Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Reading [Female, English]
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Vocal Characteristics
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EnglishVoice Age
Young Adult (18-35)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
a man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, Looking down into the swift water. 20 ft below the man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord, a rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross timber above his head, and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the sleepers supporting the medal of the railway, supplied a footing for him and his executioners to private soldiers of the federal army, directed by a sergeant, who in civilian life may have been a deputy Sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform, was an officer in the uniform of his rank. Armed, he was a captain. A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as support that is to say vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight across the chest, a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge. They merely blockaded the two ends of the footing planks that traversed it beyond one of the sentinels. Nobody was in sight. The railroad ran straight away into the forest for 100 yards, then curving was lost to view doubtless there was an outpost farther along the other bank of the stream was open ground, a gentle like levity topped with a stockade of vertical tree trunks, loop hold for rifles with a single ambush er through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon. Commanding the bridge, midway of the slope between the bridge and the forts were the Spectators. A single company of infantry in line at parade, rest the butts of their rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightly backward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock. A lieutenant stood at the right of the line, the point of his sword upon the ground, his left hand resting upon the right, accepting the group before. At the center of the bridge, not a man moved the company faced the bridge, staring Stonily motionless. The sentinels facing the banks of the stream might have been statues to adorn the bridge. The captain stood with folded arms, silent, observing the work of his subordinates, but making no sign. Death is a dignitary, who, when he comes, announced, is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette, silence and fix it er forms of deference. The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about 35 years of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit, which was that of a planter. His features were good, a straight nose, firm mouth, broad forehead, from which his long dark hair was combed straight back, falling behind his ears. To the collar of his well fitting frock coat. He wore a mustache and pointed beard, with no whiskers. His eyes were large and dark gray and had a kindly expression, which one would hardly have expected in one whose neck was in the hemp evidently. This was no vulgar assassin. The Liberal military Code makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons. The gentlemen are not excluded. The preparation being complete, the two private soldiers stepping aside and each drew away the plank upon which he was standing. The sergeant turned to the captain saluted and placed himself immediately behind the officer, Who in turn moved apart one pace. These movements left the condemned man and the sergeant standing on the two ends of the same plank which spanned three of the cross ties of the bridge, The end upon which the civilians stood almost, but not quite reached a 4th. His plank had been held in place by the weight of the captain. It was now held by that of the sergeant at a signal from the former. The latter would step aside the plank with tilt and the condemned man go down between the ties. The arrangement commended itself to his judgment is simple and effective. His face had not been covered, nor his eyes bandaged. He looked a moment at his unsteady fast footing. Then let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the stream, racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention, and his eyes followed it down. The current. How slowly it appeared to move! What a sluggish stream! He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and Children. The water touched to gold by the morning sun, the brooding mists under the bank at some distance down the stream, the fort, the soldiers, the piece of driftwood, all, had distracted him, and now he became conscious of a new disturbance. Striking through the thought of his dear ones was a sound which he could neither ignore nor understand. A sharp, distinct metallic percussion, like the stroke of a blacksmith's hammer upon the anvil. It had the same ringing quality. He wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably distant or nearby it seemed both. Its reoccurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death. Now he awaited each stroke with impatience. He knew not why apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer delays became maddening with their greater in frequency. The sound increased in strength and sharpness. They hurt his ears like the thrust of a knife. He feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch! He unclos his eyes and saw again the water below him. If I could free my hands! He thought I might throw off the noose and spring into the stream by diving I could have made the bullets, and, swimming vigorously, reached the bank, take to the woods, and a way home. My home! Thank God is as yet outside their lines. My wife and little ones are still beyond the invaders. Farthest advance as these thoughts which have here to be set down in, Words were flashed into the doomed man's brain rather than evolved from it. The captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside. Yeah, part Two Peyton. Farquhar was a well to do planter of an old and highly respected Alabama family. Being a slave owner. Unlike other slave owners, a politician, he was naturally an original secessionist, and ardently devoted to the southern cause. Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here had prevented him from taking service with the gallant army that had fought the disastrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth and he chafed under the inglorious restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction. That opportunity, he felt would come as it comes to all in wartime. Meanwhile, he did what he could no service, was too humble for him to perform in the aid of the South. No adventure too perilous for him to undertake, if consistent with the character of a civilian who was at heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without too much qualification ascended to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war. One evening, while Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic bench near the entrance of his grounds. a gray clad soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water. Mrs Farquhar was only too happy to serve him with her own white hands. While she was fetching the water her husband approached the dusty horseman, and inquired eagerly from news from the front. The yanks are repairing the railroads, said the man, and are getting ready for another advance. They have reached the Owl Creek Bridge, put it in order, and built a stockade on the northern bank. The commandment had has issued an order which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels, or trains will be summarily hanged. I saw the order. How far is it to the out Creek bridge? Farquhar asked about 30 miles. Is there no force on this side of the creek, Only a picket posting half a mile out on the railroad, and a single sentinel at the end of the bridge, supposed to civilian a man a student of hanging should elude the picket post. Perhaps get the better of the sentinel, said Farquhar, smiling. What could he accomplish? The soldier reflected. I was there a month ago, he replied. I observed. The flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of driftwood against a wooden pier at the end of the bridge. It is now dry, and would burn like toe. The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thanked her ceremoniously bowed to her husband, and rode away. An hour later after nightfall he re passed the plantation, going northward in the direction from which she had come. He was a federal scout, Part Three. As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge. He lost consciousness, and was as one, already dead from this state. He was awakened ages later. It seemed to him by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation, keen poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fiber of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well defined lines of ramification, and to beat with an inconceivably rapid periodicity. It seemed like streams of pulsating fire, heating him to an intolerable temperature as to his head. He was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fullness of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature was already faced. He had power only to feel and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion, encompassed in a luminous cloud of which he was now merely the fiery heart without material substance. He swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation like a vast pendulum. Then all at once with terrible suddenness. The light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and dark. The power of thought was restored. He knew that the rope had broken, and he had fallen into the stream. There was no additional strangulation. The noose about his neck was already suffocating him, and kept the water from his lungs to die of hanging at the bottom of a river. The idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his eyes in the darkness and saul above him a gleam of light, but how distant! How inaccessible he was still sinking. For the light became fainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to grow and Brighton, and he knew that he was rising towards the surface. I knew it with reluctance, for he was now very comfortable to be hanged and drowned! He thought, that is not so bad. But I do not wish to be shot. No, I will not be shot! That is not fair! He was not conscious of an effort. But a sharp pain in his wrist apprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle his attention as an idler might observe the feet of a juggler without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort! What magnificent! What superhuman strength! Ah! That was a fun endeavor! Pravo! The cord fell away his arms part and and floated upward, his hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them with new interest at 1st 1, then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it away, and thrust it fiercely aside. It's in Galatians resembling those of a water snake. Put it back! Put it back! He thought! He shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the diarist pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ache horribly. His brain was on fire. His heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap trying to force itself out at his mouth. His whole body was wrecked and wretched with an insupportable anguish, but his disobedient hands gave no heed to the command. They beat the water vigorously with quick downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerged. His eyes were blinded by the sunlight, his chest expanded, convulsive lee, and with the supreme and crowning agony his lungs engulfed a great drought of air, which instantly he expelled in a shriek. He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were indeed preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things Never before perceived he felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the vein ng of each leaf! I saw the very insects upon them. The Locusts, the brilliant bodied flies, the gray spider stretching their web webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass, the humming of the nats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of a dragon fly's wing, the strokes of the water spiders, leg like yours, which had lifted their boat. All these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes, and he heard the rush of its body parting the water. He had come to the surface, facing down the stream. In a moment the visible world seemed to wheel slowly round himself the pivotal point, and saw the bridge, the forts, the soldiers upon the bridge, the captain, the sergeant, the two privates, his executioners. They were in silhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and gesticulated, pointing at him. The captain had drawn his patrol, but did not fire. The others were unarmed. Their movements were grotesque and horrible. There are forms gigantic. Suddenly he heard a sharp report, and something struck the water smartly within a few inches of his head, splattering his face