By this time they had passed over the wall and entered the house, where
she brought him a glass and hot water, and left him to his own
reflections. He looked after her vanishing form, asking himself whether
he, as a respectable man, and a minister, and a shining light, even
though as yet only of the halfpenny-candle sort, were quite justified
in doing this thing. A sneeze settled the question; and he found that
when the fiery liquor was lowered by the addition of twice or thrice
the quantity of water, it was one of the prettiest cures for a cold in
the head that he had ever known, particularly at this chilly time of
the year.
Stockdale sat in the deep chair about twenty minutes sipping and
meditating, till he at length took warmer views of things, and longed
for the morrow, when he would see Mrs. Newberry again. He then felt
that, though chronologically at a short distance, it would in an
emotional sense be very long before to-morrow came, and walked
restlessly round the room. His eye was attracted by a framed and glazed
sampler in which a running ornament of fir-trees and peacocks
surrounded the following pretty bit of sentiment:-
‘Rose-leaves smell when roses thrive,
Here’s my work while I’m alive;
Rose-leaves smell when shrunk and shed,
Here’s my work when I am dead.
‘Lizzy Simpkins. Fear God. Honour the King.
‘Aged 11 years.
‘’Tis hers,’ he said to himself. ‘Heavens, how I like that name!’
Before he had done thinking that no other name from Abigail to Zenobia
would have suited his young landlady so well, tap-tap came again upon
the door; and the minister started as her face appeared yet another
time, looking so disinterested that the most ingenious would have
refrained from asserting that she had come to affect his feelings by
her seductive eyes.
‘Would you like a fire in your room, Mr. Stockdale, on account of your
cold?’
The minister, being still a little pricked in the conscience for
countenancing her in watering the spirits, saw here a way to
self-chastisement. ‘No, I thank you,’ he said firmly; ‘it is not
necessary. I have never been used to one in my life, and it would be
giving way to luxury too far.’
‘Then I won’t insist,’ she said, and disconcerted him by vanishing
instantly.
Wondering if she was vexed by his refusal, he wished that he had chosen
to have a fire, even though it should have scorched him out of bed and
endangered his self-discipline for a dozen days. However, he consoled
himself with what was in truth a rare consolation for a budding lover,
that he was under the same roof with Lizzy; her guest, in fact, to take
a poetical view of the term lodger; and that he would certainly see her
on the morrow.
The morrow came, and Stockdale rose early, his cold quite gone. He had
never in his life so longed for the breakfast hour as he did that day,
and punctually at eight o’clock, after a short walk, to reconnoitre the
premises, he re-entered the door of his dwelling. Breakfast passed, and
Martha Sarah attended, but nobody came voluntarily as on the night
before to inquire if there were other wants which he had not mentioned,
and which she would attempt to gratify. He was disappointed, and went
out, hoping to see her at dinner. Dinner time came; he sat down to the
meal, finished it, lingered on for a whole hour, although two new
teachers were at that moment waiting at the chapel-door to speak to him
by appointment. It was useless to wait longer, and he slowly went his
way down the lane, cheered by the thought that, after all, he would see
her in the evening, and perhaps engage again in the delightful
tub-broaching in the neighbouring church tower, which proceeding he
resolved to render more moral by steadfastly insisting that no water
should be introduced to fill up, though the tub should cluck like all
the hens in Christendom. But nothing could disguise the fact that it
was a queer business; and his countenance fell when he thought how much
more his mind was interested in that matter than in his serious duties.
However, compunction vanished with the decline of day. Night came, and
his tea and supper; but no Lizzy Newberry, and no sweet temptations. At
last the minister could bear it no longer, and said to his quaint
little attendant, ‘Where is Mrs. Newberry to-day?’ judiciously handing
a penny as he spoke.
‘She’s busy,’ said Martha.
‘Anything serious happened?’ he asked, handing another penny, and
revealing yet additional pennies in the background.
‘O no—nothing at all!’ said she, with breathless confidence. ‘Nothing
ever happens to her. She’s only biding upstairs in bed because ’tis her
way sometimes.’
Being a young man of some honour, he would not question further, and
assuming that Lizzy must have a bad headache, or other slight ailment,
in spite of what the girl had said, he went to bed dissatisfied, not
even setting eyes on old Mrs. Simpkins. ‘I said last night that I
should see her to-morrow,’ he reflected; ‘but that was not to be!’
Next day he had better fortune, or worse, meeting her at the foot of
the stairs in the morning, and being favoured by a visit or two from
her during the day—once for the purpose of making kindly inquiries
about his comfort, as on the first evening, and at another time to
place a bunch of winter-violets on his table, with a promise to renew
them when they drooped. On these occasions there was something in her
smile which showed how conscious she was of the effect she produced,
though it must be said that it was rather a humorous than a designing
consciousness, and savoured more of pride than of vanity.
As for Stockdale, he clearly perceived that he possessed unlimited
capacity for backsliding, and wished that tutelary saints were not
denied to Dissenters. He set a watch upon his tongue and eyes for the
space of one hour and a half, after which he found it was useless to
struggle further, and gave himself up to the situation. ‘The other
minister will be here in a month,’ he said to himself when sitting over
the fire. ‘Then I shall be off, and she will distract my mind no more!
. . . And then, shall I go on living by myself for ever? No; when my
two years of probation are finished, I shall have a furnished house to
live in, with a varnished door and a brass knocker; and I’ll march
straight back to her, and ask her flat, as soon as the last plate is on
the dresser!
