Page:Moonfleet - John Meade Falkner.pdf/60

 Ratsey went on, "what with this drought parching the ground, and the trampling at the edge when we move out the side stone to get in, but there is no mischief done beyond what can be easily made good. A gravestone or two and a few spades of earth will make all sound again. Leave that to me."

"Be careful what you do," rejoined another man's voice that I did not know, "lest some one 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 some one 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