fresh testimony of his attachment, she observed the corner of a piece of paper, which had been thrust into a fissure occasioned by the shrinking of the wood. Her curiosity was excited by this circumstance; and, unfolding the paper, she found it to contain

66 MADM,

TO MISS SINDLE.

"I writ this from a sincear regaird to yur welfer. Sir Tho. Sindle has a helitch plott against yur vartue, and has imployde Mrs Buthbie, whu is a wooman of a notoreus karicter in Londun, to asist him. They wil putt yu on a jant tomoro on pretens of seeing Mss Venhrst, butt it is fals: for she is not to be thair, and they only wants to inveegle yu for a wicket purpes. therefor bi advyzd by a frinde, and du not go. "Yur secrt welwishar, "R. S."

Amazement and horror filled the mind of Lucy as she read this; but, when the first perturbation of her soul was over, she bethought herself of endeavouring to find out her friend in the author of this epistle, whose compassion seemed so much interested in her behalf. She remembered, that one of the servants, who was sometimes employed to ride out with her, was called Robert, which agreed with the first initial of the subscription of the note she had received. At supper, therefore, though she wore a look of as much indifference as possible, she marked, with a secret attention, the appearance of this man's countenance. Her belief of his being the person, who had communicated this friendly intelligence, was increased from her observation; and she determined to watch an opportunity of questioning him with regard to it.

CHAP. XVI.

Miss Sindall has an Interview with Robert.-A resolution she takes in consequence of it.

AFTER a night of wakeful anxiety, she was called in the morning by Mrs Boothby, who told her, that breakfast waited, as it was near the hour they proposed setting out on their jaunt. "Miss Venhurst," continued she, "has sent to let you know, that she is prevented from calling here as she promised, but that she will meet us on the road."—" I am sorry," answered Lucy, with a counterfeited coolness," that I should be forced to disappoint her in my turn; but I rested so ill last night, and my head aches so violently, that I cannot possibly attend her."-" Not go!" exclaimed Mrs Boothby; "why, my dear, you will disjoint the whole party; besides, I have not time to acquaint the

"It

Venhurst family, and it will look so odd.”would look odder," said Lucy," if I should go abroad when I am really so very much indisposed."-" Nay, if you are really so much indisposed," answered the other, "I will send our apology, late as it is."-" But you shall not stay at home to attend me," interrupted Lucy.

"Indeed but I shall," replied Mrs Boothby; "it was on your account only that I proposed going. Keep your chamber, and I will send you up some tea immediately."-And she left the room for that purpose.

Her attention indeed was but too vigilant for the scheme which Lucy had formed, of examining Robert about that note she had found in her bureau; but accident at last furnished her with the opportunity she sought. Mrs Boothby having left her, in order to preside at dinner, sent this very servant with a plate of something to her patient above stairs. He would have delivered it to one of the maids at the door; but Lucy, hearing his voice, desired that he might come in, on pretence of talking to him about a young horse she had employed him to ride for her, and, sending the maid on some errand, put the paper into his hand, and asked him if he was the person to whom she was indebted for a piece of information so momentous. The fellow blushed, and stammered, and seemed afraid to confess his kindness. "For God's sake," said Lucy," do not trifle with my mi sery; there is no time to lose in evasions; what do you know of Sir Thomas's designs against me?"-" Why, for certain, madam," said he,

servants should not blab their masters' secrets; but your ladyship is so sweet a lady, that I could not bear to see you so deceived. Sir Thomas's valet-de-chamb is a chum of mine, and he told me, after having made me promise to keep it a profound secret, that his master designed to entice you on a party with Mrs Boothby; that they were to stop at a solitary farm-house of his, and there Sir Thomas""Forbear the shocking recital!" cried Lucy."To be sure it is shocking," said Robert, "and so I said to Jem, when he told me; but he answered, (your ladyship will forgive me for repeating his words,) that it mattered not much; for she is nothing better, said he, than a beggarly foundling, whom my master and I picked up, one stormy night, on the road, near his hunting-place there at Hazleden; and, having taken a liking to the child, he brought her home to Mrs Selwyn, pretending that she was the daughter of a gentleman of his own name, a friend of his, who died abroad; and his aunt, believing the story, brought her up for all the world like a lady, and left her forsooth a legacy at her death; but, if all were as it should be, she would be following some draggle-tailed gypsey, instead of flaunting in her fineries here."

