their hats as they came on, and crying (as the fancy struck them)
"Tally-ho!" "Stop, thief!" "A highwayman! A highwayman!" It was other
guesswork with Bellamy. That gentleman no sooner observed our change of
direction than he turned his horse with so much violence that the poor
animal was almost cast upon its side, and launched her in immediate and
desperate pursuit. As he approached I saw that his face was deadly white
and that he carried a drawn pistol in his hand. I turned at once to the
poor little bride that was to have been, and now was not to be; she,
upon her side, deserting the other window, turned as if to meet me.

"O, O, don't let him kill me!" she screamed.

"Never fear," I replied.

Her face was distorted with terror. Her hands took hold upon me with
the instinctive clutch of an infant. The chaise gave a flying lurch,
which took the feet from under me and tumbled us anyhow upon the seat.
And almost in the same moment the head of Bellamy appeared in the window
which Missy had left free for him.

Conceive the situation! The little lady and I were falling--or had just
fallen--backward on the seat, and offered to the eye a somewhat
ambiguous picture. The chaise was speeding at a furious pace, and with
the most violent leaps and lurches, along the highway. Into this
bounding receptacle Bellamy interjected his head, his pistol arm, and
his pistol; and since his own horse was travelling still faster than the
chaise, he must withdraw all of them again in the inside of a fraction
of a minute. He did so, but he left the charge of the pistol behind
him--whether by design or accident I shall never know, and I dare say he
has forgotten! Probably he had only meant to threaten, in hopes of
causing us to arrest our flight. In the same moment came the explosion
and a pitiful cry from Missy; and my gentleman, making certain he had
struck her, went down the road pursued by the furies, turned at the
first corner, took a flying leap over the thorn hedge, and disappeared
across country in the least possible time.

Rowley was ready and eager to pursue; but I withheld him, thinking we
were excellently quit of Mr. Bellamy, at no more cost than a scratch on
the forearm and a bullet-hole in the left-hand claret-coloured panel.
And accordingly, but now at a more decent pace, we proceeded on our way
to Archdeacon Clitheroe's. Missy's gratitude and admiration were aroused
to a high pitch by this dramatic scene, and what she was pl