Tregenna fancied, as he watched from behind the security of the latticed window, that he recognized in the fellow a rough-looking lad whom he had seen at work in the Parsonage garden.
The question now was, having got safely into the house, to get safely out again.
He groped about him, found the opposite wall at a distance of some five or six feet, and soon discovered that he was in a corridor, running along the back wall of the house. Following it, he came to a corner, where the corridor, now cutting through the house to the front, with rooms on each side, led to a wide staircase with a handsome carved oak railing.
Here, however, he came to a standstill, not daring to go down. For the hall below led straight into the farmhouse kitchen, and there was no door.
Tregenna caught sight of a couple of men who were busy rolling spirit-kegs into a corner of the great room; and he was prone on the floor on the instant, watching and listening. But though he heard plenty of noise, the entrance of the smugglers fresh from the raid, the greetings of their comrades from the Gray Barn, the rolling of barrels across the rough tiled floor, he saw no more. The outer door was out of his sight, and so was the fireplace; and it was between door and fireplace that the movement of the company lay.
When he became sure of this fact, he stole softly down the staircase, which was entirely unlighted, and concealed himself behind the bend in the massive oak railing at the bottom. By this time the noise of tongues, of tramping feet, of the bringing in of heavy wares, had become so loud that he was not afraid of his footsteps on the bare boards being heard.
As he stepped down upon the stone flags of the hall, the wavering light from the flaring torches in the kitchen fell upon what was now the front-door of the house; he took a step towards it, thinking that he might escape by this way. But it was fastened by a heavy padlock, so that egress in this direction was impossible.
There was nothing to be done but to remain in concealment, and to hope for a chance of escape when the occupants of the house should have dispersed and gone to rest.
For the present he was safe; and although he dared not advance far enough to see what was going on, his ears kept him pretty well informed of the course affairs were taking.