Leave that to me.'
'Be careful what you do,' rejoined another man's voice that I did not
know, 'lest someone see you digging, and scent us out.'
'Make your mind easy,' Ratsey said; 'I have dug too often in this
graveyard for any to wonder if they see me with a spade.'
Then the conversation broke off, and there was little more talking, only
a noise of men going backwards and forwards, and of putting down of kegs
and the hollow gurgle of good liquor being poured from breakers into the
casks. By and by fumes of brandy began to fill the air, and climb to
where I lay, overcoming the mouldy smell of decayed wood and the dampness
of the green walls. It may have been that these fumes mounted to my head,
and gave me courage not my own, but so it was that I lost something of
the stifling fear that had gripped me, and could listen with more ease to
what was going forward. There was a pause in the carrying to and fro;
they were talking again now, and someone said--
'I was in Dorchester three days ago, and heard men say it will go hard
with the poor chaps who had the brush with the _Elector_ last summer.
Judge Barentyne comes on Assize next week, and that old fox Maskew has
driven down to Taunton to get at him before and coach him back; making
out to him that the Law's arm is weak in these parts against the
contraband, and must be strengthened by some wholesome hangings.
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