"So I stood by the mantelpiece, wondering idly if this could be Major Fergus's glove, and what scuffle there had been in this strange place to overturn that heavy chair, when I heard a stirring somewhere in the house. It was a curious shuffling tread, halting and slow. A faint tinkling sound accompanied it, like nothing in the world so much as the old glass chandelier in the room at Nether Neuk, when we danced in the parlour above.
"The sound of that shuffling tread came nearer, and I grew so terrified, that I think if I had been sure that the way to the door was clear, I should have bolted there and then. But just at that moment I heard the foot trip. There was a muffled sound as of someone falling forward. The jingling sound became momentarily louder than ever, to which succeeded a rasping and a fumbling. Something or someone had tripped over my box, and was now examining it in a blind way.
"I stood turned to stone, with one hand on the cold mantelpiece and the other on my heart to still the painful beating.
"Then I heard the shuffling coming nearer again, and presently the door lurched forward violently. It did not open as an intelligent being would have opened a door. The passage was gloomy without, and at first I saw nothing. But in a moment, out of the darkness, there emerged the face and figure of an old woman. She wore a white cap or 'mutch,' and had a broad and perfectly dead-white face. Her eyes also were white—or rather the colour of china ware—as though she had turned them up in agony and had never been able to get them back again. At her waist dangled a bundle of keys; and that was the reason of the faint musical tinkling I had heard. She was muttering rapidly to herself in an undertone as she shuffled forward. She felt with her hands till she touched the great oaken table in the centre.
"As soon as she had done so, she turned towards the window, and with a much brisker step she went towards it. I think she felt the fresh breeze blow in from the heather. Her groping hand went through the little hinged lattice I had opened. She started back.
"'Who has opened the window?' she said. 'Surely he has not been here! Perhaps he has escaped! Walter—Walter Fergus—come oot!' she cried. 'Ah, I see you, you are under the table!'
"And with surprising activity the blind old woman bent down and scrambled under the table. She ran hither and thither like a cat after a mouse, beating the floor with her hands and colliding with the legs of the table as she did so.
"Once as she passed she rolled a wall-white eye up at me. Nance, I declare it was as if the week-old dead had looked at you!
"Then she darted back to the door, opened it, and with her fingers to her mouth, whistled shrilly. A great surly-looking dog of a brown colour lumbered in.
"'Here, Lagwine, he's lost. Seek him, Lagwine! Seek him, Lagwine!'