guidance.  We had come to the corner where the path turns.  On one side was the bowling-green, which the girls had taken possession of for their croquet-ground,—­a wonderful enclosure surrounded by high hedges of holly, three hundred years old and more; on the other, the ruins.  Both were black as night; but before we got so far, there was a little opening in which we could just discern the trees and the lighter line of the road.  I thought it best to pause there and take breath.  “Bagley,” I said, “there is something about these ruins I don’t understand.  It is there I am going.  Keep your eyes open and your wits about you.  Be ready to pounce upon any stranger you see,—­anything, man or woman.  Don’t hurt, but seize anything you see.”  “Colonel,” said Bagley, with a little tremor in his breath, “they do say there’s things there—­as is neither man nor woman.”  There was no time for words.  “Are you game to follow me, my man? that’s the question,” I said.  Bagley fell in without a word, and saluted.  I knew then I had nothing to fear.

We went, so far as I could guess, exactly as I had come; when I heard that sigh.  The darkness, however, was so complete that all marks, as of trees or paths, disappeared.  One moment we felt our feet on the gravel, another sinking noiselessly into the slippery grass, that was all.  I had shut up my lantern, not wishing to scare any one, whoever it might be.  Bagley followed, it seemed to me, exactly in my footsteps as I made my way, as I supposed, towards the mass of the ruined house.  We seemed to take a long time groping along seeking this; the squash of the wet soil under our feet was the only thing that marked our progress.  After a while I stood still to see, or rather feel, where we were.  The darkness was very still, but no stiller than is usual in a winter’s night.  The sounds I have mentioned—­the crackling of twigs, the roll of a pebble, the sound of some rustle in the dead leaves, or creeping creature on the grass—­were audible when you listened, all mysterious enough when your mind is disengaged, but to me cheering now as signs of the livingness of nature, even in the death of the frost.  As we stood still there came up from the trees in the glen the prolonged hoot of an owl.  Bagley started with alarm, being in a state of general nervousness, and not knowing what he was afraid of.  But to me the sound was encouraging and pleasant, being so comprehensible.

“An owl,” I said, under my breath.  “Y—­es, Colonel,” said Bagley, his teeth chattering.  We stood still about five minutes, while it broke into the still brooding of the air, the sound widening out in circles, dying upon the darkness.  This sound, which is not a cheerful one, made me almost gay.  It was natural, and relieved the tension of the mind.  I moved on with new courage, my nervous excitement calming down.