Its huge mass loomed up dark and sullen amid the trees which surrounded it, looking more like some giant sarcophagus than a human habitation.
To our overwrought nerves there was something of terror in its mere bulk and its silence.

We stood for some little time peering at it through the darkness, and then we made our way back to the parlour again, where we sat waiting--waiting, we knew not for what, and yet with absolute conviction that some terrible experience was in store for us.
It was twelve o'clock or thereabout when my sister suddenly sprang to her feet and held up her fingers to bespeak attention.
"Do you hear nothing ?" she asked.
I strained my ears, but without success.
"Come to the door," she cried, with a trembling voice.

"Now can you hear anything ?" In the deep silence of the night I distinctly heard a dull, murmuring, clattering sound, continuous apparently, but very faint and low.
"What is it ?" I asked, in a subdued voice.
"It's the sound of a man running towards us," she answered, and then, suddenly dropping the last semblance of self-command, she tell upon her knees beside the table and began praying aloud with that frenzied earnestness which intense, overpowering fear can produce, breaking off now and again into half-hysterical whimperings.
I could distinguish the sound clearly enough now to know that her quick, feminine perception had not deceived her, and that it was indeed caused by a running man.
On he came, and on down the high road, his footfalls ringing out clearer and sharper every moment.

An urgent messenger he must be, for he neither paused nor slackened his pace.
The quick, crisp rattle was changed suddenly to a dull, muffled murmur.
He had reached the point where sand had been recently laid down for a hundred yards or so.

In a few moments, however, he was back on hard ground again and his flying feet came nearer and ever nearer.
He must, I reflected, be abreast of the head of the lane now.