These were flush with the floor and bolted firmly.

The silence was intense, it being so near the roof and so far away from the inhabited parts of the house.

Yet there were sometimes strange acoustical effects--as when there came a low tapping at the shutters, enough to make your heart stand still.

There was then nothing for it but to dash through the doorway into the empty cheese-room adjoining, which was better lighted.
No doubt it was nothing but the labourers knocking the stakes in for the railing round the rickyard, but why did it sound just exactly outside the shutters?
When that ceased the staircase creaked, or the pear-tree boughs rustled against the window.

The staircase always waited till you had forgotten all about it before the loose worm-eaten planks sprang back to their place.
Had it not been for the merry whistling of the starlings on the thatch above, it would not have been possible to face the gloom and the teeth of Reynard, ever in the act to snap, and the mystic noises, and the sense of guilt--for the gun was forbidden.