Beautiful Rienzi; or, The secret vendetta — page 122: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BEAUTIFUL RIENZI. 117 warrant to search for the person who had caused her son’s death. Here Obed Walsh was called, and duly*sworn. Obed Walsh was a short, muscular fellow, with profusely tanned cheeks, restless, light-colored eyes, and lank hair, which fell like whithered grass over his forehead and ears. Those ears, disdaining the hirsute covering, cropped out like two leathery bat wings, large, upright, and eager, joining a strangely alert expression to the rough, shock head. Being launched by the judicious promptings of Bently, he deposed that, on the night of the 29th of November, he was walking on the Road, about nine miles from the city, trying to reach Greely’s Mills before the public-house folks would all be in bed. Ata few minutes before twelve he was overtaken bya sleigh, which, as he stood aside to allow it to pass, he saw contained a lady and gentleman. They were talking so closely that they did not notice him, and the horse was rushing on of itself, for the reins were loosely slung over the gentleman’s arm. Just as they passed him, the lady threw up her arms and cried, ‘‘Yes! I was born to be your curse, and this night will prove it!” The gentleman caught her hands, but she snatched them away and eried more fiercely, ““Wait—wait! You won’t seek to touch me in half an hour!” : With these ominous words the pair got beyond hearing. The peddler walked on for some fifteen minutes until he came to the top of the hill leading down to Greely’s Mills, when he heard a strange rumbling noise, coming from the wooden bridge, in the bottom of the valley, as he thought; it was like the rattling of stones and the crashing of wood, then there was a dull explosion that shook the ground. He began to run down the hill, for he did not know whether it was before or after him, and he wanted to get straight into Hanover’s public house, out of harm’s way. — It took him a good while to get to the bridge, which he was just crossing, when he noticed part of the rail broken away, and the snow disturbed in a very curious manner, as if there had been a struggle. He looked over the brink, and was sure he saw something like a man lying among the rocks and water in the brook. He ran down, and found that the gentleman whom he had seen twenty minutes be- fore, still warm. He dragged the body out of the water, CORNUCG OOO S (©)