The very accident that Trelyon had been anticipating had occurred; here was Mr. Roscorla, bewildered at first, and then blind with rage when he saw what was happening before his eyes. In his desperation and anger he was about to lay hold of Mabyn by the arm, when he was sent staggering backwards half-a-dozen yards. "Don't interfere with me now, or by God I will kill you!" Trelyon said between his teeth; and then he hurried Mabyn into the carriage. What was the sound then that the still woods heard, under the throbbing stars, through the darkness that lay over the land? Only the sound of horses' feet, monotonous and regular, and not a word of joy or sorrow uttered by any one of the party thus hurrying on through the night. CHAPTER XXXVI. INTO CAPTIVITY. TOWARD eleven o'clock that night Mrs. Rosewarne became somewhat anxious about her girls, and asked her husband to go and meet them, or to fetch them away if they were still at Mr. Trewhella's house. "Can't they look after themselves?" said George Rosewarne. "I'll be bound Mabyn can, any way. Let her alone to come back when she pleases." he did not like being worried by excitable people. "Your daughters!" gasped Mr. Roscorla. "They've both run away - both of them—this minute - with Trelyon! You'll have to ride after them. They're straight away along the high-road." "Both of them? The infernal young fools!" said Rosewarne. "Why the devil didn't you stop them yourself?" "How could I?" Roscorla said, amazed that the father took the flight of his daughters with apparent equanimity. "You must make haste, Mr. Rosewarne, or you'll never catch them." Then his wife began to fret, and as this made him uncomfortable, he said he "I've a good mind to let 'em go," said would walk up the road and meet them. he sulkily, as he walked over to the stables He had no intention of doing so, of of the inn. "The notion of a man havcourse, but it was a good excuse for get-ing to set out on this wild-goose chase ting away from a fidgety wife. He went at this time o' night! Run away, have outside into the clear starlight, and they? and what in all the world have Jounged down to the small bridge beside they run away for?" the mill, contentedly smoking his pipe. There he encountered a farmer who was riding home a cob he had bought that day at Launceston, and the farmer and he began to have a chat about horses suggested by that circumstance. Oddly enough, their random talk came round to young Trelyon. It occurred to him, however, that the sooner he got a horse saddled and set out, the less distance he would have to go in pursuit; and that consideration quickened his movements. "What's it all about?" said he to Roscorla, who had followed him into the stable. "I suppose they mean a runaway match," said Mr. Roscorla, helping to saddle George Rosewarne's cob, a famous trotter. "Your thoroughbreds won't do for this county," George Rosewarne was saying, "to go flying a stone wall and breaking your neck. No, sir. I'll tell you what sort of hunter I should like to have for "It's that young devil's limb, Mabyn, these parts. I'd have him half-bred, short I'll be bound," said the father. "I wish in the leg, short in the pastern, short in to Heaven somebody would marry her! the back, a good sloping shoulder, broad-I don't care who. She's always up to in the chest and the forehead, long in the some confounded mischief.” belly, and just the least bit over fifteen hands- eh, Mr. Thoms? I don't think beauty's of much consequence when your neck's in question. Let him be as angular and ragged in the hips as you like, so long's his ribs are well up to the hip-bone. Have you seen that black horse that young Trelyon rides ?" "Tis a noble beast, sir - a noble beast," the farmer said; and he would probably have gone on to state what ideal animal had been constructed by his lavish imagination had not a man come running up at this moment breathless and almost speechless. "Rosewarne," stammered Mr. Roscorla, "a- a word with you! I want to "No, no, no," Roscorla said: "it's Wenna he means to marry." "Why, you were to have married Wenna?" 66 Yes, but—” "Then why didn't you? So she's run away, has she?" George Rosewarne grinned he saw how the matter lay. "This is Mabyn's work, I know," said he, as he put his foot in the stirrup and sprang into the saddle. "You'd better go home, Roscorla. Don't you say a word to anybody. You don't want the girl made a fool of all through the place." So George Rosewarne set out to bring back his daughters; not galloping, as an anxious parent might, but going ahead with a long, steady-going trot, which he knew would soon tell on Mrs. Trelyon's over-fed and under-exercised horses. "If they mean Plymouth," he was thinking, "as is most likely from their taking the high-road, he'll give it them gently at first. And so that young man wants to marry our Wenna? 