The stranger was already several paces distant; through the darkness, and in the midst of the rain, he fled on with the speed of youth. The girl lingered an instant, sighed, then laughed aloud; closed and re-barred the door, and was creeping back, when from the inner entrance advanced the grim father, and another man, of broad, short, sinewy frame, his arms bare, and wielding a large hammer.
“How?” asked the host; “Alice here, and—hell and the devil! have you let him go?”
“I told you that you should not harm him.”
With a violent oath the ruffian struck his daughter to the ground, sprang over her body, unbarred the door, and, accompanied by his comrade, set off in vague pursuit of his intended victim.
CHAPTER III.
“You knew—none so well, of my daughter’s flight.”
Merchant of Venice, Act iii. Sc. 1.
THE day dawned; it was a mild, damp, hazy morning; the sod sank deep beneath the foot, the roads were heavy with mire, and the rain of the past night lay here and there in broad shallow pools. Towards the town, waggons, carts, pedestrian groups were already moving; and, now and then, you caught the sharp horn of some early coach, wheeling its be-cloaked outside and be-nightcapped inside passengers along the northern thoroughfare.
A young man bounded over a stile into the road just opposite to the milestone, that declared him to be one mile from ———.
“Thank Heaven!” he said, almost aloud. “After spending the night wandering about morasses like a will-o’-the-wisp, I approach a town at last. Thank Heaven again, and for all its mercies this night! I breathe freely. I AM SAFE.”