‘What are they?’
‘One is the waterfall, which stands so close by that you can hear that there waterfall in every room of the house, night or day, ill or well. ‘Tis enough to drive anybody mad: now hark.’
He stopped the horse. Above the slight common sounds in the air came the unvarying steady rush of falling water from some spot unseen on account of the thick foliage of the grove.
‘There’s something awful in the timing o’ that sound, ain’t there, miss?’
‘When you say there is, there really seems to be. You said there were two—what is the other horrid sound?’
‘The pumping-engine. That’s close by the Old House, and sends water up the hill and all over the Great House. We shall hear that directly.... There, now hark again.’
From the same direction down the dell they could now hear the whistling creak of cranks, repeated at intervals of half-a-minute, with a sousing noise between each: a creak, a souse, then another creak, and so on continually.
‘Now if anybody could make shift to live through the other sounds, these would finish him off, don’t you think so, miss? That machine goes on night and day, summer and winter, and is hardly ever greased or visited. Ah, it tries the nerves at night, especially if you are not very well; though we don’t often hear it at the Great House.’
‘That sound is certainly very dismal. They might have the wheel greased. Does Miss Aldclyffe take any interest in these things?’
‘Well, scarcely; you see her father doesn’t attend to that sort of thing as he used to. The engine was once quite his hobby. But now he’s getten old and very seldom goes there.’