That was loud and earnest enough.

Her reply he could not bear.
She rejoined him, and the torch came rapidly forward.
It was carried by a lass, with her gown pinned nearly to her knees, and displaying grand and powerful limbs; she was crying, like the tenderest woman, and striding through the snow, like a young giant.
When the snow first came down, Mr.Raby merely ordered large fires to be lighted and fed in his guests' bedrooms; he feared nothing worse for them than a good wetting.
When dinner-time came, without them, he began to be anxious, and sent a servant to the little public-house, to inquire if they were there.
The servant had to walk through the snow, and had been gone about an hour, and Mr.Raby was walking nervously up and down the hall, when Jael Dence burst in at the front door, as white as a sheet, and gasped out in his face: "THE GABRIEL HOUNDS!!" Raby ran out directly, and sure enough, that strange pack were passing in full cry over the very house.

It was appalling.

He was dumb with awe for a moment.

Then he darted into the kitchen and ordered them to ring the great alarm-bell incessantly; then into the yard, and sent messengers to the village, and to all his tenants, and in about an hour there were fifty torches, and as many sheep-bells, directed upon Cairnhope hill; and, as men and boys came in from every quarter, to know why Raby's great alarm-bell was ringing, they were armed with torches and sent up Cairnhope.
At last the servant returned from "The Colley Dog," with the alarming tidings that Miss Carden and Mr.Coventry had gone up the hill, and never returned.