Something or other--it might with Harry, perhaps, have been a similar
train of thought--caused both my comrades to be more taciturn by far
than was their wont; and we had rattled over five miles of our route,
and scaled the first ridge of the hills, and dived into the wide ravine;
midway the depth of this the pretty village of Bellevale lies on the
brink of the dammed rivulet, which, a few yards below the neat stone
bridge, takes a precipitous leap of fifty feet, over a rustic wier, and
rushes onward, bounding from ledge to ledge of rifted rocks, chafing and
fretting as if it were doing a match against time, and were in danger of
losing its race.
Thus we had passed the heavy lumber wagon, with Jem and Garry perched on
a board laid across it, and the four couple of stanch hounds nestling in
the straw which Tom had provided in abundance for their comfort, before
the silence was broken by any sounds except the rattle of the wheels,
the occasional interjectional whistle of Harry to his horses, or the
flip of the well handled whip.
Just, however, as we were shooting ahead of the lumber wain, an
exclamation from Tom Draw, which should have been a sentence, had it not
been very abruptly terminated in a long rattling eructation, arrested
Archer's progress.
Pages:
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112