We soon scaled the loft, but after-proceedings were not so easy. The
loft was a make-shift, temporary one, consisting of loose planks
resting upon the cross rafters of the roof, and at a considerable
height from the floor upon which the smugglers were carousing. It
would, no doubt, have been easy enough to have slid down by a rope;
but this would place the first three or four men, if no more, at the
mercy of the contrabandists, who, I could see through the wide chinks,
were all armed, and not so drunk but that they thoroughly knew what
they were about. It behoved us to be cool, and consider well the best
course to pursue. Whilst doing so, I had leisure to contemplate the
scene below. Wyatt was not there; but around a table, lighted by two
dip-candles stuck in the necks of black bottles, and provided with
abundance of liquor, tobacco, tin pannikins, and clay-pipes, sat
twelve or thirteen ill-favoured fellows, any one of whom a prudent man
would, I am very sure, have rather trusted with a shilling than a
sovereign. The unfortunate doctor, pale and sepulchral as the death
he evidently dreaded to be near at hand, was sitting propped up in a
rude arm-chair; and Ransome, worse, I thought, than when I had seen
him a few weeks previously, was reclining on a chest, in front of
which stood his wife and daughter in a condition of feverish
excitement.
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