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An hour later the British troops, with General Isaac Brock at their head, marched through the smiling fields and orchards, passed over the fort draw-bridge, and, surrounded by a host of fierce-looking and indignant militia of Ohio and "the heroes of Tippecanoe," hauled down the Stars and Stripes which had waved undisturbed over Fort Lernoult since its voluntary evacuation by the British in 1796 and, in default of a British ensign, hoisted a Union Jack which a sailor had worn as a body-belt over the surrendered fortress.
Then the castle courts rang with shouts of joy; and the standard was displayed, and the trumpets were sounded, and the draw-bridge was lowered, and Donna Maria went forth with her ladies, and her knights, and her pages, and her minstrels, to welcome her lord from the wars.
A letter, conveyed as before on the point of a blunt arrow, announced his approach to Matilda: and lord Fitzwater had just time to assemble his retainers, collect a hasty supply of provision, raise the draw-bridge, and drop the portcullis, when the castle was surrounded by the enemy.
There is a draw-bridge, what has been a moat and an ancient court. There is a hawthorn-tree, which rises like a wooden pillar through the rooms of the castle; for, by a strange conceit, the walls have been built round it.
Finally, when more than the half hour had elapsed, a brake-man satisfied the eager inquiries of the passengers by the information that a coal-schooner had attempted to pass through the draw-bridge half a mile above Peekskill, when the tide was too far spent that she had managed to get aground in the draw-bridge, immediately across the track and that, consequently, no train could possibly pass until the tide rose again and released the unfortunate boat, well along towards midnight!
When Trim's answer, in an instant, tore the laurel from his brows, and twisted it to pieces. This unfortunate draw-bridge of yours, quoth my father God bless your honour, cried Trim, 'tis a bridge for master's nose.
These posts are fortified with palisades, or with a mud wall, and have a ditch and draw-bridge.
"Entire periods," replied Charlotte, "resemble this father and son whom you have been describing. Of the state of things when every little town was obliged to have its walls and moats, when the castle of the nobleman was built in a swamp, and the smallest manor-houses were only accessible by a draw-bridge, we are scarcely able to form a conception.
The clang of the chains of the sally-port rattled, the draw-bridge fell, the heavy iron-studded gates swung back, and three prisoners were brought in who were expostulating warmly with the guard, and demanding to be led to the officer for the night.
Savors of the good old times when bold knights went riding up to the castle and yelled to the flinty-hearted duke inside to lower the draw-bridge and send out his daughter to be married on the spot or he'd be dropped in the moat with all his armor for a sinker."
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