"Would that I were begging my bread, ca

I were but out of this frightful house!"-"I wish you were," said Robert, simply; "for I fear there are moré plots hatching against you than you are aware of: is not Mrs Boothby's Sukey to sleep to-night in the room with your ladyship?"" I consented, on Mrs Boothby's importunity, that she should."-"Why then," continued he, "I saw Jem carry a cast gown of Mrs Boothby's, she had formerly given to Sukey, but which she asked back from the girl on pretence of taking a pattern from it, into his master's dressing-room; and when I asked him what he was doing with it there, he winked thus, and said, it was for somebody to masquerade in to-night."-" Gracious God!" cried Lucy, "whither shall I turn me?-Robert, if ever thou would'st find grace with Heaven, pity a wretch that knows not where to look for protection!"-She had thrown herself on her knees before him." What can I do for your ladyship?" said he, raising her from the ground. "Take me from this dreadful place," she exclaimed, holding by the sleeve of his coat, as if she feared his leaving her." Alas!" answered Robert, "I cannot take you from it."-She stood for some moments wrapt in thought, the fellow looking piteously in her face." It will do!" she cried, breaking from him, and running into her dressing-closet.-"Look, Robert, look here; could I not get from this window on the garden-wall, and so leap down into the outer court?" "But supposing your ladyship might, what would you do then?"-"Could not you procure me a horse ?-Stay-there is one of the chaise-horses at grass in the paddock-do you know the road to Mrs Wistanly's?"-" Mrs Wistanly's!"-" For heaven's sake, refuse not my request; you cannot be so cruel as to refuse it." I would do much to serve your ladyship; but if they should discover us- "Talk not of ifs, my dear Robert ;—but soft-I will manage it thus-no, that can't be either-the servants are in bed by eleven."-" Before it, an't please your ladyship."- " If you could contrive to have that horse saddled at the gate so soon as all is quiet within, I can get out and meet you."-" I don't know what to say to it." -Somebody from below cried, Robert-Lucy was down on her knees again." Stay, I conjure you, and answer me. "For God's sake rise," said he, " and do not debase yourself to a poor servant, as I am."-" Never will I rise till you promise to meet me at eleven."—" I will, I will (and the tears gushed into his eyes,) whatever be the consequence." Sukey appear ed at the door, calling, Robert, again ;-he ran down stairs; Lucy followed him some steps insensibly, with her hands folded together in the attitude of supplication.

In the interval between this and the time of putting her scheme in execution, she suffered all that fear and suspense could inflict. She wished to see again the intended companion of

her escape; but the consciousness of her pur pose stopped her tongue when she would have uttered some pretence for talking with him. At times her resolution was staggered by the thoughts of the perils attending her flight; but her imagination presently suggested the danger of her stay, and the dread of the greater evil became a fortitude against the less.

The hour of eleven at last arrived. Mrs Boothby, whose attendance was afterwards to be supplied by that of her maid, had just bid her good-night, on her pretending an unusual drowsiness, and promised to send up Sukey in a very little after. Lucy went into her dressing-closet, and, fastening the door, got up on a chair at the window, which she had taken care to leave open some time before, and stepped out on the wall of the garden, which was broad enough a-top to admit of her walking along it. When she got as far as the gate, she saw, by the light of the moon, Robert standing at the place of appointment: he caught her in his arms when she leaped down. "Why do you tremble so?" said she, her own lips quivering as she spoke. "Is the horse ready?"-" Here," answered Robert, stammering, "but- ""Get on," said Lucy," and let us away, for heaven's sake!"-He seemed scarce able to mount the horse; she sprung from the ground on the pad behind him. "Does your ladyship think," said Robert, faintly, as they left the gate, "of the danger you run?"-" There is no danger but within those hated walls."-" "Twill be a dreadful night;" for it began to rain, and the thunder rolled at a distance. "Fear not," said she, "we cannot miss our way."-" But if they should overtake us- They shall not, they shall not overtake us!"-Robert answered with a deep sigh.-But they were now at some distance from the house, and striking out of the highway into a lane, from the end of which a short road lay over a common to the village in which Mrs Wistanly lived, they put on a very quick pace, and in a short time Lucy imagined herself pretty safe from pursuit.

93.66

CHAP. XVII.

Bolton sets out for Bilswood.~A recital of some accidents in his journey.

As I flatter myself that my readers feel some interest in the fate of Miss Sindall, I would not leave that part of my narration which regarded her, till I had brought it to the period of her escape. Having accompanied her thus far, I return to give some account of Mr Bolton.

