Emily Dickinson Lexicon

RES'CUE, n. [See the verb.]

1. Deliverance from restraint, violence or danger, by force or by the interference of an agent.
2. In law, rescue or rescous, the forcible retaking of a lawful distress from the distrainor or from the custody of the law; also, the forcible liberation of a defendant from the custody of the officer, in which cases, the remedy is by writ of rescous. But when the distress is unlawfully taken, the owner may lawfully make rescue. The rescue of a prisoner from the court, is punished with perpetual imprisonment and forfeiture of goods. – Blackstone.