The words had scarcely left her mouth before a crashing was heard in a neighboring thicket, and before the females could move more than a few steps from their position, a huge antlered stag, dripping with blood and foam, burst out of the copse, and made toward them. The attendant shrieked, and clasping her mistress’ robe, stood unable to move. Had the maiden been equally paralysed, their destruction would have been unavoidable. But in that moment of peril, though the cheek of the lady Margaret became a trifle paler than usual, her presence of mind did not desert her. Seizing her attendant’s arm energetically, she dragged her toward a huge oak behind them, whose giant trunk would afford a momentary barrier against the infuriated animal. Had the lady Margaret been alone and unencumbered, she would have succeeded in her endeavor, but her nearly senseless companion so retarded her progress that the stag had almost overtaken them while yet several paces from the tree. Another instant and their fate would be sealed. But at that crisis she heard a whizzing by her ear, and an arrow, sped by an unseen hand, pierced the heart of the stag, who leaping madly forward with a last effort, fell dead at her feet. At the same moment a light and active form, arrayed in a dress of Lincoln green, sprang out from a neighboring copse, and lifting his cap to the ladies, begged to enquire after their affright, in a tone so courtly for one of his apparent station, that Margaret involuntarily looked closer at the stranger. He was apparently about twenty-five years of age, with an open and generous countenance, enlivened by one of those merry blue eyes which were characteristic in those days, of the pure Saxon blood of their possessor. A jaunty cap, with a long white feather drooping over it, was set upon the stranger’s head; while a green coat, made somewhat after the fashion of a hunting frock of the present day, and crossed by a wide belt from which depended a bugle, set off his graceful form. Altogether the intruder was as gallant a looking forester as ever trod the greensward. “The hounds are in full cry,” continued the stranger, without shrinking at the scrutiny of the lady, “and will soon be upon us. Will you suffer me to be your protector from this scene?” The lady Margaret bowed, and pointing to her attendant, who had now fainted, thanked their preserver for his offer, and signified her willingness to accept it. The youth made no answer, but seizing the prostrate maiden in his arms, he pointed to the copse from which he had emerged, and hastily followed Margaret into it. The branches, where they passed in their retreat, had scarcely ceased vibrating, when the hounds dashed into the space they had left, and in a moment after a gay train of hunters followed with horn and halloo.