Country homes -- Fiction; England -- Fiction; Revenge -- Fiction
Gryston Bridge is one of the prettiest scenes in that picturesque part
of the country. A river slowly winds its silvery way through the level
base of a beautifully irregular valley. No enclosure breaks the dimpling
and undulating sward--for it is the common of Gryston--which rises in
soft pastoral slopes at either side, forming the gentle barriers of the
valley, which is closed in at the further end by a bold and Alpine hill,
with a base rising purple and domelike from the plain; and in this
perspective the vale of Gryston diverges, and the two streams, which at
its head unite to form the slow-flowing current of the Greet, are lost
to sight. Trees of nature's planting here and there overhang its stream,
and others, solitarily or in groups, stud the hill-sides and the soft
green plain. A strange row of tall, gray stones, Druidic or monumental,
of a bygone Cyclopean age, stand up, time-worn and mysterious, on a
gentle slope, with a few bending thorn and birch trees beside them, in
the near distance; and in the foreground, the steep, Gothic bridge of
Gretford, or Gryston, spans the river, with five tall arches, and a
loop-holed gate-house, which once guarded the pass, now roofless and
ruined.
In this beautiful and sequestered scene the party from Marlowe had
loitered away that charming afternoon. The early sunset had been rapidly
succeeded by twilight, and the moon had surprised them. The servants
were packing up hampers of plates and knives and forks, and getting the
horses to for the return to Marlowe; while, in the early moonlight a
group stood upon the bridge, overlooking from the battlement the sweet
landscape in its changing light.
Sir Jekyl could see that Captain Drayton was by Beatrix's side, and
concluded, rightly, I have no doubt, that his conversation was tinted by
the tender lights of that romantic scenery.
"The look back on this old bridge from those Druidic stones there by
moonlight is considered very fine. It is no distance--hardly four
hundred steps from this--although it looks so misty," said the Baronet
to Lady Jane, who leaned on his arm. "Suppose we make a little party,
will you venture?"
I suppose the lady acquiesced, for Sir Jekyl ordered that the carriages
should proceed round by the road, and take them up at the point where
these Druidic remains stand.
The party who ventured this little romantic walk over the grass, were
General Lennox, in charge of the mature Miss Blunket, who loved a frolic
with all her girlish heart; Sir Jekyl, with Lady Jane upon his arm; and
Captain Drayton, who escorted Beatrix. Marching gaily, in open column,
as the General would have said, they crossed the intervening hollow, and
reached the hillock, on which stand these ungainly relics of a bygone
race; and up the steep bank they got, each couple as best they could.
Sir Jekyl and Lady Jane, for he knew the ground, by an easy path, were
first to reach the upper platform.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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