At this moment, the agonized carriage, after several groans that would have moved the heart of a highway commissioner, gave a rush downward, and committed suicide in the most determined manner, by dashing its axle on the ground—­the wheels endeavouring in vain to fathom the profundity of the ruts, and the horses totally unable to move the stranded equipage.  The sudden jerk knocked Reginald’s hat over his eyes against the roof of the carriage, and Jane screamed when she felt the top of her bonnet squeezed as flat as a pancake by the same process, but neither of them, luckily, was hurt.

“We must get out and walk,” said the husband; “it isn’t more than half a mile, and we will send Phil Lorimer, or some of them, for the trunks.”

He put his arm round Jane’s waist, and helped her over the almost impassable track.

“We must try to get the road mended,” said Jane.

“It has never been mended in our time,” was the reply; and it was said in a tone which showed that the fact so announced was an unanswerable argument against the proposition of the bride.

“A few stones well broken would do it all,” she urged.

“We never break stones at Belfront,” was the rejoinder; and in silence, and with some difficulty, they groped their unsteady way.  At last they emerged from a thick overgrown copse, in which the accident had happened, and, after sundry narrow escapes from sprained ankles and broken arms, they reached the gate.  It was an immense wooden barrier, supported at each end by little round buildings—­like a slice of toast laid lengthways between two half pounds of butter.  It was thickly studded with iron nails, and the round piers were of massive stone, partly overgrown with ivy, and as solid as if they had been formed of one mass.

“Does any body live in those lodges?” enquired Jane.

“There is a warder in the inner court,” said Reginald.  “These are merely the supporters of the outer gate.”

“And how are we to get in?”

“We must blow, I suppose.”  And so saying, Reginald lifted up a horn that was hung by an iron chain from one of the piers, and executed a flourish that made Jane put her fingers to her ears.

In a short time the creaking of an iron chain—­whose recollection of oil must have been of the most traditionary nature—­gave intimation that its intentions were decidedly hospitable; and with many squeaks and grunts the enormous portal turned at last on its hinges, and exposed to view a narrow winding road between two walls, which, in a short time, conducted the visitors to a long wooden bridge over a piece of stagnant water—­the said bridge having only that moment been let down from the lofty position in which its two halves were kept by an immense wooden erection, which bore an awful resemblance to a scaffold.  When they got over the bridge, Reginald turned round, and, imprinting a kiss on the pale cheek of the astonished bride, said—­