But do come in ere bed-time, Herbert, and I will sing thee the sweetest of English ditties, and make thee such a sack-posset as never could be made out of old Ireland any more than the song.' But her husband that moment sprang from her side, and shouting 'Caspar! Caspar!' bounded to the furnace, reached up with his iron rod into the darkness over his head, caught something with the hooked end of it, and pulled hard.

A man who from somewhere in the gloomy place had responded like a greyhound to his master's call, did the like on the other side.
Instantly followed a fierce, protracted, sustained hiss, and in a moment the place was filled with a white cloud, whence issued still the hideous hiss, changing at length to a roar.

Lady Margaret turned in terror, ran out of the keep, and fled across the bridge and through the archway before she slackened her pace.

Dorothy followed, but more composedly, led by duty, not driven by terror, and indeed reluctantly forsaking a spot where was so much she did not understand.
They had fled from the infant roar of the 'first stock-father' of steam-engines, whose cradle was that feudal keep, eight centuries old.
That night Dorothy lay down weary enough.

It seemed a month since she had been in her own bed at Wyfern, so many new and strange things had crowded into her house, hitherto so still.