Thus a titillating fortnight was passed by young Stockdale, during
which time things proceeded much as such matters have done ever since
the beginning of history. He saw the object of attachment several times
one day, did not see her at all the next, met her when he least
expected to do so, missed her when hints and signs as to where she
should be at a given hour almost amounted to an appointment. This mild
coquetry was perhaps fair enough under the circumstances of their being
so closely lodged, and Stockdale put up with it as philosophically as
he was able. Being in her own house, she could, after vexing him or
disappointing him of her presence, easily win him back by suddenly
surrounding him with those little attentions which her position as his
landlady put it in her power to bestow. When he had waited indoors half
the day to see her, and on finding that she would not be seen, had gone
off in a huff to the dreariest and dampest walk he could discover, she
would restore equilibrium in the evening with ‘Mr. Stockdale, I have
fancied you must feel draught o’ nights from your bedroom window, and
so I have been putting up thicker curtains this afternoon while you
were out;’ or, ‘I noticed that you sneezed twice again this morning,
Mr. Stockdale. Depend upon it that cold is hanging about you yet; I am
sure it is—I have thought of it continually; and you must let me make a
posset for you.’
Sometimes in coming home he found his sitting-room rearranged, chairs
placed where the table had stood, and the table ornamented with the few
fresh flowers and leaves that could be obtained at this season, so as
to add a novelty to the room. At times she would be standing on a chair
outside the house, trying to nail up a branch of the monthly rose which
the winter wind had blown down; and of course he stepped forward to
assist her, when their hands got mixed in passing the shreds and nails.
Thus they became friends again after a disagreement. She would utter on
these occasions some pretty and deprecatory remark on the necessity of
her troubling him anew; and he would straightway say that he would do a
hundred times as much for her if she should so require.
CHAPTER II—HOW HE SAW TWO OTHER MEN
Matters being in this advancing state, Stockdale was rather surprised
one cloudy evening, while sitting in his room, at hearing her speak in
low tones of expostulation to some one at the door. It was nearly dark,
but the shutters were not yet closed, nor the candles lighted; and
Stockdale was tempted to stretch his head towards the window. He saw
outside the door a young man in clothes of a whitish colour, and upon
reflection judged their wearer to be the well-built and rather handsome
miller who lived below. The miller’s voice was alternately low and
firm, and sometimes it reached the level of positive entreaty; but what
the words were Stockdale could in no way hear.
Before the colloquy had ended, the minister’s attention was attracted
by a second incident. Opposite Lizzy’s home grew a clump of laurels,
forming a thick and permanent shade. One of the laurel boughs now
quivered against the light background of sky, and in a moment the head
of a man peered out, and remained still. He seemed to be also much
interested in the conversation at the door, and was plainly lingering
there to watch and listen. Had Stockdale stood in any other relation to
Lizzy than that of a lover, he might have gone out and investigated the
meaning of this: but being as yet but an unprivileged ally, he did
nothing more than stand up and show himself against the firelight,
whereupon the listener disappeared, and Lizzy and the miller spoke in
lower tones.
Stockdale was made so uneasy by the circumstance, that as soon as the
miller was gone, he said, ‘Mrs. Newberry, are you aware that you were
watched just now, and your conversation heard?’
‘When?’ she said.
‘When you were talking to that miller. A man was looking from the
laurel-tree as jealously as if he could have eaten you.’
She showed more concern than the trifling event seemed to demand, and
he added, ‘Perhaps you were talking of things you did not wish to be
overheard?’
‘I was talking only on business,’ she said.
‘Lizzy, be frank!’ said the young man. ‘If it was only on business, why
should anybody wish to listen to you?’
She looked curiously at him. ‘What else do you think it could be,
then?’
‘Well—the only talk between a young woman and man that is likely to
amuse an eavesdropper.’
‘Ah yes,’ she said, smiling in spite of her preoccupation. ‘Well, my
cousin Owlett has spoken to me about matrimony, every now and then,
that’s true; but he was not speaking of it then. I wish he had been
speaking of it, with all my heart. It would have been much less serious
for me.’
‘O Mrs. Newberry!’
‘It would. Not that I should ha’ chimed in with him, of course. I wish
it for other reasons. I am glad, Mr. Stockdale, that you have told me
of that listener. It is a timely warning, and I must see my cousin
again.’
‘But don’t go away till I have spoken,’ said the minister. ‘I’ll out
with it at once, and make no more ado. Let it be Yes or No between us,
Lizzy; please do!’ And he held out his hand, in which she freely
allowed her own to rest, but without speaking.
‘You mean Yes by that?’ he asked, after waiting a while.
‘You may be my sweetheart, if you will.’
‘Why not say at once you will wait for me until I have a house and can
come back to marry you.’
‘Because I am thinking—thinking of something else,’ she said with
embarrassment. ‘It all comes upon me at once, and I must settle one
thing at a time.’
‘At any rate, dear Lizzy, you can assure me that the miller shall not
be allowed to speak to you except on business? You have never directly
encouraged him?’
She parried the question by saying, ‘You see, he and his party have
been in the habit of leaving things on my premises sometimes, and as I
have not denied him, it makes him rather forward.’
‘Things—what things?’
‘Tubs—they are called Things here.’
‘But why don’t you deny him, my dear Lizzy?’
‘I cannot well.’
‘You are too timid. It is unfair of him to impose so upon you, and get
your good name into danger by his smuggling tricks. Promise me that the
next time he wants to leave his tubs here you will let me roll them
into the street?’
She shook her head. ‘I would not venture to offend the neighbours so
much as that,’ said she, ‘or do anything that would be so likely to put
poor Owlett into the hands of the excisemen.’
Stockdale sighed, and said that he thought hers a mistaken generosity
when it extended to assisting those who cheated the king of his dues.
