“Is that you, Braim?” asked the man above.
“Aye, sir.”
“Anybody else with you?”
“Theer be fower on us, sir.”
“All right. Close up, and I’ll be down with you in a minute.”
There were sounds now in the cellar below of several men moving about and talking in low tones. Then the man above moved back a step or two from the opening in the floor; and Freda, whose curiosity had grown stronger than her caution, peeped out far enough to see him take from a shelf a small revolver, which he secreted about his person. Then he lowered the rope-ladder, let himself down into the cellar by it, and immediately threw it up again so deftly that it landed safely on the floor he had left. Freda heard a chorus of demands for “soomat to warm them,” and by the sounds which followed she could soon tell that drinking had begun. Being now able to lift her head without fear, she could make out a good deal of their talk, although the strong dialect in which all but the leader spoke often puzzled her. As the talk went on and the drink went round, the men seemed to get more and more excited; but just as they had done at the “Barley Mow,” they lowered their voices as they grew warm in discussion, until Freda, whose interest and curiosity had become deeply excited, crept softly out of her hiding-place, and crawling to the opening in the floor, listened with her head only just out of the men’s sight.
They were talking about some person against whom they had a grudge, using oaths and threats which, although strange and new to Freda, shocked her by their coarseness. At last her curiosity to see them grew so great that she was impelled to glance down stealthily at the group below. The men were seated at a rough deal table, over which they leaned and sprawled, with their heads close together, in eager converse. It was some moments before she got a view of any of the faces; at last, however, two of them raised their heads a little, and she instantly recognised one as a little wrinkled, oldish-looking man, who wore rings in his ears and walked with the cat-like tread of one accustomed to go barefoot, whom she had seen at the “Barley Mow.”
“Ah tell ye,” he was now saying, “it’s’ t’ same now as were at t’ ‘Barley Mow’ on t’ neght when train was snawed oop. Barnaby Ugthorpe fund him aht, and tawd me abaht it hissen.”
Freda forgot to draw back; her breath came with difficulty: this man against whom they were using such hideous threats must be her friend, John Thurley. From this moment, every word they uttered assumed for her a terrible significance.
“Oh, I’ve no doubt your information is right enough,” said the leader, who used fewer words than the rest, “the question is whether he hasn’t found out too much for it to be any good interfering with him. You see, he’s been about the neighbourhood some time now, keeping very quiet, and he may have picked up and sent off to London enough information to do for all the lot of us; in that case a bullet or two through his hide would only increase the unpleasantness of our position.”