They were both tired and slept soundly, for they had been working hard at all the preparations for the expected guests. It was Miss Clotilda who first heard through her sleep the loud knocking at the door. She sat up in bed and listened; then, as John Williams had for a minute or two desisted, to wait the effect of his last volley, she lay down again, thinking her fancy had deceived her.
'A small sound seems so loud through one's sleep,' she said. 'I daresay it was only the tapping of the branches against the window. Besides, what else could it be? Dear, dear, how it does rain!'
But scarcely had her head touched the pillow, when she again started up. There was no mistake this time—somebody was knocking, banging at the front door. Miss Clotilda's heart was in her mouth, she could scarcely speak for trembling when she found her way to Martha's door! Good old Martha—she had heard it too now, and in an incredibly short space of time made her appearance in a much less eccentric costume, by the way, than Miss Clotilda.
'I'll see who it is. Don't ye be frightened, miss. Just stay you at the stairs-top till I call out.'
But Miss Clotilda, in her old-fashioned flowered muslin-de-laine dressing-gown, and lace-frilled nightcap, followed tremulously behind; she was only half-way downstairs, however when Martha was at the door.
'Who's there? Speak out, and say who you are and what you want—waking up decent folk at this hour of the night,' shouted the old woman, as if the unseen person behind the door, could have told their business before.
'It's me, John Williams, carrier,' a gruff voice replied. 'And you should know what I've brought you—a young gentleman and lady for Ty-Gwyn.'
He spoke English, as Martha had done so. The question and reply were therefore quite intelligible to poor Miss Clotilda.
'Oh, Martha!' she exclaimed, with something between a scream and a sob, 'the children! What an arrival!—oh dear, dear—what a disappointment!'