“God bless you, dear friend!” sobbed Lady Bassett. “Oh, yes, it is his doing--murderer!” Off went Mr. Angelo on his errand. He was hardly gone when a man was seen running and shouting across the fields. Lady Bassett went to meet him, surrounded by her humble sympathizers. It was young Drake: he came up panting, with a double-barreled gun in his hand (for he was allowed to shoot rabbits on his own little farm), and stammered out, “Oh, my lady--Sir Charles--they have carried him off against his will!” “Who? Where? Did you see him?” “Ay, and heerd him and all. I was ferreting rabbits by the side of the turnpike-road yonder, and a carriage came tearing along, and Sir Charles put out his head and cried to me,' Drake, they are kidnapping me. Shoot!' But they pulled him back out of sight.” “Oh, my poor husband! And did you let them? Oh!” “Couldn't catch 'em, my lady: so I did as I was bid; got to my gun as quick as ever I could, and gave the coachman both barrels hot.” “What, kill him?” “Lord, no; 'twas sixty yards off; but made him holler and squeak a good un. Put thirty or forty shots into his back, I know.” “Give me your hand, Mr. Drake. I'll never forget that shot.” Then she began to cry. “Doant ye, my lady, doant ye,” said the honest fellow, and was within an ace of blubbering for sympathy. “We ain't a lot o' babies, to see our squire kidnaped. If you would lend Abel Moss there and me a couple o' nags, we'll catch them yet, my lady.” “That we will,” cried Abel. “You take me where you fired that shot, and we'll follow the fresh wheel-tracks. They can't beat us while they keep to a road.” The two men were soon mounted, and in pursuit, amid the cheers of the now excited villagers. But still the perpetrators of the outrage had more than an hour's start; and an hour was twelve miles. And now Lady Bassett, who had borne up so bravely, was seized with a deadly faintness, and supported into the house. All this spread like wild-fire, and roused the villagers, and they must have a hand in it. Parson had said Mr. Bassett was to blame; and that passed from one to another, and so fermented that, in the evening, a crowd collected round Highmore House and demanded Mr. Bassett. The servants were alarmed, and said he was not at home. Then the men demanded boisterously what he had done with Sir Charles, and threatened to break the windows unless they were told; and, as nobody in the house could tell them, the women egged on the men, and they did break the windows; but they no sooner saw their own work than they were a little alarmed at it, and retired, talking very loud to support their waning courage and check their rising remorse at their deed. They left a house full of holes and screams, and poor little Mrs. Bassett half dead with fright. As for Lady Bassett, she spent a horrible night of terror, suspense, and agony. She could not lie down, nor even sit still; she walked incessantly, wringing her hands, and groaning for news.