“‘N’essary?’” exclaimed ’Sias. “Why, la, bress yer soul, Marse Clebe! dere’s places ’long dis road w’ere ef dis yere nigh beast was to make a misstep, we’d all go ober down free fo’ hunderd feet to the rocks below. No, sah! I’s gwine walk at dis creetur’s head and carry my lantern, too,” concluded ’Sias as the oxen moved slowly and heavily onward as was their manner. The lantern might have been, and probably was, a help to the vision of ’Sias and so to the safety of his party, but it could show only a small section of the road immediately under the feet of the conductor. Nothing could be seen of the surrounding country except that it consisted of densely wooded mountains, whose skeleton trees were faintly outlined against the ground of snow. When their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness the travelers in the cart could see, to their horror, that they were plodding along a rough and narrow road between a high rise of rocks on their right and a deep fall on their left; but the cautious negro guide with his lantern walked by the heads of the oxen between them and the precipice, keeping them out of the terrible danger. For an hour their way lay along this road, and then began slowly to descend a gradual slope, and finally turned to the right and entered a thick wood. ’Sias heaved a deep sigh of relief and said: “Peoples sez, w’en dey gits out’n dif’culty an’ danger, as dey’s ‘out’n de woods.’ But, la! I allers feels as if I wasn’t safe until I was offen dat dar debbil’s shelf, up dar, an’ got down yere in dese woods.” “How far are we from the house, ’Sias?” inquired Stuart. “On’y ’bout a mile, young marster. Get dere werry soon now. Dis yere is all ole Marse John Clebe’s lan’.” “Oh! is it?” “Yas, sah. An’ dis woods usen to be called Wolfswalk in de ollen times, I’s heern says, ‘cause dar was mos’ as many wolfs as trees, an’ de station ober yonder was just named arter dese yer woods, an’ dats de trufe for a fac’.” They jogged through the dark, mysterious-looking woods for some time in silence, Palma only once murmuring: “It is like a dream, or a scene in a fairy tale. I feel as if we should come upon something soon—an ogre’s castle, an enchanted beauty’s palace, or something. Don’t wake me up, please, anybody.” What they did come upon very soon was a glimmering light, that seemed to shoot here and there through the thick, leafless trees like a firefly, had it been summer instead of winter. “It’s a lamp in de big hall; it shines right froo de fanlight ober de front do’, an’ it seems to flit about so ’caze sometimes de trees sho’ it an’ sometimes dey doan’t,” ’Sias explained. And as he spoke the ox cart slowly and clumsily drew up before a large, oblong building of the simplest and plainest style of architecture common among the wealthier class of that region at the time the house was planned. Though the travelers could not, at that time of night, discern its features, yet this seems the best time for their historian to describe it.