“This is Rosslyn. Where do yew-all want to go next?”
“Grinden Hall. Ask somebody.”
“Ask who? They ain’t a soul tew be saw.”
They waited in the dark awhile; then Davidge got out and, seeing a street-car coming down through the hills like a dragon in fiery scales, he stopped it to ask the motorman of Grinden Hall. He knew nothing, but a sleepy passenger said that he reckoned that that was the fancy name of Mr. Sawtell’s place, and he shouted the directions:
“Yew go raht along this road ovah the caw tracks, and unda a bridge and keep a-goin’ up a ridge and ova till yew come to a shawp tu’n to the raht. Big whaht mansion, ain’t it?”
“I don’t know,” said Davidge. “I never saw it.”
“Well, I reckon that’s the place. Only ‘Hall’ I knaow about up heah.”
The motorman kicked his bell and started off.
“Nothing like trying,” said Davidge, and clambered in. The taxicab went veering and yawing over an unusually Virginian bad road. After a little they entered a forest. The driver threw on his search-light, and it tore from the darkness pictures of forest eerily green in the glare––old trees slanting out, deep channels blackening into mysterious glades. The car swung sharply to the right and growled up a hill, curving and swirling and threatening to capsize at every moment. The sense of being lost was irresistible.