CHAPTER 16From noise of Scare-fires rest ye free, From Murders Benedicite. From all mischances, they may fright Your pleasing slumbers in the night: Mercie secure ye all, and keep The Goblin from ye, while ye sleep.
—Robert Herrick
‘Oh, miss!’
‘We are so sorry to disturb you, madam.’
‘Good gracious, Carrie, what is it?’
When you have been lying awake for an hour or so wondering how to reconstruct a Wilfrid without inflicting savage mayhem upon your plot, and have just tumbled into an uneasy slumber haunted by the embalmed bodies of dukes, it is annoying to be jerked into consciousness again by two excited and partly hysterical maid-servants in dressing-gowns.
‘Oh, miss, the Dean said to come and tell you. Annie and me have been so frightened. We nearly caught it.’
‘Caught what?’
‘W
