CHAP. III.

I was very fortunate, as regarded pecuniary matters, on my arrival in Carlisle. One of my old and most intimate school-fellows had been settled there in a respectable way for several years. He at once procured a situation for me. Happily he had not heard of either of the love mishaps I have detailed. On entering my situation I determined to apply myself so closely to business as to keep out of harm's way; in other words, exclude me from all communi cation with young ladies. I had come to this determination from a conviction, induced by past events, that Fate had appointed I should never succeed in any matrimonial attempt. I knew, moreover, as hinted in the outset, that the love of the fair was a component part of my moral constitution, and that to be in a beautiful nymph's company was not only perilous in the extreme, but what is called certain danger. However, though fully aware of all this-no Christian could have been more so-one cannot walk the streets and high-ways with one's eyes shut. I lived a little distance out of town; and, in returning in the evening from the day's duties, had to pass some beautiful gardens. Sooth to say, I used very much to delight in dressing gardens with my own hand; and, if the reports of friends may be credited, displayed much more than the average taste that way. One of the dens I had to pass in returning home of an evening, seemed to me the very beau ideal of good taste in the science of "laying out." I generally stood eight or ten minutes every evening looking over its wall-which fortunately was of no inconvenient altitude-admiring its beautiful contents. One evening as I popped my head over the garden wall, I saw a new flower-an exquisitely beautiful young lady, one of whom Milton would have written-" Herself the fairest flower." A deep blush tinged her supremely beautiful cheeks while her lustrous eyes met mine. I felt a momentary entrancement—I was glued to the spot on which I stood; but a recollection of Louisa, and the adventures connected with her, flashing across my mind, I succeeded, after a desperate struggle between prudence and love, in getting my legs to perform their duty in removing me home.

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As will be readily credited, this charming damsel (name at this time unknown) had a liberal share of my thoughts that night. I weighed in my own mind whether, in the event of ascertaining that in addition to her personal attractions, she united respectability of character and station in society, I ought not after all to make an attempt on her heart, as she had already, without any seeming effort, conquered mine. The hearing of arguments pro and con robbed me of two or three hour's sleep. The opinion of Sir John Falstaff, that there is divinity in odd numbers, occurred to me, and I believe would have made me decide on seeking an interview had not the awkward issue of Jack's third visit to Mrs. Ford shot athwart my mind, followed by a painful remembrance of what had happened to myself in my two previous adventures. All this, it is right to add, was succeeded by a recurrence of the afore mentioned conviction that Fate had ordained I was never to be married. The interlocutor of my

judgment therefore was, that I would suffer unknown to, and unpitied by, the world, a universe of ardent unrevealed love, rather than run the hazard of making myself anew a laughing-stock to the public, and the butt of my acquaintances.

This then was a settled point. And so strictly had I resolved to act up to the letter of my resolution, that rather than be in temptation's way, I would submit to the ineffably great sacrifice of passing by the beautiful garden without casting a glance at it, lest that glance should encounter the exquisitely handsome form of the living flower I had before seen in it. For three days, evenings rather, I religiously adhered to my determination: she might each time I passed have been again eclipsing, by her presence, all the other beauties in the garden; but I saw her not. On the third day after, when returning home, I learned by the merest accident the young lady's name, who were her connections, and what were her character and sta. tion in society. On the fourth, while I was as usual passing by the garden on my way home, I observed her-Lavinia was her namewalking slowly, not in the garden, but on the road outside, as if coming directly up to me. She seemed contemplative: there was a touching pensiveness in her look; there was a book in her hand. We met, and were in the act of passing each other, when Lavinia, as if suddenly seized with sickness, quivered a little, and was in the act of falling. I caught hold of her before she swooned altogether: the book she held in her hand did fall.

"Pray, madam, are you indisposed?" enquired I, with much tenderness and concern.

"A little, sir," she softly answered, at the same time glancing a look at me which it is impossible to characterise, but which I must have been steel-hearted, indeed, not to have felt.

