“Thumpety, thumpety, thump, thump, thump!” said Josh. “Sounds like somebody beating a bit of carpet indoors. Why, it’s only echoes.”
“Pooh! What could make echoes like that?”
“The great axle of the wheel worked a little loose in its bearings through the weight of the water.”
“Nonsense! Can’t be that.”
“All right! What is it, then?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. It’s a nocturnal noise, isn’t it, Mr Manners?”
“Well, it’s a noise,” said the artist, “as if someone was hammering with a wooden mallet. I heard it quite plainly just now, and it seemed to come from below there, out of the darkness down at the bottom of the dam.”
“Oh, no,” cried Josh, “it was from right up yonder, ever so high.”
“No, no,” said Will; “it seemed to me to come from just opposite where we are standing now.”
“Echo,” said the artist, laconically.