little the cutting disappointment of Grimes, as he thought himself
secure of putting an end by its assistance to the career of Emily, nor was it
very probable that any body would appear to interrupt his designs, in such a
place, and in the dead and silence of the night. By the most extraordinary
accident however they found a man on horseback in wait at this gate. Help, help!
exclaimed the affrighted Emily; thieves! murder! help! The man was Mr. Falkland.
Grimes knew his voice, and therefore, though he attempted a sort of sullen
resistance, it was feebly made. Two other men, whom by reason of the darkness he
had not at first seen, and who were Mr. Falkland's servants, hearing the bustle
of the rencounter, and alarmed for the safety of their master, rode up; and then
Grimes, disappointed at the loss of his gratification, and admonished by
conscious guilt, shrunk from farther parley and rode off in silence.
    It may seem strange that Mr. Falkland should thus a second time have been
the saviour of miss Melvile, and that under circumstances the most unexpected
and singular. But in this instance it is easily to be accounted for. He had
heard of a man who lurked about this wood for robbery or some other bad design,
and that it was conjectured this man was Hawkins, another of the victims of Mr.
Tyrrel's rural tyranny, whom I shall immediately have occasion to introduce. Mr.
Falkland's compassion had already been strongly excited in favour of Hawkins; he
had in vain endeavoured to find him, and do him good; and he easily conceived
that, if the conjecture which had been made in this instance proved true, he
might have it in his power not only to do what he had always intended, but
farther to save from a perilous offence against the laws and society a man who
appeared to have strongly imbibed the principles of justice and virtue. He took
with him two servants, because, going with the express design of encountering
robbers, if robbers should be found, he believed he should be inexcusable if he
did not go provided against possible accidents. But he had directed them, at the
same time that they kept within call, to be out of the reach of being seen; and
it was only the eagerness of their zeal that had brought them up thus early in
the present encounter.
    This new adventure promised something extraordinary. Mr. Falkland did not
immediately recognise miss Melvile, and the person of Grimes was that of a total
stranger whom he did not recollect to