“A very good one!” said Donal. “I wonder what the ground of it is! It must have had its beginning!”
“Then you don’t believe it?” said Miss Graeme.
“Not quite,” he replied. “But I have myself had a strange experience up there.”
“What! you have seen something?” cried Miss Graeme, her eyes growing bigger.
“No; I have seen nothing,” answered Donal, “—only heard something.—One night, the first I was there indeed, I heard the sound of a far-off musical instrument, faint and sweet.”
The brother and sister exchanged looks. Donal went on.
“I got up and felt my way down the winding stair—I sleep at the top of Baliol’s tower—but at the bottom lost myself, and had to sit down and wait for the light. Then I heard it again, but seemed no nearer to it than before. I have never heard it since, and have never mentioned the thing. I presume, however, that speaking of it to you can do no harm. You at least will not raise any fresh rumours to injure the respectability of the castle! Do you think there is any instrument in it from which such a sound might have proceeded? Lady Arctura is a musician, I am told, but surely was not likely to be at her piano ‘in the dead waste and middle of the night’!”
“It is impossible to say how far a sound may travel in the stillness of the night, when there are no other sound-waves to cross and break it.”
“That is all very well, Hector,” said his sister; “but you know Mr. Grant is neither the first nor the second that has heard that sound!”
“One thing is pretty clear,” said her brother, “it can have nothing to do with the revellers at their cards! The sound reported is very different from any attributed to them!”