“It is a place of rest, at least for the dead,” said Nathan, in a low voice, at the same time leading the party back again up the bank, and taking care to shelter them as he ascended, as much as possible, from the light of the fire, which was now blazing with great brilliancy:  “nine human corpses,—­father and mother, grandam and children,—­sleep under the threshold at the door; and there are not many, white men or Injuns, that will, of their free will, step over the bosoms of the poor murdered creatures, after nightfall; and, the more especially, because there are them that believe they rise at midnight, and roam round the house and the clearings, mourning.  Yet it is a good hiding-place for them that are in trouble; and many a night have little Peter and I sheltered us beneath the ruined roof, with little fear of either ghosts or Injuns; though, truly, we have sometimes heard strange and mournful noises among the trees around us.  It is but a poor place and a sad one; but it will afford thee weary women a safe resting-place till such time as we can cross the river.”

These words of Nathan brought to Roland’s recollection the story of the Ashburns, whom Bruce had alluded to, as having been all destroyed at their Station in a single night by the Indians, and whose tragical fate, perhaps, more than any other circumstance, had diverted the course of travel from the ford, near to which they had seated themselves, to the upper, and, originally, less frequented one.

It was not without reluctance that Roland prepared to lead his little party to this scene of butchery and sorrow; for, though little inclined himself to superstitious feelings of any kind, he could easily imagine what would be the effect of such a scene, with its gloomy and blood-stained associations, on the harassed mind of his cousin.  But suffering and terror, even on the part of Edith, were not to be thought of, where they could purchase escape from evils far more real and appalling; and he therefore avoided all remonstrance and opposition, and even sought to hasten the steps of his conductor towards the ruined and solitary pile.

The bank was soon re-ascended; and the party, stealing along in silence, presently took their last view of the ford, and the yet blazing-fire that had warned them so opportunely from its dangerous vicinity.  In another moment they had crept a second time into the forest, though in the opposite quarter from that whence they had come; making their way through what had once been a broad path, evidently cut by the hands of man, through a thick cane-brake, though long disused, and now almost choked by brambles and shrubs; and, by and by, having followed it for somewhat less than half a mile, they found themselves on a kind of clearing, which, it was equally manifest, had been once a cultivated field of several acres in extent.  Throughout the whole of this space, the trunks of the old forest-trees, dimly seen in the light of a clouded sky, were yet