According to the promise he had made to Lucy, he set out for Bilswood, on the second day after the date of that letter she received from him by the hands of his gardener. That

mercy of his prince, that judgment was mitigated into a term of transportation, some time ago elapsed. This punishment I incurred from the commission of a robbery, to which some particular circumstances, joined to the poverty consequent on dissipation and extravagance, had tempted me.

"The master to whom my service was adjudged in the West Indies, happened to die soon after my arrival there. I got my freedom, therefore, though it was but to change it for a service as severe as my former: I was enlisted in a regiment then stationed in the island, and, being considered as a felon, unworthy of any mild treatment, was constantly exposed to every hardship which the strictest duty, or the most continual exposure to the dangers of the climate, could inflict. Had I revealed my story, and taken advantage of that distinction which my birth and education would have made between the other convicts and me, it is probable I might have prevented most of the evils both my former and present situation; but I set out, from the first, with a fixed determination, of suffering every part of my punishment, which the law allots to the meanest and most un

of

friended. All the severities, therefore, which were now imposed upon me, I bore without repining; and, from an excellent natural constitution, was not only able to overcome them, but they served to render me still more patient of fatigue, and less susceptible of impression from the vicissitudes of the weather; and from a sullen disregard of life, with which the remembrance of better days inspired me, my soul became as fearless as my body robust. These qualities made me be taken notice of by some of the officers in the regiment, and afterwards, when it was ordered to America, and went on some Indian expeditions, were still more serviceable, and more attractive of observation. By these means I began to obliterate the disgrace which my situation at enlisting had fixed upon me; and, if still regarded as a ruffian, I was at least acknowledged to be a useful one. Not long after, on occasion of a piece of service I performed for an officer on an advanced guard, that was attacked by a party of hostile Indians, I was promoted to a halberd. The stigma, how ever, of my transportation was not yet entirely forgotten, and by some it was the better remembered, because of my present advancement. One of those, with whom I had never been on good terms, was particularly offended at being commanded, as he termed it, by a jail-bird; and one day, when I was on guard, had drawn on the back of my coat, the picture of a gallows, on which was hung a figure in caricature, with the initials of my name written over it. This was an affront too gross to be tamely put up with; having sought out the man, who did not deny the charge, I challenged him to give me sa

tisfaction by fighting me. But this, from the opinion conceived of my strength and ferocity, he did not chuse to accept ; on which I gave him so severe a drubbing, that he was unable to mount guard in his turn, and the surgeon reported that his life was in danger. For this offence I was tried by a court-martial, and sentenced to receive five hundred lashes as a punishment. When their sentence was communicated to me, I petitioned that it might be changed into death; but my request was refused. That very day, therefore, I received one hundred lashes, (for the sentence was to be executed at different periods,) and next morning was to suffer as many more. The remainder, however, I resolved, if possible, to escape by an act of suicide. This I was only prevented from putting in execution by the want of opportunity; as I had been stripped of every the smallest weapon of offence, and was bound with ropes to one of the posts of my bed. I contrived, nevertheless, about midnight, to reach the fire-place with my feet, and having drawn out thence a live ember, disposed it immediately under the most combustible part of the bed. It had very soon the effect I desired; the room was set on fire, and I regained my liberty, by the ropes, with which I was tied, being burnt. At that moment the desire of life was rekindled by the possibility of escaping; the flames bursting out fiercely at one side of the house where I lay, the attention of the soldiers, whom the fire had awaked, was principally turned to that quarter, and I had an opportunity of stealing off unperceived at the opposite side. We were then in a sort of wooden huts which had been built for our accommodation on the outside of one of our frontier forts; so that, when I had run two or three hundred yards, I found myself in the shelter of a wood, pretty secure from pursuit ; but, as there it was impossible for me long to subsist, and I had no chance of escaping detection if I ventured to approach the habitations of any of my countrymen, I had formed the resolution of endeavouring to join the Indians, whose scouting parties I had frequently seen at a small distance from our out-posts. I held therefore in a direction which I judged the most probable for falling in with them, and a very little after day-break discovered a party, seated after the manner of their country, in a ring, with the ashes of their newlyextinguished fire in the middle. I advanced slowly to the place, which I had almost reached before I was perceived. When they discovered me, they leaped up on their feet, and, seizing their arms, screamed out the war-whoop, to alarm the different small parties who had passed the night in resting-places near them. One of them, presenting his piece, took aim at me; but I fell on my knees, shewed them my defenceless state, and held out my hands, as if imploring their mercy and protection. Upon this, one of the

