ten o'clock
Nicholas went on steadily , spurred by superstitious terror of the silence . He remembered that Uncle Ish had said there were no `` ha ` nts '' along this road , but the assurance was barren of comfort . Old Uncle Dan ' l Mule had certainly seen a figure in a white sheet rise up out of that decayed oak stump in the hollow , for he had sworn to it in the boy 's presence in Aunt Rhody Sand 's cabin the night of her daughter Viny 's wedding . As for Viny 's husband Saul , he had declared that one night after ten o'clock , when he was coming through this wood , the `` booger-boos '' had got after him and chased him home . At the end of the wood the road came out upon the open again , and in the distance Nicholas could see , like burnished squares , the windows of his father 's house . Between the thicket and the house there was a long stretch of clearing , which had been once planted in corn , and now supported a headless army of dry stubble , amid a dull-brown waste of broomsedge . The last pale vestige of the afterglow , visible across the level country , swept the arid field and softened the harsh outlines of the landscape .