'Twould be a fine match for her; and yet she's worth all the money he's got-she's worth it every farthing. I'd give him the other one cheap enough." So he rode on again, not believing, of course, in old Job's malicious fabrication, but being rendered at the same time a little uncomfortable by it. Fortunately, the cob had not been out before that day. Pounding along a dark road, with the More deep lanes, more high, open, consciousness that the farther you go the windy spaces, more silent cottages, more farther you've got to get back, and that rough stones, and always the measured the distance still to be done is an inde- fall of the cob's feet and the continued terminate quantity, is agreeable to no shining and throbbing of the stars overone, but it was especially vexatious to head. At last, far away ahead, on the George Rosewarne, who liked to take top of a high incline, he caught sight of things quietly, and could not understand a solitary point of ruddy fire, which preswhat all the fuss was about. Why should ently disappeared. That, he concluded, he be sent on this mad chase at mid- was the carriage he was pursuing going night? If anybody wanted to marry round a corner, and showing only the either of the girls, why didn't he do so one lamp as it turned into the lane. and say no more about it? Rosewarne They were not so far in front of him as had been merely impatient and annoyed he had supposed. when he set out, but the longer he rode, and the more he communed with himself, the deeper grew his sense of the personal injury that had been done him by this act of folly. But how to overtake them? So soon as they heard the sound of his horse would they dash onward at all risks, and have a race for it all through the night? In that case George Rosewarne inwardly resolved that they might go to Plymouth, or into the deep sea beyond, before he would injure his favorite cob. It was a very lonely ride indeed. There was not a human being abroad at that hour. When he passed a few cottages from time to time the windows were dark. I On the other hand, he could not bring Then they had just been putting down a lot of loose stones at several parts of the road, which caused Mr. Rosewarne to swear. "I'll bet a sovereign," said he to himself, "that old Job kept them a quarter of an hour before he opened Paddock's gate. I believe the old fool goes to bed. Well, they've waked him up for me, any way." There was some consolation in this surmise, which was well founded. When Rosewarne reached the toll-bar there was at least a light in the small house. He struck on the door with the handle of his riding-whip, and called out, "Hi, hi! Job! Come out, you old fool!" them to a standstill by threatening to shoot at his own daughters, even if he had had anything with him that would look like a pistol. Should he have to rely, then, on the moral terrors of a parent's authority? George Rosewarne was inclined to laugh when he thought of his overawing in this fashion the high spirit of his younger daughter. By slow and sure degrees he gained on the fugitives, and as he could now catch some sound of the rattling of the carriage-wheels, they must also hear his horse's footfall. Were they trying to get away from him? On the contrary, the carriage stopped altogether. That was Harry Trelyon's decision. For some time back he had been listening attentively. At length he said, "Don't you hear some one riding back there?" "Yes, I do," said Wenna, beginning to tremble. An old man with very bandy legs came hobbling out of the toll-house, and went to open the gate, talking and muttering to himself: " Ay, ay! so yü be agwoin' after the young uns, Maister Rosewarne? Ay, ay yu'll go up many a lane and by many a fuzzy 'ill, and acrass a bridge or two, afore yü come up wi' 'en, Maister "I suppose it is Mr. Roscorla coming Rosewarne." after us," the young man said coolly. "Look sharp, Job!" said Rosewarne." Now I think it would be a shame to Carriage been through here lately?" "Ay, ay, Maister Rosewarne! 'tis a good half-hour agone." "A half-hour, you idiot!" said Rosewarne, now in a thoroughly bad temper. "You've been asleep and dreaming. Here, take your confounded money!" drag the old gentleman half-way down to Plymouth. He must have had a good spell already. Shall I stop and persuade him to go back home to bed?" "Oh no," said Mabyn, who was all for getting on at any risk. “Oh no,” Wenna said, fearing the re |