The OrangeGirl Author:Bracebridge Hemyng General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1865 Original Publisher: John Maxwell and Company Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com wher... more »e you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER XVIII. CAPTURED. It was late in the day when Melchior Waterton awoke from his lethargic sleep; and when he did, he looked around him in perplexity, wondering how he came in such a rough-looking place, full of hay. His wonderment was not of long duration, for the events of the evening before flashed across his mind with the rapidity of lightning; while a terrible cramp in his limbs reminded him that he had passed a considerable time up to his neck in a horse-pond, which was not an immersion calculated to conduce to personal comfort. The doors of the barn were shut, and the light of day penetrated only through the chinks and interstices in a sickly and unhealthy manner. Melchior endeavoured to rise and stretch himself; but, to his consternation, he found that all his wonted strength and vigour had departed from his limbs ; he was unable to move. When he made this discovery, he burst into a cold perspiration all over ; his teeth chattered with terror, and he became as pale and cadaverous as one from whom the last vital spark has departed. Could it be true 1 was it a reality? or was he dreaming, and mocked by some hideous nightmare, the creation of his overwrought brain ? He tried to pinch himself, but he could not lift up his arm for that purpose. He was powerless as a little child. This horrible catastrophe deprived him of all his courage; he wept like a woman, and the tears streamed from his eyes in floods. What was to become of him t He could not lie amidst the hay for more than twenty-four hours without nourishment; and if he were to call out f...« less