“Yes,” she said. “It is that which weighs with me. I suppose it is all right; but I’m uneasy to-night: so many unusual things are happening. Oh, whatever is that?”
“That” was the running down of the weights in the old English kitchen clock which had been Tia Eusebia’s pride for many years. With a sudden jarring, chirring and dropping noise, these weights dropped themselves, a little door opened, a little man appeared, who jerked himself forward and backward eight times as the bell behind him struck the hour.
“Eight o’clock. What a shock it gave me.”
“We can’t stay here. This place is on our nerves to-night: we had better go. And I should say, go with this man in his surrey buggy, or whatever it is he calls it. It is two or three lonely miles to town: if he will drive us, all the better.”
“I do not feel at ease about it, Hilary. I have misgivings.”
“I haven’t, because I know now that Mackenzie will be looking out for us. It is all right. Come along.”
“Right. Come along.”
“Leave the lamp for Ramón.”
They left the lamp burning, but turned it down: then they went into the corridor and closed the kitchen door behind them.
The first thing which they noticed on coming into the hall was a draught of air (blowing in from the sitting-room) which was causing the lamp to smoke.