Beadle's Dime Novels No. 38: The Wrong Man — page 106: what you’re looking at

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

108 THE WRONG MAN. then all was still! And the peddler, who ran instantly to the spot, received no reply to the loud call which he shouted down the glen, nor could he hear any sound as he bent his ear over the edge of the bridge, save the faint murmur of the little stream that rippled on its course nearly a hundred feet below. The bushes which here and there projected from the steep banks of the cleft would have prevented him from seeing to the bottom, had it been noonday ; and now, in the gathering twilight, they gave an obscurity to the air in the narrow and dismal-looking valley that added to the feelings of awe created by the tragical event. Two or three times he repeated his call ; and as his voice died away, the deep silence that each time succeeded produced in the bosom of the sturdy peddler a sensation not unlike the creeping of fear. To descend into the hollow by the craggy and almost precipitous banks was not to be undertaken; and there was no speedier way of affording succor to those who had fallen (if they yet lived) than by pursuing the road to Adrianopolis. Never before did Nathan Dodge drive with such fury down the spur of the bluff as on this occasion. But he was doomed to experience, before he reached the bottom, the truth of the saying, “ the more haste, the less speed.” His wagon, unused to being jolted at so rough a rate over the stony and uneven road, “broke down., This accident, however, did not much delay his progress, as he barely paused to strip the harness from his horse, when, throwing himself upon its back, he galloped on toward the village. On reaching Adrianopolis, the alarm was soon spread, and in a few minutes a party of more than twenty villagers were on their way to the ravine into which Sedley and Overton had been precipitated. The peddler returned but brief answers to the questions asked of him in relation to the affray which had been so fearfully terminated ; for he had not forgotten the consequences that had recently resulted from his over-readiness to tattle, and besides, had his own reasons fox saying little about the strap. The party, in the mean while, moved as quickly up the hollow way as the nature of the ground would permit, and in something less than three hours after the accident occurred, reached that part of the ravine which, far above, was spanned by the bridge whence Sedley and Overton had fallen comliclooks.comn