and obtain torches, so that
the place was bleak and silent, as well as dark, when the friends
crossed it, but they knew every foot of the ground so thoroughly, that
there was no fear of their stumbling into old holes. Maggot led the
way, and he walked straight to the old shaft where his hopeful son lay.

There were three noteworthy points of coincidence here to which we would
draw attention. It was just because this old shaft was so well
concealed that Maggot had chosen it as a place in which to hide his tubs
of smuggled brandy; it was owing to the same reason that the
town's-people had failed to discover it while searching for the baby;
and it was--at least we think it must have been--just because of the
same reason that baby Maggot had found it, for that amiable child had a
peculiar talent, a sort of vocation, for ferreting out things and places
hidden and secret, especially if forbidden.

Having succeeded in falling into the hole, the urchin naturally
discovered his father's tubs. After crying himself to sleep as before
mentioned, and again awakening, his curiosity in respect to these tubs
afforded him amusement, and kept him quiet for a time; perhaps the fact
that one of the tubs had leaked and filled the lower part of the old
shaft with spirituous fumes, may account for the baby continuing to keep
quiet, and falling into a sleep which lasted the greater part of the
day; at all events, it is certain that he did not howl, as might have
been expected of him in the circumstances. Towards evening, however, he
began to move about among the tubs, and to sigh and whimper in a subdued
way, for his stomach, unused to such prolonged fasting, felt very
uncomfortable. When darkness came on baby Maggot became alarmed, but,
just about the time of his father's approach, the moon shone out and
cast a cheering ray down the shaft, which relieved his mind a little.

"Joe," said Maggot in a whisper, and with a serious look, "some one have
bin here."

"D'ee think so?" said Tonkin.

"Iss I do; the bushes are broken a bit. Hush! what's that?"

The two men paused and looked at each other with awe depicted on their
faces, while they listened intently, but, in the words of the touching
old song, "the beating of their own hearts was all the sound they
heard."

"It wor the wind," said Maggot.

"Iss, that's what it wor," replied Tonkin; "come, lev us go down. The
wind can't do no harm to we."

But although he proposed to adva