Lady Bell was punished for her enterprise. There was a mixed company at Brooklands that day, as there was wont to be at similar entertainments. Such gatherings were more dangerous even than public assemblies like ridottos or Ranelagh, because, in the latter case, the rules of admission placed a check on the guests. There a disguised highwayman, flush of money, might, if he were inclined for mild amusement, impose upon a master of the assembly, and dance cotillons and drink negus with honest folk; but he must be in disguise, and act up to his character. Here a desperate penniless vagabond could intrude with the wild hope of mending his broken fortunes. Not only were simple boors from far and near, in their clean smocks and knots of ribbons, collected and regaled free from charge at Brooklands, but with them came disreputable hangers-on at the country houses and the wayside inns, servants out of place, discharged soldiers, scamps of every description, attracted by a day’s rough junketing, and possible profit. Lady Bell learnt, in her painful experience, that a handsome young lady of fifteen years of age, richly dressed, and separated from her party, was in perilous circumstances in such a scene. She had discerned that she had gone farther than she had intended in an unfrequented direction, and had turned to retrace her steps along a path between high hazel bushes, when a man, in a horseman’s cloak, still worn off the stage, rounded a corner, and intercepted her by stopping short and standing directly in her way. Though to Lady Bell horsemen’s cloaks were not uncommon accoutrements for travellers, and men whose changes of suit were not numerous, yet this great, hideous, hide-all of a cloak—exactly such a cloak as may be worn by the Stranger in Kotzebue’s drama, to this day—was attended with the result of investing its wearer with mystery. The air of that cloak alone sent a thrill through poor Lady Bell, while she had an instinctive consciousness that the riding-boots seen beneath the cloak were filthy and tattered. Above it, set in the unshorn Ishmaelite face over which the three-cornered hat was cocked, and which she had never seen before, were two bloodshot eyes, that, in their tendency to leer, inspected her sharply. Lady Bell tried to pass without speaking, and when that was in vain, she assumed her grandest air, and said, with the tremor in her voice running through its imperativeness— “Pray, sir, let me pass.” “Not so fast, young lady,” replied the man, in a thick harsh voice, but with the accent of a man of education; “I want speech with one of your sort—perhaps with you in particular. Ain’t you young Lady Bell Etheredge?” “And what if I be?” demanded Lady Bell, in doubt and dismay for the consequences of the admission, yet not seeing how she could avoid it, while she rued her folly bitterly.