"Your lordship may envy me that gift," I said, with more irritation than I ought to have shown, in the presence of gentle Laura; "but I have never yet used it, to escape those I have injured." Before I could answer his furious stare, a man of great substance appeared, from behind a big tree, and stood before us. In one hand he had the staff, which had given so much point to his Scriptural denunciation; and he held the other open, with great fingers bent, and a rapid growth of tendency, towards the collar of the Earl. "Mind what you're about," I said, going up to him, with every expectation of being tossed into the hole of the tree, that had concealed him; and I pointed to Laura; and he said-- "Roight, lad; teak t' yoong leddy a waa, if tho wool. A foo pri'ate words, is aw' oi ston here fur." "Shall I come back, to help you?" I called out to Lord Counterpagne, as I hurried off with Laura, to get her out of sight of it; and although he was in a very low ebb of heart (as his face, and legs showed), he had the courage to say-- "No. This is a private affair--an attempt to sponge on me. Fellow, take your hands off." "To sponnge on e, eh?" I heard the loud voice roar; "ool't lack a mony sponnges, afore oi've a dooed wi' e." And desirous as I was to know, how this was to happen, I durst not look round; because of darling Laura, who was terrified so that I had no resource, but to help her along, with both comfort and support. "Oh, what does that mean?" she asked, with the saddest forebodings in her tearful eyes; and I answered, "It must be the way, the grasshoppers are always going on, in this hot weather. It is the way they make love, you know, to one another." "It sounds much heavier than a grasshopper," she whispered, as a yet louder stroke awoke the echoes; "and if that's the way they make love,--I am sure, it is not at all what I should like." "Oh that I knew what way of doing it you do like!" I murmured even in that crisis, and she seemed not to hear me, except with her cheeks. It struck me, that she should have been more anxious, for me to hurry back to the succour of the Earl. But, (either from not knowing what was toward, or from a readiness to keep me out of danger, or even perhaps some resignation to the code of justice) she took me quite up to the steps of the terrace, before she could at all dispense with me. And though I ran back at full speed, with three or four men after me, to the spot where I had left Lord Counterpagne; there was no evil-doer there, for us to apprehend, unless it was my lord himself. And we found him in such a very sad condition, that we were all afraid to lift him up. CHAPTER XXX. PERFIDY.