“What was that?” I asked her.
She stared into the fire for a minute or two before she answered me. There was no other light in the room; I sat back against the wall beside the window—the shutters were still open.
“You might not care to hear it, sir.”
“I should if it’s worth telling.”
Turning from the fire, she looked straight at me while she told it from beginning to end, exactly as I have written it above. The tale would have been just the thing for Mrs. Todhetley: who went in for marvels.
“Hill stood to it that it was a dream, Master Johnny; but the more I think of it, the less I believe it could have been one. If I had only heard the call in my sleep, or in the moment of waking, why of course it might have been a dream; but when I heard it the second time it was after I awoke. I heard it as plain as I hear my own voice now; and plainer, too.”
“But what else, except a dream, do you fancy it could have been?”
“Well, sir, that’s what is puzzling me. But for Hill’s convincing me Davy could not have got out of here after he had locked him and Macintosh in for safety, I should have said it was the boy himself, calling me from outside. It sounded in the room, close to me: but the fright I was in might have deceived me. What’s that?”
A loud rapping at the window. I am not ashamed to say that coming so unexpectedly it startled me. Mrs. Hill, with a shrill scream, darted forward to catch hold of my arm.