pale as death, Lady Bassett never lost her head
for a moment. Indeed, she showed unexpected fire; she sent off coachman
and grooms to scour the country and rouse the gentry to help her; she
gave them money, and told them not to come back till they had found Sir
Charles.

Mr. Angelo said, eagerly, "I'll go to the nearest magistrate, and we
will arrest Richard Bassett on suspicion."

"God bless you, dear friend!" sobbed Lady Bassett. "Oh, yes, it is his
doing--murderer!"

Off went Mr. Angelo on his errand.

He was hardly gone when a man was seen running and shouting across the
fields. Lady Bassett went to meet him, surrounded by her humble
sympathizers. It was young Drake: he came up panting, with a
double-barreled gun in his hand (for he was allowed to shoot rabbits on
his own little farm), and stammered out, "Oh, my lady--Sir
Charles--they have carried him off against his will!"

"Who? Where? Did you see him?"

"Ay, and heerd him and all. I was ferreting rabbits by the side of the
turnpike-road yonder, and a carriage came tearing along, and Sir
Charles put out his head and cried to me,' Drake, they are kidnapping
me. Shoot!' But they pulled him back out of sight."

"Oh, my poor husband! And did you let them? Oh!"

"Couldn't catch 'em, my lady: so I did as I was bid; got to my gun as
quick as ever I could, and gave the coachman both barrels hot."

"What, kill him?"

"Lord, no; 'twas sixty yards off; but made him holler and squeak a good
un. Put thirty or forty shots into his back, I know."

"Give me your hand, Mr. Drake. I'll never forget that shot." Then she
began to cry.

"Doant ye, my lady, doant ye," said the honest fellow, and was within
an ace of blubbering for sympathy. "We ain't a lot o' babies, to see
our squire kidnaped. If you would lend Abel Moss there and me a couple
o' nags, we'll catch them yet, my lady."

"That we will," cried Abel. "You take me where you fired that shot, and
we'll follow the fresh wheel-tracks. They can't beat us while they keep
to a road."

The two men were soon mounted, and in pursuit, amid the cheers of the
now excited villagers. But still the perpetrators of the outrage had
more than an hour's start; and an hour was twelve miles.

And now Lady Bassett, who had borne up so bravely, was seized with a
deadly faintness, and supported into the house.

All this spread like wild-fire, and roused the villagers, and they must
have a hand in it. Parson had said Mr. Basset