34 MISADVENTURES OF A LOVER. 



my then situation. I went to bed as night approached. How I 

 spent the night I will not say for this good reason, I cannot. Morn- 

 ing came. I arose. , While pacing to and fro in my apartment, half 

 apparelled and wholly unshaved, resembling more, in my conduct, a 

 bedlamite than a rational person, Boots, who seemed to be an animal 

 newly imported from some uncultivated district of the country, en- 

 tered. " Sur," said he, "would ou like a read of our Paper, just 

 prunted ?" at the same time holding towards me a damp unopened 

 broad sheet. 



"Lay it down there," said I, unconcernedly, " lay it down there ; 

 I'll possibly look at it." 



I took up and opened the broad sheet. I found it was the county 

 Paper, newly issued from the press. I carelessly glanced over the 

 inside surface. The head, " Elopement Extraordinary, being in 

 large caps, was the first thing that attracted my attention. I read as 

 follows : 



" On Wednesday'' (the Paper was dated Friday), " On Wednes- 

 day, an elopement extraordinary took place from Carlisle. The 

 young lady had only returned the other day from a fashionable 

 boarding-school, where she had been Frenched, danced, taught mu- 

 sic, the use of the globes, and, in fine, every thing: that is deemed 

 necessary to make a perfectly educated female. Of late she had 

 been wondrously given to the reading of novels. The gay Lothario 

 was one of the most sheepish-looking bipeds under the sun. The 

 folks in the neighbourhood very emphatically characterised him as 

 the ' chap as used to be seen popping a long nose over the garden 

 wall, at the good people's daurter.' The fugitives took the high 

 road to Gretna, of which place they were within one short stage 

 when the young lady's brother, accompanied by two police officers, 

 overtook the matrimony-aspiring 1 couple, at the head inn. When 

 the brother and assistants entered, they found the loving Miss and her 

 clumsy- looking swain sitting quite comfortably at a table, on which, 

 in beautiful confusion, were displayed the fragments of an excellent 

 supper. When the young lady recognised her brother, she enunciated 

 a very unique sort of shriek, and swooned away with a wonderfully 

 good grace, in the easy chair she occupied at the time. Her clown- 

 ish Lothario, who evidently mistook Miss' brother, when he entered, 

 for the waiter, gallantly flew to the assistance of his Dulcinea ; and 

 on the intruding parties taking the fainted beauty by her taper waist, 

 as if to carry her lovely person away, he swore that the first man 

 who dared to touch her (they had touched her already, though) should 

 in a moment, be stretched at full length on the floor. As if deter- 

 mined to suit the action to the word, the love-sick swain,in the phrenzy 

 of the moment, seizing hold of a huge torn cat that was lying purring 

 on an easy chair, and evidently unconscious of the nature of his 

 weapon, brandished the animal about his own head, previous to in- 

 flicting a supposed mortal blow on that of his adversary. At this 

 moment his inamorato's brother presented a pistol to the booby-lov- 

 er's breast, exclaiming, ' Villain ! presume to offer further resistance, 

 and I'll blow your brains out !' The poor unfortunate wight stood 

 stupified, resembling a man whose wits had all of a sudden taken to 



