(“Trust him to mind his times of eating!” ejaculated Lord Eskside: “an Englishman never forgets that.”)
“——And just then the door-bell rang. Not expecting nobody, I was a little scared-like. I said to myself, ‘Who’s this a-coming at this time of the night?’ and I called to Mrs ’Arding——”
“Lordsake, man, never mind your thoughts or your Mrs Hardings! get on.”
“I called to Mrs ’Arding, my lord,” said the butler, solemnly, “to wait and see who it was afore they went into supper. It might have been visitors unexpected, as I’ve known to arrive all in an ’eap and never a room ready. It might have been Mr Richard, as is always particular. Beg your lordship’s pardon, that was what passed through my ’ead. Then them as was outside rang again. I’m a bit confused with all that’s ’appened. It was that loud that it sounded like the day of judgment——”
“There are to be no bells that ever I heard of at the day of judgment,” said his master; “leave metaphors, man, and give me facts—that’s all I want.”
“Then they got to knocking on the door, my lord—not using the knocker like people as knows. I ain’t superstitious, though I’ve heard tales enough to make your hair stand up on your head since I’ve been in the north—warnings and that sort. But I did say to myself, if so be it’s for his lordship or my lady—spirits being in the family, so to speak—— Was it something else your lordship was pleased to want?”
“Send for your wife,” growled Lord Eskside, who had rung the bell violently, and now stood impatient on the hearth with his back to the fire, working his projecting lip and shaggy eyebrows. This was so very common an interruption of the more important interviews between master and man, that Mrs Harding came without further call, not sorry of the opportunity of getting rid of a little of her own excitement, and very anxious to know, in a matter of so much moment, “what my lord would say.”
“Look here,” said her master. “What did he see? Not a word can I get out of him but havers. What did the man see? I suppose you were there too, like all the rest of the house—like everybody, in short, except myself. What did he see?”
“He saw naething, my lord, that I can make out,” said the housekeeper; “just the door dung open in his face with the wind and a good push from the outside. It’s been a wild night, and the sounds of the storm were awfu’ confusing even to the like of me. So far as I can discover, there was just something thrown inside, and a blast of weet, and the big door snatched out of his hand and clashed to, and all in a moment before he could say a word. That’s a’ that I can make out. I was in the servants’ passage myself listening and wondering, and a’ in a tremble with the thoughts of visitors or waur. He didna say a word but gaed a kind of skreigh, and I kent something had happened. When I ran into the hall, and a’ the women after me—for ye ken the story of the Eskside warning, my lord, as well as me—there was the wean standing up in the corner against the wa’; and him there glow’ring at it, as if the bonnie bit laddie was a ghaist.”
“And that’s all?”