‘At any rate, you will let me make him keep his distance as your lover,
and tell him flatly that you are not for him?’
‘Please not, at present,’ she said. ‘I don’t wish to offend my old
neighbours. It is not only Owlett who is concerned.’
‘This is too bad,’ said Stockdale impatiently.
‘On my honour, I won’t encourage him as my lover,’ Lizzy answered
earnestly. ‘A reasonable man will be satisfied with that.’
‘Well, so I am,’ said Stockdale, his countenance clearing.
CHAPTER III—THE MYSTERIOUS GREATCOAT
Stockdale now began to notice more particularly a feature in the life
of his fair landlady, which he had casually observed but scarcely ever
thought of before. It was that she was markedly irregular in her hours
of rising. For a week or two she would be tolerably punctual, reaching
the ground-floor within a few minutes of half-past seven. Then suddenly
she would not be visible till twelve at noon, perhaps for three or four
days in succession; and twice he had certain proof that she did not
leave her room till half-past three in the afternoon. The second time
that this extreme lateness came under his notice was on a day when he
had particularly wished to consult with her about his future movements;
and he concluded, as he always had done, that she had a cold, headache,
or other ailment, unless she had kept herself invisible to avoid
meeting and talking to him, which he could hardly believe. The former
supposition was disproved, however, by her innocently saying, some days
later, when they were speaking on a question of health, that she had
never had a moment’s heaviness, headache, or illness of any kind since
the previous January twelvemonth.
‘I am glad to hear it,’ said he. ‘I thought quite otherwise.’
‘What, do I look sickly?’ she asked, turning up her face to show the
impossibility of his gazing on it and holding such a belief for a
moment.
‘Not at all; I merely thought so from your being sometimes obliged to
keep your room through the best part of the day.’
‘O, as for that—it means nothing,’ she murmured, with a look which some
might have called cold, and which was the worst look that he liked to
see upon her. ‘It is pure sleepiness, Mr. Stockdale.’
‘Never!’
‘It is, I tell you. When I stay in my room till half-past three in the
afternoon, you may always be sure that I slept soundly till three, or I
shouldn’t have stayed there.’
‘It is dreadful,’ said Stockdale, thinking of the disastrous effects of
such indulgence upon the household of a minister, should it become a
habit of everyday occurrence.
‘But then,’ she said, divining his good and prescient thoughts, ‘it
only happens when I stay awake all night. I don’t go to sleep till five
or six in the morning sometimes.’
‘Ah, that’s another matter,’ said Stockdale. ‘Sleeplessness to such an
alarming extent is real illness. Have you spoken to a doctor?’
‘O no—there is no need for doing that—it is all natural to me.’ And she
went away without further remark.
Stockdale might have waited a long time to know the real cause of her
sleeplessness, had it not happened that one dark night he was sitting
in his bedroom jotting down notes for a sermon, which occupied him
perfunctorily for a considerable time after the other members of the
household had retired. He did not get to bed till one o’clock. Before
he had fallen asleep he heard a knocking at the front door, first
rather timidly performed, and then louder. Nobody answered it, and the
person knocked again. As the house still remained undisturbed,
Stockdale got out of bed, went to his window, which overlooked the
door, and opening it, asked who was there.
A young woman’s voice replied that Susan Wallis was there, and that she
had come to ask if Mrs. Newberry could give her some mustard to make a
plaster with, as her father was taken very ill on the chest.
The minister, having neither bell nor servant, was compelled to act in
person. ‘I will call Mrs. Newberry,’ he said. Partly dressing himself;
he went along the passage and tapped at Lizzy’s door. She did not
answer, and, thinking of her erratic habits in the matter of sleep, he
thumped the door persistently, when he discovered, by its moving ajar
under his knocking, that it had only been gently pushed to. As there
was now a sufficient entry for the voice, he knocked no longer, but
said in firm tones, ‘Mrs. Newberry, you are wanted.’
The room was quite silent; not a breathing, not a rustle, came from any
part of it. Stockdale now sent a positive shout through the open space
of the door: ‘Mrs. Newberry!’—still no answer, or movement of any kind
within. Then he heard sounds from the opposite room, that of Lizzy’s
mother, as if she had been aroused by his uproar though Lizzy had not,
and was dressing herself hastily. Stockdale softly closed the younger
woman’s door and went on to the other, which was opened by Mrs.
Simpkins before he could reach it. She was in her ordinary clothes, and
had a light in her hand.
‘What’s the person calling about?’ she said in alarm.
Stockdale told the girl’s errand, adding seriously, ‘I cannot wake Mrs.
Newberry.’
‘It is no matter,’ said her mother. ‘I can let the girl have what she
wants as well as my daughter.’ And she came out of the room and went
downstairs.
Stockdale retired towards his own apartment, saying, however, to Mrs.
Simpkins from the landing, as if on second thoughts, ‘I suppose there
is nothing the matter with Mrs. Newberry, that I could not wake her?’
‘O no,’ said the old lady hastily. ‘Nothing at all.’
Still the minister was not satisfied. ‘Will you go in and see?’ he
said. ‘I should be much more at ease.’
Mrs. Simpkins returned up the staircase, went to her daughter’s room,
and came out again almost instantly. ‘There is nothing at all the
matter with Lizzy,’ she said; and descended again to attend to the
applicant, who, having seen the light, had remained quiet during this
interval.
