Ram was used to the business, and he went off at a trot, breasted the hill, dived down into the hollow, and then passing men going and coming, made for the Hoze, entered by the side door, made his way along a stone passage, and then down into a huge vault with groined roof lit by a couple of lanthorns hanging from hooks.
Here for the next three hours he worked hard, helping to stack the little brandy kegs at first, and afterwards the small tightly packed bales and chests which were brought more quickly now—a dozen of swarthy, dirty-looking men, with earrings and short loose canvass trousers which looked like petticoats, helping to bring up the cargo, and showed by their presence that all had been landed from the lugger—that which was now being brought up consisting of the accumulation on the ledges and at the top of the cliff.
“Much more?” Ram kept asking as he toiled away, wet now with perspiration.
“Ay, ay, lad, it’s a long cargo,” he kept hearing; and the lanthorns had to be shifted twice as the stacks of kegs and bales increased, till just as the boy began to think the loads would never end, he realised that the French sailors had not been up lately, and one of their own men suddenly said—
“Last!”
Ram drew a breath full of relief as the men came out silently, and he stopped behind with one lanthorn only alight to lock the door of the great vault, and then stood in the stone passage, thinking how quiet and still the house seemed.
He went out, closing the door after him, and stood in the garden.
“Wonder whether Miss Celia heard us,” he said; “never thought of it before; they must have tied up old Grip.”
He glanced up at the windows as he went out, then they seemed to disappear in the mist as he made for the track and went downwards, to hear low voices, and directly after he encountered his father.
“Got ’em all right, boy?”