A number of times he fancied that he caught dull, indefinite sounds in his rear; indeed, he once drew in his horse and listened. But as nothing more followed, he credited the noises to the whispering voice of the night, and so rode on.
At length he came to a place where the timber had been cleared away; fences were erected and the ground broken by the plow. Off to the left was a small group of houses, and above them, strongly marked against the background of stars, was the church tower that he had pointed out to Ben.
“Plowed ground is slow traveling,” he said to himself as he slipped from the saddle, “but as I don’t know the roads hereabouts, it’s the best I can do.”
But as luck would have it, he found a place in the fence where the rails could be slipped.
“A gate,” said the boy, well pleased. “Well, that can mean only one thing; there’s a path hereabouts, somewhere.”
He mounted once more and gave the horse its head. In a moment it had picked out the path, invisible to Ezra, and went plodding along with lowered head. This led across some half dozen fields; at each fence Ezra was forced to get down and lower the bars. At length he found himself in the midst of what seemed a level green. There were scattered houses all about, their windows cheerfully lighted; the doors of some of them stood open, for the night was not unpleasant.
“And there is my old acquaintance, the church,” said Ezra, as he noted a large lantern swinging over a doorway. “And judging from the people passing in, there is a service going forward.”
He led his horse across the green and finally encountered a man bearing a lantern.
“I ask your pardon, sir,” said the boy, “but is there any place of public entertainment in this village?”
“There is,” replied the man with the light. “Directly before you—where you see the door standing open—is the ‘Plow and Harrow.’”