Edward Lynde, with the girl and her mocking words in his mind, and
busying himself with all the clever things he might have said and did
not say, mechanically traversed the remaining distance to the village.

The street which had seemed thronged when he viewed it from the slope of
the hill was deserted; at the farther end he saw two or three persons
hurrying along, but there were no indications whatever of the festival
he had conjectured. Indeed, the town presented the appearance of a place
smitten by a pestilence. The blinds of the lower casements of all the
houses were closed; he would have supposed them unoccupied if he had not
caught sight of a face pressed against the glass of an upper window here
and there. He thought it singular that these faces instantly withdrew
when he looked up. Once or twice he fancied he heard a distant laugh,
and the sound of voices singing drunkenly somewhere in the open air.

Some distance up the street a tall liberty-pole sustaining a swinging
sign announced a tavern. Lynde hastened thither; but the tavern, like
the private houses, appeared tenantless; the massive pine window-
shutters were barred and bolted. Lynde mounted the three or four low
steps leading to the piazza, and tried the front door, which was locked.
With the saddle still on his shoulders, he stepped into the middle of
the street to reconnoitre the premises. A man and two women suddenly
showed themselves at an open window in the second story. Lynde was about
to address them when the man cried out--

"Oh, you're a horse, I suppose. Well, there isn't any oats for you here.
You had better trot on!"

Lynde did not relish this pleasantry; it struck him as rather insolent;