White, but her husband was gone. Two or three
hundred men and boys pass the place at a rapid walk straight down the
broad, new street, toward the hated house of ghosts. The din was
terrific. She saw little White at the head of the rabble brandishing his
arms and trying in vain to make himself heard; but they only shook their
heads laughing and hooting the louder, and so passed, bearing him on
before them.
Swiftly they pass out from among the houses, away from the dim oil lamps
of the street, out into the broad starlit commons, and enter the willowy
jungles of the haunted ground. Some hearts fail and their owners lag
behind and turn back, suddenly remembering how near morning it is. But
the most part push on, tearing the air with their clamor.
Down ahead of them in the long, thicket-darkened way there
is--singularly enough--a faint, dancing light. It must be very near the
old house; it is. It has stopped now. It is a lantern, and is under a
well-known sapling which has grown up on the wayside since the canal was
filled.
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