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.’  ’They are a cruel pair,’ another put in, ’and we shall have new gibbets on Ridgedown for leading lights.  Once I get even with Maskew, the other may go hang, ay, and they may hang me too.’

‘The Devil send him to meet me one dark night on the down alone,’ said someone else, ’and I will give him a pistol’s mouth to look down, and spoil his face for him.’

‘No, thou wilt not,’ said a deep voice, and then I knew that Elzevir was there too; ’none shall lay hand on Maskew but I. So mark that, lad, that when his day of reckoning comes, ‘tis I will reckon with him.’

Then for a few minutes I did not pay much heed to what was said, being terribly straitened for room, and cramped with pain from lying so long in one place.  The thick smoke from the pitch torches too came curling across the roof and down upon me, making me sick and giddy with its evil smell and taste; and though all was very dim, I could see my hands were black with oily smuts.  At last I was able to wriggle myself over without making too much noise, and felt a great relief in changing sides, but gave such a start as made the coffin creak again at hearing my own name.

‘There is a boy of Trenchard’s,’ said a voice that I thought was Parmiter’s, who lived at the bottom of the village—­’there is a boy of Trenchard’s that I mistrust; he is for ever wandering in the graveyard, and I have seen him a score of times sitting on this tomb and looking out to sea.  This very night, when the wind fell at sundown, and we were hung up with sails flapping, three miles out, and waited for the dark to get the sweeps, I took my glass to scan the coast-line, and lo, here on the tomb-top sits Master Trenchard.  I could not see his face, but knew him by his cut, and fear the boy sits there to play the spy and then tells Maskew.’  ‘You’re right,’ said Greening of Ringstave, for I knew his slow drawl; ’and many a time when I have sat in The Wood, and watched the Manor to see Maskew safe at home before we ran a cargo, I have seen this boy too go round about the place with a hangdog look, scanning the house as if his life depended on’t.’