Manchurian Books

The licence of these disorderly times was favourable
to deeds of violence. Monthault formed the project of carrying off his
mistress by force, and securing her in his parental castle; and
disbanded soldiers were easily found, alike daring and lawless, to
execute such an atrocious design.
The only difficulty attendant on this undertaking seemed to consist in
wresting her from the protection of her friends; for though courts of
law no longer afforded relief to injured loyalists, a police was still
preserved, and the precincts of a college could not be violated with
impunity, or indeed with a prospect of success. He resorted, therefore,
to stratagem, invented a tale of distress, and disguised a female
accomplice to pass as the widow of a soldier who had fallen at Naseby. A
story of sick children perishing for want was likely to operate on the
feelings of humane young women. Constantia and Isabel were soon drawn
beyond the walls of Oxford, and conducted along the banks of the
Charwell, in search of this scene of misery.


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