Mr. Raby broke it rather unexpectedly. “But,” said he, gravely, “if I have seen nothing, I've heard something. Whether it was supernatural, I can't say; but, at least, it was unaccountable and terrible. I have heard THE GABRIEL HOUNDS.”
Mr. Coventry and Grace looked at one another, and then inquired, almost in a breath, what the Gabriel hounds were.
“A strange thing in the air that is said, in these parts, to foretell calamity.”
“Oh dear!” said Grace, “this is thrilling again; pray tell us.”
“Well, one night I was at Hillsborough on business, and, as I walked by the old parish church, a great pack of beagles, in full cry, passed close over my head.”
“Oh!”
“Yes; they startled me, as I never was startled in my life before. I had never heard of the Gabriel hounds then, and I was stupefied. I think I leaned against the wall there full five minutes, before I recovered myself, and went on.”
“Oh dear! But did any thing come of it?”
“You shall judge for yourself. I had left a certain house about an hour and a half: there was trouble in that house, but only of a pecuniary kind. To tell the truth, I came back with some money for them, or rather, I should say, with the promise of it. I found the wife in a swoon: and, upstairs, her husband lay dead by his own hand.”
“Oh, my poor godpapa!” cried Grace, flinging her arm tenderly round his neck.