took me under his arm, and flew with me across a narrow passage, where we met, by appointment, an ancient domestic of the Bishop's; who conveyed me to a small house, and secreted me in a dark closet, of which the entrance was not discernible. He then went forth upon his own affairs, into such streets and places as were most public; and my good waggoner found means to abscond.

'Here, while rigidly retaining the same posture, and scarcely daring to breathe any more than to move, I heard the house entered by sundry police-officers, who were pursuing me with execrations. They came into the very room in which I was concealed; and beat round the wainscot in their search; touching even the board which covered the small aperture, not door, by which I was hidden from their view! I was not, however, discovered; nor was the search, there, renewed; from the adroitness of the domestic by whom I had been saved, in having shewn himself in the public streets before I had yet been missed.

'In this close recess, nearly without air, wholly without motion, and incapable of taking any rest; but most kindly treated by the wife of the good domestic, I passed a week. All search in that neighbourhood being then over, I changed my clothing for some tattered old garments; stained my face, throat, and arms; and, in the dead of the night, quitted my place of confinement, and was conducted by my protector to a spot about half a mile from the town. There I found Ambroise[Pg 718] awaiting me, with a little cart; in which he drove me to a small mean house, in the vicinity of the sea-coast. He introduced me to the landlord and landlady as his relation, and then left me to take some repose; while he went forth to discover whether the pilot were yet sailed.

[Pg 718]

'He had delivered to me my work-bag, in which was my purse, generously stored by the Marchioness, with all the ready money that she could spare, for my journey. For herself, she held it essential to remain stationary, lest a general emigration should alienate the family-fortune from every branch of her house. Excellent lady! At the moment she thus studied the prosperity of her descendants, she lived upon roots, while deprived of all she most valued in life, the society of her only child!

'To repose the good Ambroise left me; but far from my pillow was repose! the dreadful idea of flying one who might lay claim to the honoured title of husband for pursuing me; the consciousness of being held by an engagement which I would not fulfil, yet could not deny; the uncertainty whether my revered 

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