It lasted throughout the day, and I
remained to witness the result. At sunset, however, the firing stopped,
and, declining Mordaunt's invitation to share the blankets of his
bivouac, I set out on my way back to Orange.
Night came almost before I was aware of it, and found me following the
Brock road to get on the Orange plank road.
Do you know the Brock road, reader? and have you ever ridden over it on
a lowering night? If so, you have experienced a peculiar sensation. It
is impossible to imagine any thing more lugubrious than these strange
thickets. In their depths the owl hoots, and the whippoorwill cries;
the stunted trees, with their gnarled branches, are like fiends
reaching out spectral arms to seize the wayfarer by the hair.
Desolation reigns there, and you unconsciously place your hand on your
pistol as you ride along, to be ready for some mysterious and unseen
enemy.
At least, I did so on that night. I had now penetrated some distance,
and had come near the lonely house where so many singular events had
occurred.
I turned my head and glanced over my shoulder, when, to my surprise, I
saw a light glimmering through the window. What was its origin? The
house was certainly uninhabited, even by the dead--for Mordaunt had
informed me that a detail had, that morning, buried the corpse.
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