er heart,
laughed at the warmth of his declarations. This only induced
him to become more impetuous; and at last, as a proof of his
sincerity, he proposed, as they were so far on the north
road, that they should order four horses, and set off at
once to Gretna Green. This produced additional merri-ment on
the part of the lady, which, as there was no specific
refusal, was taken for consent; and on the return of the
friend, he received a wink, which instructed him in the
course he was to pursue, and in a moment, four horses were
clapped to the travelling chariot in which they had arrived.
The lady was shortly afterwards handed to her seat, and,
accompanied as before, was whirled off with the utmost
velocity. She had gone thirty miles of the road, however,
before she believed that her lover was really serious. On
alighting at the end of the third stage, reflection came to
her aid, and she began to repent of having suffered herself
to be prevailed on to consent so far to what she still
pretended to believe was but a joke. On our hero quitting
the coom, she represented to his friend the utter
impossibility of proceeding further, and entreated that he
would take means to have her re-conducted to town. The
friend, however, who was too much interested in the success
of a plot so well commenced, endeavoured to dissuade her, by
every argument of which he was master, to go on; but she
positively refused; when, as the last resource, he
determined to work on her fears, and accordingly told her,
that Mr.---- had long spoken of her, in terms of impatient
rapture; that he was a man, unhappily, of a most passionate
temper, and that he had vowed, sooner than he would go back
to London without making her his wife, he would blow out his
brains, for which purpose he was provided with a brace of
pistols, then in his pocket, and double loaded. To this was
added the still more persuasive observation, that he was a
gentleman of family and fortune and figure, to whom no
rational objection could be taken by any woman whose heart
had not been previously engaged. The result was, that the
unfortunate woman, half consenting, half relenting, agreed
to go forward, and on they drove till they arrived full
speed at Gretna Bridge, in Yorkshire. Here a new diffic