She trembled, but she kept her face. "I will give you what you wish," she answered. "Put no finger upon me. Here is my purse. You would not rob my maid."
"'Tis not your purse I want," said I, laughing, "but your person, my dear."
"Oh," she cried out in alarm; and then, "Had not these cravens refused my commands we should be galloping into Milford and not thus at your mercy."
"I would ha' gone, not only to Milford, but to the gallows, for that sweet face," I said, bowing.
"What would you do with me?" she asked, now all of a flutter. "Know you not that I am Mrs Barbara Crawford, wife to Mr Crawford of Grebe?"
"Fie!" said I, laughing at her. "I would be ashamed at your years to talk so! What does a chit like you know of wives?"
She turned red, and then suddenly white, as I haled her from the coach, struggling with me like a vixen.
"Fire, Jerry, fire," she cried; but the lout was too frightened, and so I flung her before me on Calypso, and, with a discharge of my pistol through Jerry's hat as he fumbled with his blunderbuss, which set up a new alarm, I got out of the marsh swiftly, and was soon striking through the firs towards Milford.
This Mrs Barbara, as she called herself, wrestled like Satan, but presently came to be quiet, and, says she, in a cool voice,—