The haunted house, which was not yet in sight, he did not remember, nor was he acquainted with its history, with the exception of Grace’s slight allusion to it.  At length he came to a part of the road which was overhung, or rather altogether covered with long beech trees, whose huge arms met and intertwined with each other across it, filling the arch they made with a solemn darkness even in the noon of day.  At night, however, the obscurity was black and palpable; and such upon this occasion was its awful solemnity and stillness, and the sense of insecurity occasioned by the almost supernatural gloom about him, that Woodward could not avoid the idea that it afforded no bad conception of the entrance to the world of darkness and of spirits.  He had not proceeded far, however, under this dismal canopy, when an incident occurred which tested his courage severely.  As he went along he imagined that he heard the sound of human footsteps near him.  This, to be sure, gave him at first no trouble on the score of anything supernatural.  The country, however, was, as we have already intimated, very much infested with outlaws and robbers, and although Woodward was well armed, as he had truly said, and was no coward besides, yet it was upon this view of the matter that he experienced anything like apprehension.  He accordingly paused, in order to ascertain whether the footsteps he heard might not have been the echo of his own.  When his steps ceased, so also did the others; and when he advanced again so did they.  He coughed aloud, but there was no echo; he shouted out “Is there any one there?” but still there was a dead stillness.  At length he said again, “Whoever you may be, and especially if your designs be evil and unlawful, you had better beware; I am well armed, and both able and determined to defend myself; if money is your object, pass on, for I have none about me.”

Again there was the silence, as there was the darkness of the grave.  He now resumed his former pace, and the noise of footsteps, evidently and distinctly different from his own, were once more heard near him.  Those that accompanied him fell upon his ear with a light, but strange and chilling sound, that filled him with surprise, and something like awe.  In fact, he had never heard anything similar to it before.  It was very strange, he thought, for the sounds, though light, were yet as distinct and well-defined as his own.  He still held a pistol in each hand, and as he had no means of unravelling this mystery so long as he was inwrapped in such Cimmerian gloom, he resolved to accelerate his pace and get into the light of the moon as soon as he could.  He accordingly did so; but the footsteps, although they fell not now so quickly as his own, still seemed to maintain the same distance from him as before.  This certainly puzzled him; and he was attempting, if possible, to solve this new difficulty, when he found himself emerging from the darkness, and in a few moments standing in