with spray, He heard a second report and saw one of the sentinels with his rifle at his shoulder, a light cloud of blue smoke rising from the muzzle. The man in the water saw the eye of the man on the bridge gazing into his own through the sites of the rifle. He observed that it was a gray eye, and remembered having read that gray eyes were Keenest and that all famous marksman had them. Nevertheless, this one a counter swirl had caught Farquhar and had turned him half round. He was again looking into the forest on the bank up the sound of a clear high voice and a monotonous sing song now rang out behind him, and came across the water with the distinctness that pierced and subdued all other sounds, even the beating of the ripples in his. Although no soldier, he had frequented camps enough to know the dread significance of that deliberate drawing. The lieutenant onshore was taking apart how coldly and pitilessly with what an even calm imitation purse, aging and enforcing tranquility in the men, with what accurately measured intervals felt those cruel words, attention. Company, shoulder, arms, ready aim. Farquhar dived, dived as deeply as the water roared in his ears like the voice of Niagara. Yet he heard the dull thunder of the volley, and rising again towards the surface, met shining bits of metal, singularly flattened, oscillating slowly downward. Some of them touched him on the face and hands then fell away, continuing their descent. one lodged between his collar and neck. It was uncomfortably warm, and he snapped as he rose to the surface, gasping for breath. He saw that he had been a long time underwater. He was perceptibly farther downstream nearer the soldiers had almost finished reloading. The metal ram rods flashed all at once in the sunshine as they were drawn from the barrels turned in the air and thrust into their sockets. The two sentinels fired again independently, and the hunted man saw all this over his shoulder. He was now swimming vigorous. His brain was as energetic as his arms and legs. He thought with the rapidity of the officer, he reasoned, will not make the Martine. It's error! A second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He was probably already given the command to fire at will God help me! I cannot! An appalling clash within two yards of him was followed by a loud rushing sound, diminuendo, which seemed to travel back through the air to the fort and died in an explosion which stirred the very river to its a rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him. The cannon had taken a hand in the game as he shook his head free from the commotion of the smitten water he heard the deflected shot hum through the air ahead, and in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in the forest beyond. They will not do that again! He thought. The next time they will use a charge of grape. I must keep an eye upon the gun. The smoke will apprise me. The report arrives too late! It lags behind the missile! That is a good. Suddenly he felt himself world round and round the water. The banks. The forest, the now distant bridge fort, and men all were co mingled and blurred objects were represented by their colors, only circular horizontal streaks of color, that was all. He had been caught in a vortex, and was being whirled on with a velocity of advance and gyration that made him giddy and sick. In a few moments he was flung upon the gravel at the foot of the left bank of the stream, the southern bank, and beyond a projecting point which concealed him from his the sudden arrest of his motion. The abrasion from one of his hands on the gravel restored him. He wept with delight. He dug his fingers into the sand, threw it over himself in handfuls, and audibly blessed it! It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds! He could think of nothing beautiful which it did not. The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants! He noted a definite order in their arrangement, inhale the fragrance of their blooms, a strange rose, yet light shone through the spaces among the trunks, and the wind made in their branches. The music of violin harps! He had no wish to perfect his escape, was content to remain in that enchanting spot, until a whiz and rattle of grape shot among the branches high above his head, roused him from his dream. The baffled cannoneers had fired him a random farewell. He sprang to his feet, rushed up the sloping bank, and plunged into all that day. He traveled lying his course by the rounding Son Forest seemed interminable nowhere. Did he discover a break in it. Not even a woodsman is road! He had not known that he had lived in so wild of region. There was something uncanny in the by nightfall he was fatigued, foot sore, the thought of his wife and Children. At last he found a road which led him in what he knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street, yet it seemed no fields bordered it. No dwelling anywhere, not so much as the barking of a dog suggested human habit. The black bodies of the tree has formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon, and a point like a diagram, and a lesson overhead. As he looked through this rift in the woods shown great garden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret in Malaysia. The wood on either side was full of singular noises, among which once twice and again he distinctly heard whispers. His neck was in pain, and lifting his hand to it, found it horribly. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had bruised it. His eyes felt congested. He could no longer close them. His tongue was swollen with thirst. He relieved it's fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth into the cold air. How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue! He could no longer feel the roadway beneath. Doubtless despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking. For now he sees another scene, perhaps he's merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in this morning he must have traveled the entire night as he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments, his wife looking fresh and cold and sweet steps down from the veranda. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. How beautiful he springs forward with as he is about to clasp her, he feels a stunning blow upon the back of his neck. A blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon. Then all is darkness! And Peyton Farquhar was dead, his body with a broken neck swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek Bridge