to draw off his own party, and to distress the cavalry.
From the point at which they had just been skirmishing, a long range of
rocky and sylvan scenery commenced which traversed the park for miles;
and upon this Captain Nicholas now began to wheel in tolerably good
order, showing at times a bold front to his enemy. This movement drew
them away from the castle: but the character of the retreat continued
to be apparent for some time. At intervals the two parties were
entangled in rocks and bushy coverts. On ground of this character, the
dragoons were much distressed by their horses falling, and were thus
checked and crippled in their movements; whilst the sure-footed
mountaineers of the smugglers advanced with freedom. Suddenly the whole
body, pursuers and pursued, would be swallowed up by a gloomy grove of
pines; suddenly again all emerged with gleaming arms upon little island
spots of lawny areas, where the moonlight fell bright and free.
Whenever a favourable interspace of this character occurred, the
dragoons endeavoured to form and use the advantage it presented for
effecting a charge. But the address of Edward Nicholas, who was an
excellent cavalry officer, and far more experienced in this kind of
guerrilla warfare than his antagonist,--together with the short
intervals during which the ground continued favourable for charges, and
his minute knowledge of its local details,--uniformly defeated the
efforts of the dragoons, and protected the retreat of his own party
until they were gradually lost in the distance and the shades of those
great sylvan recesses, which ran up far into the hilly tract upon which
their movement had been continually directed.

Late in the evening the dragoons returned to the castle: they had
suffered a good deal on the difficult ground to which they had allowed
themselves to be attracted by Captain Nicholas; fifteen being reported
as wounded severely, and several horses shot. They had however defeated
the object of Captain Nicholas, which was (agreeably to the secret
information) to possess himself of the horses in the depot; with what
ultimate view, they were still left to conjecture.

That this was simply some final effort of desperation, it was easy to
judge from what followed. A little before midnight on this same evening
Captain Nicholas appeared at the castle-gate, and surrendered himself
prisoner to the soldiers on guard; at the same time desiring one of
them to carry a note to Sir Mo