The pair were sauntering along a path cut through the dense coppice, the lady leaning in condescending affection upon the shoulder of her maiden, and listening to a recital of how, on her return from some of her visits to her parents, she had been waylaid by Great Will of the Tarns, and how, on a recent evening, he had attempted to seize her rein, and would have stopped her, had she not whipt the palfrey, and bounded past him. The lady was expressing her indignation at this insolence, when a gigantic figure sprang upon the pathway, and snatching up the screaming Barbara with the same ease with which she herself would have lifted an infant, vanished on the instant amongst the thick hazels. [Sidenote: A CHASE BUT NO RESCUE.] The Lady Eva stood for a minute struck powerless with terror and astonishment at this audacious outrage; but the sound of the monster crashing his headlong course through the coppice, and the half-stifled screams of his captive, soon recalled her suspended faculties, and then “Fair” _Eva_ “through the hazel grove Flew, like a startled cushat-dove,” back to the hall, where, breathless with terror and exertion, she gave the alarm that Barbara had been carried off by the Giant. There was noisy and instantaneous commotion amongst the carousing gentles at the upper, and the loitering lackeys at the lower end of the hall. Dick Hawksley, and a few more, darted off in immediate pursuit on foot, while several rushed to the stables, in obedience to the calls of their young masters, who were, one and all, loudly vociferating for their horses. Scarce a minute passed, ere half a dozen le Flemings, attended by as many mounted followers, were spurring like lightning through the wood in the direction of Yewdale. They came in sight of the Giant and his burthen as he neared Cauldron Dub, with the light-heeled falconer close behind, calling loudly upon him to stay his flight; but he held on with tremendous strides, till he reached the brow over the pool, when, finding that the horsemen were close upon him, and that it was hopeless to try to carry his prize farther, he stopped—uttered one terrible shout of rage and disappointment—and whirled his shrieking victim into the flooded beck, resuming his now unincumbered flight with increased speed. Dick Hawksley rushed over the bank a little lower down, and the horsemen, abandoning the chase, galloped to the brink of the stream, which was high with the recent rains. They saw the falconer plunge into the torrent, as the bower maiden, yet buoyant with her light garments, was borne rapidly down. They saw him seize her with one hand, and strike out gallantly for the bank with the other, but the current was too strong for him, encumbered as he was with the girl in his grasp. The devoted pair were swept down the stream, at a rate that made the spectators put their horses to a gallop to keep them in sight, even while the exertions of the brave falconer sufficed to sustain