Mr. Buxton pointed to a turret peeping between two high gables, above his own room.
“And what does it sound like?”
“It is deep, and has a dash of sourness or shrillness in it. I cannot describe it. Above all, it is marvellous loud.”
“Then, if we hear it, we shall know the priest-hunters are on us?” asked Mary. Mr. Buxton bowed.
“Or that the house is afire,” he said, “or that the French or Spanish are landed.”
To tell the truth, he was just slightly uneasy. Isabel had been far more silent than he had ever known her, and her nerves were plainly at an acute tension; she started violently even now, when a servant came out between two yew-hedges to call Mr. Buxton in. Her alarm had affected him, and besides, he knew something of the extraordinary skill and patience of Walsingham’s agents, and even the story of the ferry had startled him. Could it really be, he had wondered as he tossed to and fro in the hot night, that this innocent priest had thrown off his pursuers so completely as had appeared? In the morning he had sent down a servant to the inn to inquire whether anything had been seen or heard of a disquieting nature; now the servant had come to tell him, as he had ordered, privately. He went with the man in through the hall-door, leaving the others to walk in the avenue, and then faced him.
“Well?” he said sharply.
“No, sir, there is nothing. There is a party there travelling on to Brighthelmstone this afternoon, and four drovers who came in last night, sir; and two gentlemen travelling across country; but they left early this morning.”
“They left, you say?”
“They left at eight o’clock, sir.”