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Rh horses are plunging like devils, they will break your carriage in an instant—dispatch!"

The Squire was a brave man on the whole, though no hero, and the nerves of an old Fox-hunter soon recover from a little alarm. The picture of his buried wife was yet more inestimable to him than it was to Lucy, and at this new demand, his spirit was roused within him.

He clenched his fists, and advancing himself, as it were, on his seat, he cried in a loud voice:

"Begone, fellow!—I have given you—for my own part I think so—too much already; and by G—d you shall not have the picture!"

"Don't force me to use violence!" said Augustus, and putting one foot on the carriage-step, he brought his pistol within a few inches of Lucy's breast, rightly judging, perhaps, that the show of danger to her would be the best method to intimidate the Squire. At that instant the valorous moralist found himself suddenly seized with a powerful gripe on the shoulder, and a low voice, trembling with passion, hissed in his ear.