Chapter 24 FOURTH.

Four ruffians seized me yester morn-

Alas! a maiden most forlorn!

They choked my cries with wicked might,

And bound me on a palfrey white. COLERIDGE.

Such adventures as are now only recorded in works of mere fiction, were not uncommon in the feudal ages, when might was so universally superior to right; and it followed that those whose c