“Yes, ma’am,” said the old housekeeper respectfully, but speaking in a very slow, impressive tone; “because it is their nature to howl when they know there’s death on the way.”
“Gertrude, my dear, for goodness’ sake don’t you be superstitious. It’s absurd. It is what you have just heard—an old woman’s tale. Why, if dogs howled because there was death about, they’d pass their days doing nothing else, and wouldn’t have time even to wag their tails.”
“Denton, you are old enough to know better.”
“Yes, ma’am, I’m seventy years and three months old, and I suppose I ought to know better, but I don’t.”
“There is nothing to mind, Denton,” said Gertrude gently. “Poor Bruno quite startled me for the moment, but he has settled down now, and—”
She stopped short, for the dog again uttered the same long, low howl—a cry which sounded more impressive than the one they had heard before.
Gertrude’s face looked ghastly, and for a moment she reeled and caught at Mrs Hampton’s trembling hand, while the old housekeeper sank upon her knees and buried her face in her apron.
Gertrude was the first to recover her presence of mind.
“How childish!” she said, as she crossed to the old woman where she knelt. “Denton, dear, don’t think so seriously of such a trifle. There is no truth in these old superstitious ideas.”
“No truth, my dear?” said the old woman, taking and kissing the hand laid upon her shoulder. “Was there no truth in my shutting poor Bruno up in the shed, and his getting out by tearing his way under the side, and howling in the garden the night poor dear master died? I know what you will both say to me, that I am a silly old woman; but I have seen and heard strange things in my time, and I hope, with all my heart, that this is not a sign of ill having come to some one we know, whether it’s to young master or Mr Saul. But, mark my words, we shall hear something terrible, and before long.”