The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge, by
Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

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Title: The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge
1895

Author: Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

Illustrator: A. B. Frost

Release Date: November 26, 2007 [EBook #23630]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PHANTOMS OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE ***

Produced by David Widger

THE PHANTOMS OF THE FOOT-BRIDGE

By Charles Egbert Craddock

1895

Across the narrow gorge the little foot-bridge stretched-a brace of
logs, the upper surface hewn, and a slight hand-rail formed of a cedar
pole. A flimsy structure, one might think, looking down at the dark and
rocky depths beneath, through which flowed the mountain stream, swift
and strong, but it was doubtless substantial enough for all ordinary
usage, and certainly sufficient for the imponderable and elusive
travellers who by common report frequented it.

"We ain't likely ter meet nobody. Few folks kem this way nowadays,
'thout it air jes' ter ford the creek down along hyar a piece, sence
harnts an' sech onlikely critters hev been viewed a-crossin' the
foot-bredge. An' it hev got the name o' bein' toler'ble onlucky, too,"
said Roxby.

His interlocutor drew back slightly. He had his own reasons to recoil
from the subject of death. For him it was invested with a more immediate
terror than is usual to many of the living, with that flattering
persuasion of immortality in every strong pulsation repudiating all
possibility of cessation. Then, lifting his gloomy, long-lashed eyes to
the bridge far up the stream, he asked, "Whose 'harms?"

His voice had a low, repressed cadence, as of one who speaks seldom,
grave, even melancholy, and little indicative of the averse interest
that had kindled in his sombre eyes. In comparison the drawl of the
mountaineer, who had found him heavy company by the way, seemed imbued
with an abnormal vivacity, and keyed a tone or two higher than was its
wont.

"Thar ain't a few," he replied, with a sudden glow of the pride of the
cicerone. "Thar's a graveyard t'other side o' the gorge, an' n