Wherefore myself, even I myself, will be aiding
unto the delivery of your letter to the man Edgar Ravenswood, trusting
that the issue therof may be your deliverance from the nets in which he
hath sinfully engaged you. And that I may do in this neither more nor
less than hath been warranted by your honourable parents, I pray you
to transcribe, without increment or subtraction, the letter formerly
expeded under the dictation of your right honourable mother; and I shall
put it into such sure course of being delivered, that if, honourable
young madam, you shall receive no answer, it will be necessary that
you conclude that the man meaneth in silence to abandon that naughty
contract, which, peradventure, he may be unwilling directly to restore."
Lucy eagerly embraced the expedient of the worthy divine. A new letter
was written in the precise terms of the former, and consigned by Mr.
Bide-the-Bent to the charge of Saunders Moonshine, a zealous elder of
the church when on shore, and when on board his brig as bold a smuggler
as ever ran out a sliding bowsprit to the winds that blow betwixt
Campvere and the east coast of Scotland.
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