MISTRESS BROOKES UPON THE EARL.
They were hardly seated when Simmons appeared, saying he had been
looking everywhere for her ladyship, for his lordship was taken as
he had never seen him before: he had fainted right out in the
half-way room, and he could not get him to.
Having given orders to send at once to Auchars for the doctor, lady
Arctura hastened with Donal to the room on the stair. The earl was
stretched motionless and pale on the floor. But for a slight
twitching in one muscle of the face, they might have concluded him
dead. They tried to get something down his throat, but without
success. The men carried him up to his chamber.
He began to come to himself, and lady Arctura left him, telling
Simmons to come to the library when he could, and let them know how
he was.
In about an hour he came: the doctor had been, and his master was
better.
"Do you know any cause for the attack?" asked her ladyship.
"I'll tell you all about it, my lady, so far as I know," answered
the butler. "--I was there in that room with him--I had taken him
some accounts, and was answering some questions about them, when all
at once there came a curious noise in the wall. I can't think what
it was--an inward rumbling it was, that seemed to go up and down the
wall with a sort of groaning, then stopped a while, and came again.
It sounded nothing very dreadful to me; perhaps if it had been in
the middle of the night, I mightn't have liked it.
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