Reuben, when an officer on foot suddenly ap proached the spot. The startled animal receded two or three paces, and his rider gathered up the reins; "Ha! Trevanian, is it you?" he exclaimed, “where is your company? Have you secured the southern side of the enclosures ?" "We have been there this half hour, my Lord," replied the party thus addressed-"every outlet so strictly guarded on that side, that not even a fox can escape, so that if the Duke have not passed through in the night, and made for the coast, we may defy him to give us the slip; although this wild covert is so cursedly tangled and overgrown, where it is not crossed by the hedges and deep ditches of the Cotter's enclosures, that we had need of a pack of hounds to unkennel him."

“I would not give a ducat for his life," said Lord Lumley, "and I would bet my roan charger, who will owe you a grudge for interrupting his bait, against the contents of this flask, which as you may perceive makes a melancholy return of nil as I turn it up, that ere twentyfour hours be over his empty head, we shall

send this Birmingham king to gaol, to hold court with his friend Lord Grey."

"Is his Lordship then taken ?" inquired T

vanian.

66

Ay, and in such safe limbo, that with his practice in running away, he cannot bud a foot. Before five o'clock this morning, son of my men stumbled upon him near Ho Lodge, four miles from Ringwood. We ha found the peasant, too, with whom his Birmin ham Majesty changed clothes, and from his i formation we have good reason to believe th he skulked into these enclosures yesterday afte noon, in company with another of the rebels.”

"Then we will lose no time," said Treva nian, "in taking some of our sharpest-sighte files into the covert, and beating the bushes fo the game. It will be hot work, and if you Lordship has a companion to that flask, I shoul be glad to tap it, and drink to our success, be fore we throw off."

"Pardi! I should be well content to join you in such a toast, or in any other, for I have been on horseback the whole day, and my

mouth is as dusty as the ring in the Park, but I have not, unluckily, another drop wherewith to water it."

"Were I still a schoolboy, now," said Trevanian, "I might crush a sour but welcome wine out of these unripe blackberries, and as it is they may serve to cool my mouth, and relieve it from the taste of dust." So saying, he stretched out his hand, and plucked a bunch within a few inches of Reuben's head, who held his breath, and grasped his pistol more firmly, in the full expectation that he would tumble headlong into the pit; and that in a few seconds more, they would both be engaged in a scuffle of life and death, within its narrow bounds. Fortunately for all parties, the crude fruit proved distasteful to the gatherer, who spat it out again, and turning to Lord Lumley, proposed that they should proceed immediately to select the men whom they were to lead into the enclosures in search of the Birmingham Prince. His Lordship assented, and to the inexpressible relief of Reuben's mind, who had been upon tenterhooks during the whole of the 'conversa

tion, they moved forward, and joined the soldiers stationed at the outbound of the covert.

From his leafy windows he now watched the men with an intense interest, as they strictly beleagured the avenues, and occasionally dispatched small bands in different directions to beat up the interior of the enclosure, a duty to which all parties appeared to address themselves with the greatest zeal and activity. From time to time he heard the voices of the soldiers in the different brakes and thickets hallooing to one another, or caught the sound of crashing boughs as they beat the bushes with their muskets; but nothing as yet indicated that they had made any discovery of the Duke; and as to himself, he trusted that the worst of his danger was now over, since if they remained thus occupied till night-fall, he might steal from his lurking-place, and bestow himself in some less suspected spot. While he was thus congratulating himself, a small spaniel belonging to one of the officers, which had for some time been questing backwards and forwards, came up to that side of the pit which was the farthest from the enclosures,

and presently discovering that it contained some uncustomary tenant, commenced a most clamorous barking. That he should be betrayed by this unlucky cur, after having had such a narrow escape from his master, provoked Reuben almost beyond the bounds of sufferance. Could he have shot the brawling whelp, without ensuring discovery by the noise of the report, nothing would have delighted him more than to silence him for ever; as it was, he suddenly stretched forth his arm, struck him sharply with his pistol, and the frightened animal slunk yelping away, without having excited any notice among the soldiery, whose attention was exclusively devoted to the enclosures.

This was the last alarm that Reuben was

doomed to experience on that most anxious and agitating day. With the delight of one who looks forward to the darkness as a period of at least temporary emancipation from misery and danger, he saw the sun slowly sink down behind the cabins that skirted the enclosure, and hailed the gathering shades of night, beneath whose concealment he hoped