“Does Miss Aylesford ride on horseback as she did before she went abroad?” said Arrison.
“Yes! This militia Major has been riding with her every morning.”
“But don’t she ever ride alone?”
“Sometimes, I suppose. He can’t be for ever dangling after her. At any rate, now that I’ve come back, I’ll take good care that he don’t.” And he finished with an oath.
“Then, without having yourself suspected, get her to ride unattended to-morrow or next day. Yon must also find out which way she is going. I will be on the lookout, with three or four trusty fellows of my gang, and on a sudden, we will rush out and make her our prisoner. You needn’t start and look in that fashion,” said Arrison, with a laugh at his hearer’s glance of alarm, “we’ll not hurt a hair of her head. We shan’t even gag her, as we would anybody else, for the road will be a lonely one most likely, and there’ll be no occasion for rough usage.”
“What next?” said Aylesford, seeing that Arrison paused. And he proceeded contemptuously— “I can’t see any such pretty scheme in this project of kidnapping.”
“Then you haven’t the sense I give you credit for,” answered Arrison. “Don’t you see? I and my followers are to seize her, and you are to rescue her. That’ll be an ace to play on this Major Gordon’s king, and a trump card at that.”
Aylesford’s countenance brightened, the look of suspicion disappearing totally.
“I am dull,” he said. “This infernal affair has driven me half mad, I believe, and benumbed my senses.”
“Of course,” answered Arrison, “it won’t do to rescue her right away. For then, you know, you’d have no good excuse for carrying her within the royal lines, a step which must be taken if you wish to get her to New York. Though, for my part,” added the outlaw, “I don’t see why you should trouble yourself to make so long a journey. Now, in the old country, and especially in the parts where I lived when a boy, it was a common practice, when a gentleman wished to get a wife, for him to call together a party of his friends, waylay the girl, make her a prisoner, carry her off to the mountains, and never let her go back till the priest had made them man and wife. Many’s the Squire’s lady that was won in that way; and they say girls of spirit like it better than more formal wooing. Now, if you say so, we’ll play the part of your friends, instead of acting more naturally as refugees; and though a priest may not be so easy to come at, you’re not what you once were, if you can’t find a way to make the lady eager enough to marry you, after she gets out of the swamp.”