Stockdale went into his room and lay down as before. He heard Lizzy’s
mother open the front door, admit the girl, and then the murmured
discourse of both as they went to the store-cupboard for the medicament
required. The girl departed, the door was fastened, Mrs. Simpkins came
upstairs, and the house was again in silence. Still the minister did
not fall asleep. He could not get rid of a singular suspicion, which
was all the more harassing in being, if true, the most unaccountable
thing within his experience. That Lizzy Newberry was in her bedroom
when he made such a clamour at the door he could not possibly convince
himself; notwithstanding that he had heard her come upstairs at the
usual time, go into her chamber, and shut herself up in the usual way.
Yet all reason was so much against her being elsewhere, that he was
constrained to go back again to the unlikely theory of a heavy sleep,
though he had heard neither breath nor movement during a shouting and
knocking loud enough to rouse the Seven Sleepers.
Before coming to any positive conclusion he fell asleep himself, and
did not awake till day. He saw nothing of Mrs. Newberry in the morning,
before he went out to meet the rising sun, as he liked to do when the
weather was fine; but as this was by no means unusual, he took no
notice of it. At breakfast-time he knew that she was not far off by
hearing her in the kitchen, and though he saw nothing of her person,
that back apartment being rigorously closed against his eyes, she
seemed to be talking, ordering, and bustling about among the pots and
skimmers in so ordinary a manner, that there was no reason for his
wasting more time in fruitless surmise.
The minister suffered from these distractions, and his extemporized
sermons were not improved thereby. Already he often said Romans for
Corinthians in the pulpit, and gave out hymns in strange cramped
metres, that hitherto had always been skipped, because the congregation
could not raise a tune to fit them. He fully resolved that as soon as
his few weeks of stay approached their end he would cut the matter
short, and commit himself by proposing a definite engagement, repenting
at leisure if necessary.
With this end in view, he suggested to her on the evening after her
mysterious sleep that they should take a walk together just before
dark, the latter part of the proposition being introduced that they
might return home unseen. She consented to go; and away they went over
a stile, to a shrouded footpath suited for the occasion. But, in spite
of attempts on both sides, they were unable to infuse much spirit into
the ramble. She looked rather paler than usual, and sometimes turned
her head away.
‘Lizzy,’ said Stockdale reproachfully, when they had walked in silence
a long distance.
‘Yes,’ said she.
‘You yawned—much my company is to you!’ He put it in that way, but he
was really wondering whether her yawn could possibly have more to do
with physical weariness from the night before than mental weariness of
that present moment. Lizzy apologized, and owned that she was rather
tired, which gave him an opening for a direct question on the point;
but his modesty would not allow him to put it to her; and he
uncomfortably resolved to wait.
The month of February passed with alternations of mud and frost, rain
and sleet, east winds and north-westerly gales. The hollow places in
the ploughed fields showed themselves as pools of water, which had
settled there from the higher levels, and had not yet found time to
soak away. The birds began to get lively, and a single thrush came just
before sunset each evening, and sang hopefully on the large elm-tree
which stood nearest to Mrs. Newberry’s house. Cold blasts and brittle
earth had given place to an oozing dampness more unpleasant in itself
than frost; but it suggested coming spring, and its unpleasantness was
of a bearable kind.
Stockdale had been going to bring about a practical understanding with
Lizzy at least half-a-dozen times; but, what with the mystery of her
apparent absence on the night of the neighbour’s call, and her curious
way of lying in bed at unaccountable times, he felt a check within him
whenever he wanted to speak out. Thus they still lived on as
indefinitely affianced lovers, each of whom hardly acknowledged the
other’s claim to the name of chosen one. Stockdale persuaded himself
that his hesitation was owing to the postponement of the ordained
minister’s arrival, and the consequent delay in his own departure,
which did away with all necessity for haste in his courtship; but
perhaps it was only that his discretion was reasserting itself, and
telling him that he had better get clearer ideas of Lizzy before
arranging for the grand contract of his life with her. She, on her
part, always seemed ready to be urged further on that question than he
had hitherto attempted to go; but she was none the less independent,
and to a degree which would have kept from flagging the passion of a
far more mutable man.
On the evening of the first of March he went casually into his bedroom
about dusk, and noticed lying on a chair a greatcoat, hat, and
breeches. Having no recollection of leaving any clothes of his own in
that spot, he went and examined them as well as he could in the
twilight, and found that they did not belong to him. He paused for a
moment to consider how they might have got there. He was the only man
living in the house; and yet these were not his garments, unless he had
made a mistake. No, they were not his. He called up Martha Sarah.
‘How did these things come in my room?’ he said, flinging the
objectionable articles to the floor.
Martha said that Mrs. Newberry had given them to her to brush, and that
she had brought them up there thinking they must be Mr. Stockdale’s, as
there was no other gentleman a-lodging there.
‘Of course you did,’ said Stockdale. ‘Now take them down to your
mis’ess, and say they are some clothes I have found here and know
nothing about.’
As the door was left open he heard the conversation downstairs. ‘How
stupid!’ said Mrs. Newberry, in a tone of confusion. ‘Why, Marther
Sarer, I did not tell you to take ’em to Mr. Stockdale’s room?’
‘I thought they must be his as they was so muddy,’ said Martha humbly.
‘You should have left ’em on the clothes-horse,’ said the young
mistress severely; and she came upstairs with the garments on her arm,
quickly passed Stockdale’s room, and threw them forcibly into a closet
at the end of a passage. With this the incident ended, and the house
was silent again.
There would have been nothing remarkable in finding such clothes in a
widow’s house had they been clean; or moth-eaten, or creased, or mouldy
from long lying by; but that they should be splashed with recent mud
bothered Stockdale a good deal. When a young pastor is in the aspen
stage of attachment, and open to agitation at the merest trifles, a
really substantial incongruity of this complexion is a disturbing
thing. However, nothing further occurred at that time; but he became
watchful, and given to conjecture, and was unable to forget the
circumstance.
