The stage coach or The road of life Author:John Mills Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE BETROTHED CONTINUED. On the following morning, (continued Ban- bury) Campbell and myself proceeded on horseback, at an early hour, to the ... more »farmhouse where we had left Miss de Grey, and had the satisfaction of learning that she had had a night of tranquil rest, and was so far recovered as to have been removed to her home about,an hour previous to our arrival. We therefore determined to proceed thither, and make some personal inquiries concerning her. After keeping a cross country road for about seven miles, we entered a tall rustyiron gate, as directed, and wended our way up a wide gravel path, flanked by thick and widely-spreading chestnut-trees. On emerging from this avenue we came in sight of the Rookery, a fine gothic edifice which had defied the winter's blast and summer's sun for ages. A deep and dry fosse, upon whose slope many a garden-flower grew, surrounded the building—a remnant of feudal defence, recalling the jars and ravages of times long since passed away. In the centre of the house was a stone portal, patched with clinging moss, looking grim, and grey, and frowningly upon the ap- proacher. A portcullis, rudely carved and crumbled, surmounted a massive black oak door, thickly studded with iron rivets; and a martin's nest rested on a convenient jutting ledge just above it. At each end of the long building were two thick buttresses, over which the ivy twined and spread, leaving here and there spaces of the old walls visible. Small but numerous windows, deeply set in stonecasements, flashed and sparkled in the light, and high chimneys, jagged and twisted in many a fantastic shape, reared themselves loftily on the sloping roof. On the tall limbs of sturdy oaks and gigantic elms, spreading round and above the house, were countless nests of the ...« less