I lifted the book from the ground. I looked at it: it was a novel. The passage she had evidently been reading was indicated by the leaf being folded down. That passage told-told eloquently though briefly, of the loves of a young lady and gentleman; how they eloped together, got married at Gretna Green, and lived a long life of the utmost possible happiness. I could not-who could?-be blockhead enough to misunderstand this. I could not in any circumstances, far less in the circumstances of that moment, resist it.

"My dearest girl,” said I, “will you meet me to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, at the S- ???

"I will, with all my heart," was the brief answer she returned; and that answer was accompanied by a look more expressive a thousand fold than a whole world of books could have been, had such been written to describe the young lady's feelings.

We parted that evening. We met next morning at the appointed time and place. We set off in a coach and four for Gretna Green. Jehu was well paid: he did his duty admirably. We halted no longer than was necessary to change horses, until we reached a small town within ten miles of the destined place. On our way Lavinia disclosed to me how she had been struck by my appearance the very first time she had seen me looking over her father's garden wall; but a sense of the delicacy and reservedness becoming her sex prevented

her from revealing her affection for me, until the evening I met her on the road, when she found that keeping it any longer concealed in her breast was likely to endanger her life.

On reaching the small town just mentioned, Lavinia complained, and no wonder, of exhaustion, in consequence of the fatigues of that day, as well as of a sleepless previous night spent in concerting measures for making the elopement successful. She begged a little time might be allowed her to recruit her strength. I ordered a snatch of supper. We both ate heartily, having been well appetised by the length of the journey.

We had been in the inn about half an hour when Lavinia-addressing me of course-said, "My dear, I think we may go now." These words were delivered in a tone; they were accompanied by a look of affection, which I valued at the time as infinitely above all the riches of either Ind.

"Well, then, my darling, we shall set out instantly," was my reply.

I rang the bell violently. In about twenty seconds, in rushed a stout well-made man. "Waiter!" said I, in a tone which indicated that I thought myself a personage of some consequence; "Waiter! bring me the bill. Order the horses and carriage to be got ready this moment; and be sure, too, you don't—

A shriek from Lavinia interrupted me. She swooned away in the easy chair on which she sat at the time. I of course forgot the waiter and every earthly thing else, in the plenitude of my concern for Lavinia.

“Lavinia! Lavinia! my dear! my angel! what can be the matter?"

While in the act of addressing her in these terms of affectionate concern, and simultaneously grasping her snow-white hand, I felt some powerful fist take hold of and drag me back by the neck of my

coat.

"What insolence, sir!" exclaimed I, thinking it was the waiter who thus intruded on us. So saying I turned about my face towards the vulgar ill-bred lacquey of the public, when, to my utter astonishment, I beheld three fellows beside me.

"Come," said the intruder who first entered the room, and whom I took to be John, "come, let us carry her out!"

"The man who presumes to lay a hand on her will be as dead as a herring that instant," said I indignantly.

"Never mind the empty threats of the blockhead," said the fellow who had spoken already.

He had no sooner uttered the words than the vile paws of the villanous trio seized hold of Lavinia. I felt a kind of madness coming over my soul. I know I resisted with all my might; but what else occurred I cannot tell.

Next morning I awoke as from a dream. I looked around in utter amazement. I fancied myself in a new world. While thus bewildered, while like a person out of his senses, Boots entered my bed

room. I enquired where I was, and was answered, "The Duke of York Hotel, in the town of D——.”

"The same," I ejaculated with myself," the same as that in which Lavinia and I supped last night."

"And where," I asked, with an emphasis of which print can give no idea, "where is Lavinia ?"

"Lavinia," exclaimed Boots, evidently ignorant of who I meant. "The young lady I brought here with me last night," said I hurriedly.

"Adz, Sur, she was carried off by the three gentlemons who coomed in such haste in a carriage," said Boots, with an archness of look which denoted that Nature had intended the young rascal for the stage.

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The three gentlemen!" A recollection of the triumvirate of scoundrels who so abruptly and unceremoniously thrust their hated presence on us the previous night, darted across my mind. But what they were, whither they had come, where they were gone, what they had done with Lavinia, whether they had "Burked" her, or compelled her to marry one of their ruffian selves, were all matters as to which I was in a state of as total ignorance as the child unborn; nor could any person in the inn furnish me with information on the subject.