One morning, on looking from his window, he saw Mrs. Newberry herself
brushing the tails of a long drab greatcoat, which, if he mistook not,
was the very same garment as the one that had adorned the chair of his
room. It was densely splashed up to the hollow of the back with
neighbouring Nether-Moynton mud, to judge by its colour, the spots
being distinctly visible to him in the sunlight. The previous day or
two having been wet, the inference was irresistible that the wearer had
quite recently been walking some considerable distance about the lanes
and fields. Stockdale opened the window and looked out, and Mrs.
Newberry turned her head. Her face became slowly red; she never had
looked prettier, or more incomprehensible, he waved his hand
affectionately, and said good-morning; she answered with embarrassment,
having ceased her occupation on the instant that she saw him, and
rolled up the coat half-cleaned.
Stockdale shut the window. Some simple explanation of her proceeding
was doubtless within the bounds of possibility; but he himself could
not think of one; and he wished that she had placed the matter beyond
conjecture by voluntarily saying something about it there and then.
But, though Lizzy had not offered an explanation at the moment, the
subject was brought forward by her at the next time of their meeting.
She was chatting to him concerning some other event, and remarked that
it happened about the time when she was dusting some old clothes that
had belonged to her poor husband.
‘You keep them clean out of respect to his memory?’ said Stockdale
tentatively.
‘I air and dust them sometimes,’ she said, with the most charming
innocence in the world.
‘Do dead men come out of their graves and walk in mud?’ murmured the
minister, in a cold sweat at the deception that she was practising.
‘What did you say?’ asked Lizzy.
‘Nothing, nothing,’ said he mournfully. ‘Mere words—a phrase that will
do for my sermon next Sunday.’ It was too plain that Lizzy was unaware
that he had seen actual pedestrian splashes upon the skirts of the
tell-tale overcoat, and that she imagined him to believe it had come
direct from some chest or drawer.
The aspect of the case was now considerably darker. Stockdale was so
much depressed by it that he did not challenge her explanation, or
threaten to go off as a missionary to benighted islanders, or reproach
her in any way whatever. He simply parted from her when she had done
talking, and lived on in perplexity, till by degrees his natural manner
became sad and constrained.
CHAPTER IV—AT THE TIME OF THE NEW MOON
The following Thursday was changeable, damp, and gloomy; and the night
threatened to be windy and unpleasant. Stockdale had gone away to
Knollsea in the morning, to be present at some commemoration service
there, and on his return he was met by the attractive Lizzy in the
passage. Whether influenced by the tide of cheerfulness which had
attended him that day, or by the drive through the open air, or whether
from a natural disposition to let bygones alone, he allowed himself to
be fascinated into forgetfulness of the greatcoat incident, and upon
the whole passed a pleasant evening; not so much in her society as
within sound of her voice, as she sat talking in the back parlour to
her mother, till the latter went to bed. Shortly after this Mrs.
Newberry retired, and then Stockdale prepared to go upstairs himself.
But before he left the room he remained standing by the dying embers
awhile, thinking long of one thing and another; and was only aroused by
the flickering of his candle in the socket as it suddenly declined and
went out. Knowing that there were a tinder-box, matches, and another
candle in his bedroom, he felt his way upstairs without a light. On
reaching his chamber he laid his hand on every possible ledge and
corner for the tinderbox, but for a long time in vain. Discovering it
at length, Stockdale produced a spark, and was kindling the brimstone,
when he fancied that he heard a movement in the passage. He blew harder
at the lint, the match flared up, and looking by aid of the blue light
through the door, which had been standing open all this time, he was
surprised to see a male figure vanishing round the top of the staircase
with the evident intention of escaping unobserved. The personage wore
the clothes which Lizzy had been brushing, and something in the outline
and gait suggested to the minister that the wearer was Lizzy herself.
But he was not sure of this; and, greatly excited, Stockdale determined
to investigate the mystery, and to adopt his own way for doing it. He
blew out the match without lighting the candle, went into the passage,
and proceeded on tiptoe towards Lizzy’s room. A faint grey square of
light in the direction of the chamber-window as he approached told him
that the door was open, and at once suggested that the occupant was
gone. He turned and brought down his fist upon the handrail of the
staircase: ‘It was she; in her late husband’s coat and hat!’
Somewhat relieved to find that there was no intruder in the case, yet
none the less surprised, the minister crept down the stairs, softly put
on his boots, overcoat, and hat, and tried the front door. It was
fastened as usual: he went to the back door, found this unlocked, and
emerged into the garden. The night was mild and moonless, and rain had
lately been falling, though for the present it had ceased. There was a
sudden dropping from the trees and bushes every now and then, as each
passing wind shook their boughs. Among these sounds Stockdale heard the
faint fall of feet upon the road outside, and he guessed from the step
that it was Lizzy’s. He followed the sound, and, helped by the
circumstance of the wind blowing from the direction in which the
pedestrian moved, he got nearly close to her, and kept there, without
risk of being overheard. While he thus followed her up the street or
lane, as it might indifferently be called, there being more hedge than
houses on either side, a figure came forward to her from one of the
cottage doors. Lizzy stopped; the minister stepped upon the grass and
stopped also.
‘Is that Mrs. Newberry?’ said the man who had come out, whose voice
Stockdale recognized as that of one of the most devout members of his
congregation.
‘It is,’ said Lizzy.
‘I be quite ready—I’ve been here this quarter-hour.’
‘Ah, John,’ said she, ‘I have bad news; there is danger to-night for
our venture.’
