Lady Jane's Flight

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This story is a conventional love tale set about the year 1700. The strong incidents in the dungeon and tavern scenes and the girl's flight in tights and doublet and wedding at the seashore give it an element of novelty. In the library of the old earl's manor, a suitor asks for his daughter's hand. The father angrily refuses and orders his guards to escort the young man outside. The girl begs her father to relent, and upon his refusal falls fainting to the floor. She quickly revives, the lovers are next seen under a huge oak tree, planning their elopement. They are surprised by the sudden appearance of the irate father and his guards. The girl Is carried back to the manor and the young man to a dungeon, where he is given the choice of leaving the country or being put to death. The lover knocks the lamp over, slips over to the door, and as the guards, attracted by the noise, rush in, he in the darkness, locks the door of the dungeon and starts for the manor. He bursts through the window of his sweetheart's room, dresses her in a suit of boy's clothes, which he has brought with him, then both mount horses which have been left in readiness and ride hurriedly away. At a seashore tavern a captain is about to sail for the new world. The lovers appear and express their wish to make the voyage with him. The father and guards are observed coming down the road. The captain, greatly amused, takes in the situation, hides the couple in a huge wooden chest and claps down the cover. The old earl comes up with his followers and searches the inn while the captain and his men depart with the chest. A short distance beyond the sailors come upon a few of the guards who have been left to watch the horses, bind them and drive the horses away and after releasing the lovers from the chest, all start for the shore. A friar rides up on a mule and is requested to unite the eloping couple. He performs the ceremony and rides away, while the lovers and sailors enter a boat and pull off for the vessel as the earl and his followers rush up. Finding himself defeated, the nobleman dances wildly on the beach, while those in the boat laugh at his discomfiture.