Jones's Creek circling
past it, and hardly noticed a long band of creeping men and animals
steal up from the Meeting House branch, past the tannery and the
academy, and plunge into the back streets of the place, avoiding the
public square.
One file turned down to the creek and crossed it, to return farther
above, cutting off all escape by the northern road, while a second file
slipped silently through and around the compact little hamlet and waited
for the other to arrive, when both encompassed an old brick dwelling
standing back from the roadside in a green and venerable yard, nearly
half a mile from the settled parts of Dover.
This house was brilliantly lighted, and the rose-bushes and shade trees
were all defined as they stood above the swells of green verdure and the
ornamental paths and flower-beds.
One majestic tulip-tree extended its long branches nearly to the portal
of the quaint dwelling, and a luxuriant growth of ivy, starting between
the cellar windows, clambered to the corniced carpentry of the eaves,
and made almost solid panels of vine of the spaces between the four
large, keystoned windows in two stories, which stood to the right of the
broad, dumpy door.
This door, at the top of a flight of steps, was placed so near the gable
angle of the house that it gave the impression of but one wing of a
mansion originally designed to be twice its length and size.
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