‘And d’ye tell o’t! I dreamed there might be.’
‘Yes,’ she said hurriedly; ‘and you must go at once round to where the
chaps are waiting, and tell them they will not be wanted till to-morrow
night at the same time. I go to burn the lugger off.’
‘I will,’ he said; and instantly went off through a gate, Lizzy
continuing her way.
On she tripped at a quickening pace till the lane turned into the
turnpike-road, which she crossed, and got into the track for
Ringsworth. Here she ascended the hill without the least hesitation,
passed the lonely hamlet of Holworth, and went down the vale on the
other side. Stockdale had never taken any extensive walks in this
direction, but he was aware that if she persisted in her course much
longer she would draw near to the coast, which was here between two and
three miles distant from Nether-Moynton; and as it had been about a
quarter-past eleven o’clock when they set out, her intention seemed to
be to reach the shore about midnight.
Lizzy soon ascended a small mound, which Stockdale at the same time
adroitly skirted on the left; and a dull monotonous roar burst upon his
ear. The hillock was about fifty yards from the top of the cliffs, and
by day it apparently commanded a full view of the bay. There was light
enough in the sky to show her disguised figure against it when she
reached the top, where she paused, and afterwards sat down. Stockdale,
not wishing on any account to alarm her at this moment, yet desirous of
being near her, sank upon his hands and knees, crept a little higher
up, and there stayed still.
The wind was chilly, the ground damp, and his position one in which he
did not care to remain long. However, before he had decided to leave
it, the young man heard voices behind him. What they signified he did
not know; but, fearing that Lizzy was in danger, he was about to run
forward and warn her that she might be seen, when she crept to the
shelter of a little bush which maintained a precarious existence in
that exposed spot; and her form was absorbed in its dark and stunted
outline as if she had become part of it. She had evidently heard the
men as well as he. They passed near him, talking in loud and careless
tones, which could be heard above the uninterrupted washings of the
sea, and which suggested that they were not engaged in any business at
their own risk. This proved to be the fact: some of their words floated
across to him, and caused him to forget at once the coldness of his
situation.
‘What’s the vessel?’
‘A lugger, about fifty tons.’
‘From Cherbourg, I suppose?’
‘Yes, ’a b’lieve.’
‘But it don’t all belong to Owlett?’
‘O no. He’s only got a share. There’s another or two in it—a farmer and
such like, but the names I don’t know.’
The voices died away, and the heads and shoulders of the men diminished
towards the cliff, and dropped out of sight.
‘My darling has been tempted to buy a share by that unbeliever Owlett,’
groaned the minister, his honest affection for Lizzy having quickened
to its intensest point during these moments of risk to her person and
name. ‘That’s why she’s here,’ he said to himself. ‘O, it will be the
ruin of her!’
His perturbation was interrupted by the sudden bursting out of a bright
and increasing light from the spot where Lizzy was in hiding. A few
seconds later, and before it had reached the height of a blaze, he
heard her rush past him down the hollow like a stone from a sling, in
the direction of home. The light now flared high and wide, and showed
its position clearly. She had kindled a bough of furze and stuck it
into the bush under which she had been crouching; the wind fanned the
flame, which crackled fiercely, and threatened to consume the bush as
well as the bough. Stockdale paused just long enough to notice thus
much, and then followed rapidly the route taken by the young woman. His
intention was to overtake her, and reveal himself as a friend; but run
as he would he could see nothing of her. Thus he flew across the open
country about Holworth, twisting his legs and ankles in unexpected
fissures and descents, till, on coming to the gate between the downs
and the road, he was forced to pause to get breath. There was no
audible movement either in front or behind him, and he now concluded
that she had not outrun him, but that, hearing him at her heels, and
believing him one of the excise party, she had hidden herself somewhere
on the way, and let him pass by.
He went on at a more leisurely pace towards the village. On reaching
the house he found his surmise to be correct, for the gate was on the
latch, and the door unfastened, just as he had left them. Stockdale
closed the door behind him, and waited silently in the passage. In
about ten minutes he heard the same light footstep that he had heard in
going out; it paused at the gate, which opened and shut softly, and
then the door-latch was lifted, and Lizzy came in.
Stockdale went forward and said at once, ‘Lizzy, don’t be frightened. I
have been waiting up for you.’
She started, though she had recognized the voice. ‘It is Mr. Stockdale,
isn’t it?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he answered, becoming angry now that she was safe indoors, and
not alarmed. ‘And a nice game I’ve found you out in to-night. You are
in man’s clothes, and I am ashamed of you!’
Lizzy could hardly find a voice to answer this unexpected reproach.
‘I am only partly in man’s clothes,’ she faltered, shrinking back to
the wall. ‘It is only his greatcoat and hat and breeches that I’ve got
on, which is no harm, as he was my own husband; and I do it only
because a cloak blows about so, and you can’t use your arms. I have got
my own dress under just the same—it is only tucked in! Will you go away
upstairs and let me pass? I didn’t want you to see me at such a time as
this!’
‘But I have a right to see you! How do you think there can be anything
between us now?’ Lizzy was silent. ‘You are a smuggler,’ he continued
sadly.
‘I have only a share in the run,’ she said.
‘That makes no difference. Whatever did you engage in such a trade as
that for, and keep it such a secret from me all this time?’
‘I don’t do it always. I only do it in winter-time when ’tis new moon.’
‘Well, I suppose that’s because it can’t be done anywhen else . . . You
have regularly upset me, Lizzy.’
‘I am sorry for that,’ Lizzy meekly replied.
