Fain would he have obtained a farther explanation of words, which seemed to him to contain some mystery, as indeed they did; but she was no less inflexible to his intreaties on that score, than she had been to those of his love; and perceiving his presence gave her only pain, he went out of the house with an aking and agitated heart, but resolved to do as she desired and he had promised, whatever pangs it cost him.

He had not gone above an hundred paces on his way home, before he was accosted by a man who seemed like an upper-servant in a gentleman’s family, and who, with a low bow, delivered him a letter, which, on seeing directed to himself, he hastily opened, and found contained these lines: 

  Sir,

“If you have any thing in you of the gallantry, generosity, or gratitude, for which your country is famed, come where the bearer will conduct you, to a woman, who has suffered much on your account, and can be extricated from an unhappy affair only by your advice.”

Natura was little in a humour to pursue an adventure of the kind this seemed to be; but curiosity got the better of his spleen, and he bad the fellow lead the way, and he would follow; which he accordingly did, till they were out of the town, and from the sight of all the houses.

Being come into a field which was a kind of an inclosure, and a theatre proper enough for the tragedy intended to be acted on it, the fellow turned back, and drew a pistol, which he instantly discharged at the head of Natura, crying at the same time, ’Maria sends you this.’—­Heaven so directed the bullets, that the one passed by his ear, and the other only grazed upon his shoulder, without doing any farther damage, than taking away a small piece of his sleeve.  It is easy to judge of his surprize, yet was it not so great as to disable him from drawing his sword in order to revenge himself on the assassin; but the wretch, in case his fire-arms should miscarry, had provided a falchion concealed under his coat, with which, the same instant, he ran furiously on Natura, and had certainly cleft him down, tho’ perhaps in doing so, he might have received his own death’s wound at the same time from the sword of his antagonist; but both these events were happily prevented by the peculiar interposition of Divine Providence:  some reapers, who had lain asleep under an adjacent hedge, being roused with the noise of the pistol, ran to the combatants, and with their hooks beat down both their weapons; while at the same fortunate crisis, two gentlemen attended by three servants, who happening to cross a road which had a full prospect over the field, had seen, at a distance, all that had passed, and came galloping up to the assistance of Natura, who was then beginning to interrogate the villain on the occasion of this attempt; but he refused to give any satisfactory answer to what he said, so was dragged by the countrymen, and others, who by this time were gathered together, back into the town, and carried immediately before a magistrate, who, on his obstinately refusing to make any confession, committed him to prison.