“That a dog might make his presence felt in some way by electrical force is possible I cannot say, but I repeat it,—I seemed to feel that the old coach dog was somewhere near me in these woods, and had a sense that I was there. “I entered the lonely way, when another strange thing began to haunt me. It was the eyes of Searle. I had never forgotten them. I could almost see them again now. Every rattle in the savin bushes seemed to bring them back again. “As I walked along with a witch-hazel stick for a cane, a great light rose like a fire among the tops of the gray rocks and skeleton trees. It was a full hunter’s moon coming up from the sea. After a time it went into a cloud, but the way was still clear. It was almost as still as death. “Occasionally a timid rabbit would cross the way; once a white rabbit leaped out before me, and I felt my heart beat, and thought again of the old coach dog, Searle’s dreadful eyes, and the tales of the Phantom inn, at which I used to laugh when I drove the cape stage. “The way grew more lonely, amid the oaks and the russet leaves, savins, pines, and rocks. In places the road was strewn with fallen nuts, and at some points with rustling leaves. Once the eyes of a white owl confronted me on a decaying limb—I thought again of Searle. “I hurried on, hoping to reach Randolph before midnight, when suddenly I heard a sound that stopped my feet at once and sent a chill over me. It was a hollow tone, like the ringing of a supper-bell, such as used to be common in the farmhouses and inns. “I looked in the direction of the sound, when I saw a little way from the road a window and a light among the trees. I stopped nervously. “‘Is it imagination,’ I asked myself. ‘Is it a dream of the old story? Shall I run, or turn toward the bell?’ “I was frightened and my heart beat, but I am not a man to run. After hesitating for a few moments I turned into the wood in the direction of the window and the light, and found a path there which I began to follow cautiously. “I walked to the place where I had first heard the bell and seen the window and the light, but the window and the light were apparently as far away now as when I started from the road. As I watched I could see it move back, but I could hear nothing. “I stopped again. The window and the light soon seemed to stop. Should I run? No. I would shout. So I cried out, ‘Hullo!’ “The rocks answered my loud call with many echoes. A startled partridge rose on whirring wings from some wild alder-bushes near me. Then all was still, or—did I imagine it?—I thought I could hear the low piteous suppressed whine of a dog. The light vanished. “I knew not what to do. I was unarmed. I went forward very slowly and cautiously, when the path grew soft, and the earth began to crumble beneath my feet. I paused and listened.