Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1901-10-14

prehensive look back to where a grow
ing speck means pursuit and possible
capture, and, through the rafting and
rocking of the chaise, hurting shouts
at the postboy to urge his desperate
horse to still greater speed. Shelleys
first marriage had such romantic
overture. When he was expelled from
Oxford for his atheistical writings
and went to London with his friend
Hogg, penniless and disgraced, he
would have starved had it not been for
the pocket-money of his four sisters,
for whom pretty schoolfellOw, Miss
Harriet Westbrook. daughter of re-
tired hotelkeeper, acted at almonep.
The little Methodist" as Shelley
called her, was only a child of Is at
the time, but she was quite old enough
to fall head over ears in love with the
courtly and accomplished young poet,
who was never averse to an affair Of
the heart; and when. after some
months of fatal dalliance. the girl
wrote to Shelley ito say that resist
ance Ito her fathers determination TO
send her our of dangers, way to
SCHOOL, was useless. and threw herself
on my protection" it is not surprising
that the gallant poet flew to her
rescue. He found her "agitated and
wavering;" but she needed little per-
suasion to fly with him. They travel
ed as fast as horses could carry them
to Scotland, and were made husband
and wife on the 28th of August. 1911.
Six years later, after desertion and
infdelity had driven her to intern
perance, the "lovely and ill-starred"
Harriet drowned herself in the Serpen-
tine.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the
famous statesman and dramatist, was
in his youth the very paragon Of
daring and impetuous lover. Although
he was only one of the most obscure
of the scores of men who would have
died for a smile" from Miss Linley, the
sweetest and fairest of all the peerless
nest of nightingales" of Bath, he won
her from them all; but only after
risking his life more than once in the
struggle He fought two desperate
duels with a too aggressive rival, a
Captain Matthews, who was more
skilled in the duel than in his amours,
and when he despaired of a less
heroic and extreme way of winning
bis coveted bride he boldly carried
her off to nunnery in France, taking
care, however, to make her his wife
on the way.
At the very time when Sheridan was
abducting his nightingale" IN
intimate friend and fellow-Templar,
Cecil Hayden, was IN the thick of an
equally hazardous love enterprise in
the north Of England. When he was
at Oxford he had fallen madly in love
with the sister of fellow-student
whose father, a wealthy Yorkshire
squire, had much more exalted views
for his daughter. When young Hay
den boldly declared his intention TO
elope Win Miss Holcombe in defiance
of her father, she was locked in her
room and guards were placed round
the house. But Glove laughs at bolts"
and guards. One dark night in
October the brave girl let herself down
from her window by knotted sheets,
and, stealing past the sleepy guards,
Joined her lover in a lane at the back
of the house, where a chaise, with four
horses, was waiting her. In moment
the had started on their long journey
of 100 miles to Gretna Green: aud
barely two hours later. when it was
found that the birds had flown, the
father and posse of mounted men
we're in hot pursuit, every man armed
and determined at all cost to stop the
runaways. For II long hours the
stern chase continued, the pursuers
often catching sight of their quarry,
but, so carefully had Hayden arranged
for supplies Of fresh horses, never
coming within a mile of them. After
the most. exciting race on record the
father, having outstripped his fol-
lowers, reached Gretna Green only to
find that he had lost the matrimonial
stokes" by the narrow margin of few
minutes, and gained son and lost
daughter in that time.