It is perhaps only by the sheer grace of God alone that Irving doesn't drop his tea in alarm from the terrible, thunderous force of banging that abruptly explodes from somewhere outside the cabin, though his hands begin to shake so fitfully that hot tea sloshes over the rim of his teacup and drips down the back of his hand and between his fingers, making a sound unpleasantly similar to sizzling bacon grease. The cup rattles against its saucer with a harsh clatter as he hastily sets it down to wipe himself off almost absently with a handkerchief, somehow barely even seeming pained so much as merely fussed into a state of high-strung restlessness by a sudden onset of raw nerves.

Merry yaps shrilly at the front door several times before proceeding to do a frenetic lap around the room to yelp and growl at all the windows, too, for good measure, all the noise making Irving bristle and re-bristle as effectively as swallowing a mouthful of powdered glass. His unsoiled hand raises itself up to hover indecisively somewhere between his racing heart and his shock-slack open mouth, a look of pure prey animal fear etched into every twitch of his expression and body language.

"If I didn't know any better, I-I'd almost say that sounded like... cannon-fire," Irving says in a quiet, nigh-reverent voice, his eyes gone wide enough to rival the saucers still sitting on the table in front of them. He looks back to Fitzjames, unblinking. "Th-though surely not. Could it have come from a falling tree?"