hings to see after all that groping in the blackness
of night. On I went cautiously, feeling my way before me, till suddenly
I stopped dead, frightened terribly, for close to me, almost within
touch as it seemed, some men were talking to each other. They were
evidently sitting just above my head, in the cool morning, watching
for me to come through my window, as I suppose. They were some of Sir
Travers's sentries. A moment's thought told me that I had little to
fear from them, if I moved quietly in my burrow. However, as my walk was
often noisy, through stumblings on stones, I waited till they moved off,
which was not for some minutes. One of the men was asking the other what
was the truth about the Duke.

"Why," his mate answered, "they say as he got beat back coming towards
London. They say he be going to Bridgewater, now, to make it a castle,
like; or perhaps he be a coming to Taunton. They say he have only a mob,
like, left to en, what with all this rain. But I do-an't know. He be
very like to come here agen; so as us'll have to watch for our stock."

"Ah?" said the first. "They did say as there was soldiers come to
Evilminster. So as to shut en off, like. I seed fires out that way,
myself, like camp-fires, afore it grew light. They do say the soldiers
be all for the Duke."

"Yes," the other answered, "he be very like to win if it come to a
battle. He'd a got on to London, I dare-say, if the roads had but been
dry."

"What do ee say to a bit of tobaccy, master?" said the first, after a
pause.

"Why, very well," said the other. At this instant, without any warning,
something in the wall of my passage gave way, some bit of rotten mortar
which held up a stone, or something of the sort. At any rate, a stone
fell out, with a little rush of rotten plaster, making a good deal of
noise, though of course it seemed more to me than to the men outside.

"What ever in the world was that?" said one of them.

"I dunno," said the other. "It seemed to come from down below somewhere,
under the earth, like. Do you think as it could be a rabbit?"

"It did sound like a stone falling out of a wall," came the answer. "I
dunno. Where could it a come from?"

They seemed to search about for some trace of a rabbit; but not finding
any, they listened for another stone to fall.

"I tell you what I think," said the first man. "I believe as there be
underground passages all over these here gardens. Some of them walks
sound just as hol