Boots withdrew. I rose, huddled on part of my clothes, and prepared for shaving. Has the reader a good imagination? If he have, let him conceive as he best can of my horror, mingled with astonishment, when, on looking in the glass, I saw my frontispiece so shockingly mangled and furrowed with deep scratches that there was scarcely a square inch of whole skin on it.

"In the name of wonder, what can be the meaning of this? How have I come by such a face?" were questions I asked myself. They were unanswerable by me. The matter was involved in as much mystery as the identity of the trio of scamps who wrested Lavinia from my arms.

What was to be done respecting my inamorato? what with my face? were two queries which now occupied my thoughts. A little sober reflection advised me that time alone could remedy the latter evil. As for my Dulcinea, I had at intervals a faint hope that she might possibly make her escape from the ragamuffins who had abstracted her, in which case I had no doubt of her return. But this delusion, indifferently pleasing as it only was at best, was of short continuance. The horrible hypothesis would every now and then suggest itself, that one of the three, most probably the first who entered the room, was some unknown rival; in which case there was no room for even the slightest hope.

However, as the state of my phiz disqualified me from being seen in public, I thought it the most advisable course to stay that day in the inn, to see what would turn up in the chapter of accidents.

The day passed; but not a syllable about Lavinia. Dante speaks of the ineffable miseries of those who have entered a certain place, on whose portals are written the words, "All hope abandon, ye who enter here." Their misery! It must be happiness compared with M.M.-No. 1.

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my then situation. I went to bed as night approached. How I spent the night I will not say-for this good reason, I cannot. Morning came. I arose. While pacing to and fro in my apartment, half apparelled and wholly unshaved, resembling more, in my conduct, a bedlamite than a rational person, Boots, who seemed to be an animal newly imported from some uncultivated district of the country, entered. "Sur," said he, "would ou like a read of our Paper, just prunted?" at the same time holding towards me a damp unopened broad sheet.

"Lay it down there," said I, unconcernedly, "lay it down there; I'll possibly look at it."

I took up and opened the broad sheet. I found it was the county Paper, newly issued from the press. I carelessly glanced over the inside surface. The head, "Elopement Extraordinary, being in large caps, was the first thing that attracted my attention. I read as follows:

The

"On Wednesday" (the Paper was dated Friday), " On Wednesday, an elopement extraordinary took place from Carlisle. The young lady had only returned the other day from a fashionable boarding-school, where she had been Frenched, danced, taught music, the use of the globes, and, in fine, every thing that is deemed necessary to make a perfectly educated female. Of late she had been wondrously given to the reading of novels. The gay Lothario was one of the most sheepish-looking bipeds under the sun. folks in the neighbourhood very emphatically characterised him as the chap as used to be seen popping a long nose over the garden wall, at the good people's daurter.' The fugitives took the high road to Gretna, of which place they were within one short stage when the young lady's brother, accompanied by two police officers, overtook the matrimony-aspiring couple, at the head inn. When the brother and assistants entered, they found the loving Miss and her clumsy-looking swain sitting quite comfortably at a table, on which, in beautiful confusion, were displayed the fragments of an excellent supper. When the young lady recognised her brother, she enunciated a very unique sort of shriek, and swooned away with a wonderfully good grace, in the easy chair she occupied at the time. Her clownish Lothario, who evidently mistook Miss' brother, when he entered, for the waiter, gallantly flew to the assistance of his Dulcinea; and on the intruding parties taking the fainted beauty by her taper waist, as if to carry her lovely person away, he swore that the first man who dared to touch her (they had touched her already, though) should in a moment, be stretched at full length on the floor. As if determined to suit the action to the word, the love-sick swain,in the phrenzy of the moment, seizing hold of a huge tom cat that was lying purring on an easy chair, and evidently unconscious of the nature of his weapon, brandished the animal about his own head, previous to inflicting a supposed mortal blow on that of his adversary. At this moment his inamorato's brother presented a pistol to the booby-lover's breast, exclaiming, Villain! presume to offer further resistance, and I'll blow your brains out! The poor unfortunate wight stood stupified, resembling a man whose wits had all of a sudden taken to