oldest among them made a sign to the rest, and advancing towards me, asked me in broken French, mixed with his own language, of which too I understood something, what was my intention, and whence I came? I answered as distinctly as I could to these interrogatories; and shewing the sores on my back, which I gave him to understand had been inflicted at the fort, made protestations, both by imperfect language and significant gestures, of my friendship to his countrymen, and hatred to my own. After holding a moment's conversation with the rest, he took my hand, and, leading me a little forward, placed me in the midst of the party. Some of them examined me attentively, and, upon some farther discourse together, brought the baggage, with which two prisoners, lately made from some adverse tribe, had been loaded, and laid it upon me. This burden, which to any man would have been oppressively heavy, you may believe, was much more intolerable to me, whose flesh was yet raw from the lashes I had received; but as I knew that fortitude was an indispensable virtue with the Indians, I bore it without wincing, and we proceeded on the route which the party I had joined were destined to pursue. During the course of our first day's march, they often looked stedfastly in my face, to discover if I shewed any signs of uneasiness. When they saw that I did not, they lightened my load by degrees, and at last, the senior chief, who had first taken notice of me, freed me from it altogether, and, at the same time, chewing some herbs he found in the wood, applied them to my sores, which in a few days were almost entirely healed. I was then entrusted with a tomahawk, and shortly after with a gun, to the dexterous use of both which weapons I was frequently exercised by the young men of our party, during the remainder of our expedition. It lasted some months, in which time I had also become tolerably acquainted with their language. At the end of this excursion, in which they warred on some other Indian nations, they returned to their own country, and were received with all the barbarous demonstrations of joy peculiar to that people. In a day or two after their arrival, their prisoners were brought forth into a large plain, where the kindred of those who had been slain by the nations to which the captives belonged, assembled to see them. Each singled out his expiatory prisoner, and, having taken him home to his hut, such as chose that kind of satisfaction adopted them in place of the relations they had lost; with the rest they returned to their former place of meeting, and began to celebrate the festival of their revenge. You can hardly conceive a species of inventive cruelty, which they did not inflict on the wretches whom fortune had thus put into their power; during the course of which, not a groan escaped from the sufferers; but while the use of their voices re

mained, they sung in their rude, yet forcible manner, the glory of their former victories, and the pleasure they had received from the death of their foes; concluding always with the hopes of revenge from the surviving warriors of their nation. Nor was it only for the pleasure of the reflection that they caroled thus the triumphs of the past; for I could observe, that, when at any time the rage of their tormentors seemed to subside, they poured forth those boastful strains in order to rekindle their fury, that intenseness of pain might not be wanting in the trial of their fortitude. I perceived the old man whom I have before mentioned, keep his eye fixed upon me during the solemnity; and frequently, when an extreme degree of torture was borne with that calmness which I have described, he would point, with an expressive look, to him on whom it was inflicted, as if he had desired me to take particular notice of his resolution. I did not then fully comprehend the meaning of this; but I afterwards understood it to have been a preparatory hint of what I myself was to endure; for the next morning, after the last surviving prisoner had expired, I was seized by three or four Indians, who stripped me of what little clothes I had then left, tied me in a horizontal posture between the branches of two large trees they had fixed in the ground, and, after the whole tribe had danced round me to the music of a barbarous howl, they began to re-act upon me nearly the same scene they had been engaged in the day before. After each of a certain select number had stuck his knife into my body, though they carefully avoided any mortal wound, they rubbed it over, bleeding as it was, with gun-powder, the salts of which gave me the most exquisite pain. Nor did the ingenuity of these practised tormentors stop here; they afterwards laid quantities of dry gun-powder on different parts of my body, and set fire to them, by which I was burnt in some places to the bone.-But I see you shudder at the horrid recital; suffice it then to say, that these, and some other such experiments of wanton cruelty, I bore with that patience, with which nothing but a life of hardship, and a certain obduracy of spirit, proceeding from a contempt of existence, could have endowed me.

"After this trial was over, I was loosed from my bonds, and set in the midst of a circle, who shouted the cry of victory; and my aged friend brought me a bowl of water, mixed with some spirits, to drink. He took me then home to his hut, and laid applications of different simples to my mangled body. When I was so well recovered as to be able to walk abroad, he called together certain elders of his tribe, and acknowledging me for his son, gave me a name, and fastened round my neck a belt of wampum. 'It is thus,' said he, that the valiant are tried, and thus are they rewarded; for how shouldst