The doctor was scuffling his feet on the ground, and Rampole picked up the valise to go on. It was not pleasant, talking here. Voices boomed too loudly; and, besides, you had an uncomfortable sensation that you were being overheard.
"That," added Dr. Fell, after a few wheezing steps, "was what did for the prison."
"How so?"
"When they cut down a person after they'd hanged him, they just let him drop into the well. Once the cholera got started.."
Rampole felt a qualm in his stomach, almost a physical nausea. He knew that he was warm despite the cool air. A whispering ran among the trees, lightly.
"I live not far from here," the other continued, as though he had mentioned nothing out of the way. He even spoke comfortably, like one pointing out the beauties of a city. "We're on the outskirts of the village. You can see the gallows side of the prison very well from there — and the window of the Governor's Room too."
Half a mile on, they turned off the road and struck up through a lane. Here was a crooked, sleepy old house, with plaster and oak beams above, and ivy-grown stone below. The moon was pale on its diamond-paned windows; evergreens grew close about its door, and the unkempt lawn showed white with daisies. Some sort of night bird complained in its sleep, twittering in the ivy.
"We won't wake my wife," said Dr. Fell. "She'll have left a cold supper in the kitchen, with plenty of beer.”
“What's the matter?"
He started. He wheezed, and gave an almost convulsive jump, because Rampole could hear the slither of one cane in the wet grass. The American was staring out across the meadows to where — less than a quarter of a mile away — the side of Chatterham prison rose above the Scotch firs round Hag's Nook.