United States or El Salvador ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
When my senses returned, I became aware, first that I was lying, bound hand and foot and securely gagged, upon the turf; secondly, that the horses were still tethered, and standing quietly at the foot-bridge; and, thirdly, that my companion had resumed his position on the boulder, and there sat watching my recovery.
They were returning to the house when the valet proposed to pass over the ditch. "That will be the quickest way," said he, "I will go for a ladder which we will put across." He went off, and quickly reappeared with his improvised foot-bridge. But at the moment he was adjusting it, the mayor cried out to him: "Stop!"
But greater yet was the delight when the foot-bridge was carried away; for then they had to cross the stream in a boat. He longed for water where it could not be; would fain have seen it running through the grass in front of his father's house; and had a waking vision of a stream with wooden shores that babbled through his bedroom.
He pointed to the river. "I'll tell her and I'll give her the sketch. Good-bye." She watched him heavily cross the foot-bridge to the other side of the river. Her quick pity went with him, for she herself knew well what it meant to be solitary and neglected. He seldom sold a picture, and nobody knew what he lived on.
But when they reached a certain wooden foot-bridge across the stream, Robert held on his way, making for the Lodge, while Lionel, well content and asking no questions, followed the young lady. She led the way across the bridge and along the opposite bank until they reached the Geinig Pool, where they scrambled down to the side of the river just above the falls.
The gate was closed; it had been the scene of an awful tragedy but a few minutes before. They did not know it, but they knew that the air shuddered, and as they skirted the grounds along the way to the foot-bridge the roar grew in their stunned ears. There, projected out into the night, were the cables of steel holding the frail platform over the abyss of night and terror. Beyond was Canada.
Automobiles came and went upon the public road, and to escape them I crossed a wooden foot-bridge spanning a weedy ditch, struck into a path bordering a wide field followed it aimlessly for a while, and before I knew it was in the Enchanted Wood. The Enchanted Wood was carpeted with brown and sweet-smelling pine-needles, with green clumps of honeysuckle breaking out here and there in moist spots.
The commander, on his foot-bridge, presided over the operation, ready to stop or haul in his chains at the least signal. The screw had been taken off, and all the force of the machines upon the windlass would soon have brought up the apparatus on board. The descent began at 1.25 p.m., and the chamber, dragged down by its reservoirs filled with water, disappeared under the surface of the ocean.
About 15 minutes before the train was due, we asked again for tickets, and when they were again refused, we began to fear that the tickets had to be procured on the opposite side of the railroad. We therefore crossed by a foot-bridge near the station, but could not approach the house on the other side, on account of the high fence which shut every body off from the tracks.
It was evidently a scrap torn from an old letter, and bore, scribbled in pencil by a clerkly hand, these words: "The young Squire Cartwright in straits by the foot-bridge, six miles toward Netherkirk. Orate pro anima Guliemli Teague." It was a stifling August afternoon. Not a breath of wind came over the downs, and the sky was just a great flaming oven inverted over them.
Word Of The Day