[Illustration: Footprint.]
'Twas pretty much after this fashion. It was in a slight dip in the
ground where the soil continued soft. They found it in two other places
coming up to the fatal spot, from the direction of the Magazine. And it
was traceable on for some twenty yards more faintly; then, again, very
distinctly, where--a sort of ditch interposing--a jump had been made,
and here it turned down towards the park wall and the Chapelizod road,
still, however, slanting in the Dublin direction.
In the hollow by the park wall it appeared again, distinctly; and here
it was plain the transit of the wall had been made, for the traces of
the mud were evident enough upon its surface, and the mortar at top was
displaced, and a little tuft of grass in the mud, left by the clodded
shoesole. Here the fellow had got over.
They followed, and, despairing of finding it upon the road, they
diverged into the narrow slip of ground by the river bank, and just
within the park-gate, in a slight hollow, the clay of which was still
impressible, they found the track again. It led close up to the river
bank, and there the villain seemed to have come to a stand still; for
the sod just for so much as a good sized sheet of letter-paper might
cover, was trod and broken, as if at the water's edge he had stood for a
while, and turned about and shifted his feet, like a fellow that is
uneasy while he is stationary.
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