‘Well now,’ said he more tenderly, ‘no harm is done as yet. Won’t you
for the sake of me give up this blamable and dangerous practice
altogether?’
‘I must do my best to save this run,’ said she, getting rather husky in
the throat. ‘I don’t want to give you up—you know that; but I don’t
want to lose my venture. I don’t know what to do now! Why I have kept
it so secret from you is that I was afraid you would be angry if you
knew.’
‘I should think so! I suppose if I had married you without finding this
out you’d have gone on with it just the same?’
‘I don’t know. I did not think so far ahead. I only went to-night to
burn the folks off, because we found that the excisemen knew where the
tubs were to be landed.’
‘It is a pretty mess to be in altogether, is this,’ said the distracted
young minister. ‘Well, what will you do now?’
Lizzy slowly murmured the particulars of their plan, the chief of which
were that they meant to try their luck at some other point of the shore
the next night; that three landing-places were always agreed upon
before the run was attempted, with the understanding that, if the
vessel was ‘burnt off’ from the first point, which was Ringsworth, as
it had been by her to-night, the crew should attempt to make the
second, which was Lulstead Cove, on the second night; and if there,
too, danger threatened, they should on the third night try the third
place, which was behind a headland further west.
‘Suppose the officers hinder them landing there too?’ he said, his
attention to this interesting programme displacing for a moment his
concern at her share in it.
‘Then we shan’t try anywhere else all this dark—that’s what we call the
time between moon and moon—and perhaps they’ll string the tubs to a
stray-line, and sink ’em a little-ways from shore, and take the
bearings; and then when they have a chance they’ll go to creep for
’em.’
‘What’s that?’
‘O, they’ll go out in a boat and drag a creeper—that’s a grapnel—along
the bottom till it catch hold of the stray-line.’
The minister stood thinking; and there was no sound within doors but
the tick of the clock on the stairs, and the quick breathing of Lizzy,
partly from her walk and partly from agitation, as she stood close to
the wall, not in such complete darkness but that he could discern
against its whitewashed surface the greatcoat and broad hat which
covered her.
‘Lizzy, all this is very wrong,’ he said. ‘Don’t you remember the
lesson of the tribute-money? “Render unto Caesar the things that are
Caesar’s.” Surely you have heard that read times enough in your growing
up?’
‘He’s dead,’ she pouted.
‘But the spirit of the text is in force just the same.’
‘My father did it, and so did my grandfather, and almost everybody in
Nether-Moynton lives by it, and life would be so dull if it wasn’t for
that, that I should not care to live at all.’
‘I am nothing to live for, of course,’ he replied bitterly. ‘You would
not think it worth while to give up this wild business and live for me
alone?’
‘I have never looked at it like that.’
‘And you won’t promise and wait till I am ready?’
‘I cannot give you my word to-night.’ And, looking thoughtfully down,
she gradually moved and moved away, going into the adjoining room, and
closing the door between them. She remained there in the dark till he
was tired of waiting, and had gone up to his own chamber.
Poor Stockdale was dreadfully depressed all the next day by the
discoveries of the night before. Lizzy was unmistakably a fascinating
young woman, but as a minister’s wife she was hardly to be
contemplated. ‘If I had only stuck to father’s little grocery business,
instead of going in for the ministry, she would have suited me
beautifully!’ he said sadly, until he remembered that in that case he
would never have come from his distant home to Nether-Moynton, and
never have known her.
The estrangement between them was not complete, but it was sufficient
to keep them out of each other’s company. Once during the day he met
her in the garden-path, and said, turning a reproachful eye upon her,
‘Do you promise, Lizzy?’ But she did not reply. The evening drew on,
and he knew well enough that Lizzy would repeat her excursion at
night—her half-offended manner had shown that she had not the slightest
intention of altering her plans at present. He did not wish to repeat
his own share of the adventure; but, act as he would, his uneasiness on
her account increased with the decline of day. Supposing that an
accident should befall her, he would never forgive himself for not
being there to help, much as he disliked the idea of seeming to
countenance such unlawful escapades.
CHAPTER V—HOW THEY WENT TO LULSTEAD COVE
As he had expected, she left the house at the same hour at night, this
time passing his door without stealth, as if she knew very well that he
would be watching, and were resolved to brave his displeasure. He was
quite ready, opened the door quickly, and reached the back door almost
as soon as she.
‘Then you will go, Lizzy?’ he said as he stood on the step beside her,
who now again appeared as a little man with a face altogether unsuited
to his clothes.
‘I must,’ she said, repressed by his stern manner.
‘Then I shall go too,’ said he.
‘And I am sure you will enjoy it!’ she exclaimed in more buoyant tones.
‘Everybody does who tries it.’
‘God forbid that I should!’ he said. ‘But I must look after you.’
They opened the wicket and went up the road abreast of each other, but
at some distance apart, scarcely a word passing between them. The
evening was rather less favourable to smuggling enterprise than the
last had been, the wind being lower, and the sky somewhat clear towards
the north.
‘It is rather lighter,’ said Stockdale.
‘’Tis, unfortunately,’ said she. ‘But it is only from those few stars
over there. The moon was new to-day at four o’clock, and I expected
clouds. I hope we shall be able to do it this dark, for when we have to
sink ’em for long it makes the stuff taste bleachy, and folks don’t
like it so well.’
Her course was different from that of the preceding night, branching
off to the left over Lord’s Barrow as soon as they had got out of the
lane and crossed the highway. By the time they reached Chaldon Down,
Stockdale, who had been in perplexed thought as to what he should say
to her, decided that he would not attempt expostulation now, while she
was excited by the adventure, but wait till it was over, and endeavour
to keep her from such practices in future. It occurred to him once or
twice, as they rambled on, that should they be surprised by the
excisemen, his situation would be more awkward than hers, for it would
be difficult to prove his true motive in coming to the spot; but the
risk was a slight consideration beside his wish to be with her.
