to old Gaunt the Reve, he procured a view of the Lady Emma as she walked near the castle of Gay Bowers.  The aged churl refused to give him access to the castle; yet dropped some hints as if he thought the lady in danger, and wished she were well out of it.  His master, he said, had heard she had a brother in life, and since that deprived him of all chance of gaining her domains by purchase, he—­in short, Gaunt wished they were safely separated.  ‘If any injury,’ quoth he, ’should happen to the damsel here, it were ill for us all.  I tried by an innocent stratagem to frighten her from the castle, by introducing a figure through a trap-door, and warning her, as if by a voice from the dead, to retreat from thence; but the giglet is wilful, and is running upon her fate.’

Finding Gaunt, although covetous and communicative, too faithful a servant to his wicked master to take any active steps against his commands, Fitzosborne applied himself to old Ursely, whom he found more tractable.  Through her he learned the dreadful plot Gaston had laid to rid himself of his kinswoman, and resolved to effect her deliverance.  But aware of the delicacy of Emma’s situation, he charged Ursely to conceal from her the interest he took in her distress, resolving to watch over her in disguise until he saw her in a place of safety.  Hence the appearance he made before her in various dresses during her journey, in the course of which he was never far distant; and he had always four stout yeomen within hearing of his bugle, had assistance been necessary.  When she was placed in safety at the lodge, it was Fitzosborne’s intention to have prevailed upon his sisters to visit and take her under their protection; but he found them absent from Diggswell, having gone to attend an aged relation who lay dangerously ill in a distant county.  They did not return until the day before the May-games; and the other events followed too rapidly to permit Fitzosborne to lay any plan for introducing them to Lady Emma Darcy.  On the day of the chase he resolved to preserve his romantic disguise, and attend the Lady Emma as a forester, partly to have the pleasure of being near her and partly to judge whether, according to an idle report in the country, she favoured his friend and comrade Fitzallen of Marden.  This last motive, it may easily be believed, he did not declare to the company.  After the skirmish with the ruffians, he waited till the Baron and the hunters arrived, and then, still doubting the farther designs of Gaston, hastened to his castle to arm the band which had escorted them to Queenhoo-Hall.

Fitzosborne’s story being finished, he received the thanks of all the company, particularly of Saint Clere, who felt deeply the respectful delicacy with which he had conducted himself towards his sister.  The lady was carefully informed of her obligations to him; and it is left to the well-judging reader whether even the raillery of Lady Eleanor made her regret that Heaven had only employed natural means for her security, and that the guardian angel was converted into a handsome, gallant, and enamoured knight.