n of the terrified
peasants as they passed it by night, the appearance of supernatural
beings, stood to the left, in the centre of an antiquated church-yard,
in which there had not been a corpse buried for nearly half a century--a
circumstance which always invests a graveyard with a more fearful
character. As Woodward gazed at these still and lonely relics of the
dead, upon which the faint rays of the moon gleamed with a spectral and
melancholy light, he could not help feeling that the sight itself, and
the associations connected with it, were calculated to fill weak minds
with strong feelings of supernatural terror. His, however, was not a
mind accessible to any such impressions; but at the same time he could
make allowance for them among those who had seldom any other notions to
guide them on such subjects than those of superstition and ignorance.

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?"