A Nest of Linnets

by Frank Frankfort Moore

It was the scheme of a boy and a girl, that flight of Richard Brinsley Sheridan and Elizabeth Linley to France as brother and sister. It has never been explained, nor can any explanation of it be offered that is not founded upon the passionate yearning of that purest-minded girl that ever lived in the world, for a time of seclusion such as she had never known—for a period of tranquillity such as had never come to her.

Dick led her to the chaise, and gave the postboys orders to go on to the next stage at which Mathews had ordered fresh horses to await his arrival. The men grumbled. Dick threatened them with hanging. They should have trouble in proving to any jury that they were not privy to the abduction of the lady, he said; adding, that if they did not keep the secret of the change in the lady’s companionship at the various stages of the journey, they would be running their heads into the hangman’s noose. The men protested that they were on his side down to every rowel of their spurs, and one of them went so far, in demonstration of his good-will, as to curse soundly Captain Mathews and all his connections.

In the chaise Betsy gave Dick a circumstantial account of the attack made by the highwaymen—the highwaymen of Providence, Dick ventured to term them. The two shots which he had heard in the distance when he was assuring himself that his horse had become lame, were fired, the first by Mathews on the appearance of the highwaymen, the second by one of the highwaymen. Only the latter had taken effect; it had brought down the off-wheeler, and then, the chaise coming to a standstill, a man had stood with a cocked pistol at each of the windows until Mathews handed over his purse. The robbers had then ridden off, and while Mathews was helping the postboys to disentangle the harness of the dead horse, she had, unperceived by any one, crept out of the chaise and made her way up the bank where she had hidden among the trees.

“But I never doubted that you would come to my help, Dick,” she said in conclusion. “Oh, no! I had faith in you from the very first to the very last. When we saw the figures of the two highwaymen in the distance, I cried out, ‘’Tis Dick—Dick and Mr. Long come to save me!’ And when I heard the sound of your horse galloping on the road I said, ‘’Tis Dick come to save me!’ I had called out your name before the horse came abreast of the bank. But how did you learn what had happened? Who could have been near us when that man dragged me from the chair and forced me into the chaise?”

He told her that it was Mrs. Abington who had come to him with the news, and she was amazed.

“But how could she—why should she be at that part of the road at such an hour?”

“Alas, my dear Betsy, she had a fancy that you were being carried off, not by Mathews, but another,” said Dick. “She must have acquired by some means an inkling of the plot, and she was foolish enough to take it for granted that the man who was playing the chief part was—some one else. But we cannot refuse her our gratitude. When she had found out that it was Mathews who was the abductor, she did not falter in her purpose. It is to her that we owe your safety.”

There was a long pause before Betsy said:

“She acted honourably—nobly. ’Tis for us to respond in like. We shall not fail, Dick.”

At the end of the next stage Dick wrote a letter to Mr. Long acquainting him in brief with all that had occurred, and telling him of Betsy’s desire to go to the convent at Lille. He ordered the letter to be posted to Bath at once. Betsy wrote to her father.