They now arrived at a ravine which lay on the outskirts of Chaldon, a
village two miles on their way towards the point of the shore they
sought. Lizzy broke the silence this time: ‘I have to wait here to meet
the carriers. I don’t know if they have come yet. As I told you, we go
to Lulstead Cove to-night, and it is two miles further than
Ringsworth.’
It turned out that the men had already come; for while she spoke two or
three dozen heads broke the line of the slope, and a company of them at
once descended from the bushes where they had been lying in wait. These
carriers were men whom Lizzy and other proprietors regularly employed
to bring the tubs from the boat to a hiding-place inland. They were all
young fellows of Nether-Moynton, Chaldon, and the neighbourhood, quiet
and inoffensive persons, who simply engaged to carry the cargo for
Lizzy and her cousin Owlett, as they would have engaged in any other
labour for which they were fairly well paid.
At a word from her they closed in together. ‘You had better take it
now,’ she said to them; and handed to each a packet. It contained six
shillings, their remuneration for the night’s undertaking, which was
paid beforehand without reference to success or failure; but, besides
this, they had the privilege of selling as agents when the run was
successfully made. As soon as it was done, she said to them, ‘The place
is the old one near Lulstead Cove;’ the men till that moment not having
been told whither they were bound, for obvious reasons. ‘Owlett will
meet you there,’ added Lizzy. ‘I shall follow behind, to see that we
are not watched.’
The carriers went on, and Stockdale and Mrs. Newberry followed at a
distance of a stone’s throw. ‘What do these men do by day?’ he said.
‘Twelve or fourteen of them are labouring men. Some are brickmakers,
some carpenters, some shoe-makers, some thatchers. They are all known
to me very well. Nine of ’em are of your own congregation.’
‘I can’t help that,’ said Stockdale.
‘O, I know you can’t. I only told you. The others are more
church-inclined, because they supply the pa’son with all the spirits he
requires, and they don’t wish to show unfriendliness to a customer.’
‘How do you choose ’em?’ said Stockdale.
‘We choose ’em for their closeness, and because they are strong and
surefooted, and able to carry a heavy load a long way without being
tired.’
Stockdale sighed as she enumerated each particular, for it proved how
far involved in the business a woman must be who was so well acquainted
with its conditions and needs. And yet he felt more tenderly towards
her at this moment than he had felt all the foregoing day. Perhaps it
was that her experienced manner and hold indifference stirred his
admiration in spite of himself.
‘Take my arm, Lizzy,’ he murmured.
‘I don’t want it,’ she said. ‘Besides, we may never be to each other
again what we once have been.’
‘That depends upon you,’ said he, and they went on again as before.
The hired carriers paced along over Chaldon Down with as little
hesitation as if it had been day, avoiding the cart-way, and leaving
the village of East Chaldon on the left, so as to reach the crest of
the hill at a lonely trackless place not far from the ancient earthwork
called Round Pound. An hour’s brisk walking brought them within sound
of the sea, not many hundred yards from Lulstead Cove. Here they
paused, and Lizzy and Stockdale came up with them, when they went on
together to the verge of the cliff. One of the men now produced an iron
bar, which he drove firmly into the soil a yard from the edge, and
attached to it a rope that he had uncoiled from his body. They all
began to descend, partly stepping, partly sliding down the incline, as
the rope slipped through their hands.
‘You will not go to the bottom, Lizzy?’ said Stockdale anxiously.
‘No. I stay here to watch,’ she said. ‘Owlett is down there.’
The men remained quite silent when they reached the shore; and the next
thing audible to the two at the top was the dip of heavy oars, and the
dashing of waves against a boat’s bow. In a moment the keel gently
touched the shingle, and Stockdale heard the footsteps of the
thirty-six carriers running forwards over the pebbles towards the point
of landing.
There was a sousing in the water as of a brood of ducks plunging in,
showing that the men had not been particular about keeping their legs,
or even their waists, dry from the brine: but it was impossible to see
what they were doing, and in a few minutes the shingle was trampled
again. The iron bar sustaining the rope, on which Stockdale’s hand
rested, began to swerve a little, and the carriers one by one appeared
climbing up the sloping cliff; dripping audibly as they came, and
sustaining themselves by the guide-rope. Each man on reaching the top
was seen to be carrying a pair of tubs, one on his back and one on his
chest, the two being slung together by cords passing round the chine
hoops, and resting on the carrier’s shoulders. Some of the stronger men
carried three by putting an extra one on the top behind, but the
customary load was a pair, these being quite weighty enough to give
their bearer the sensation of having chest and backbone in contact
after a walk of four or five miles.
‘Where is Owlett?’ said Lizzy to one of them.
‘He will not come up this way,’ said the carrier. ‘He’s to bide on
shore till we be safe off.’ Then, without waiting for the rest, the
foremost men plunged across the down; and, when the last had ascended,
Lizzy pulled up the rope, wound it round her arm, wriggled the bar from
the sod, and turned to follow the carriers.
‘You are very anxious about Owlett’s safety,’ said the minister.
‘Was there ever such a man!’ said Lizzy. ‘Why, isn’t he my cousin?’
‘Yes. Well, it is a bad night’s work,’ said Stockdale heavily. ‘But
I’ll carry the bar and rope for you.’
‘Thank God, the tubs have got so far all right,’ said she.
Stockdale shook his head, and, taking the bar, walked by her side
towards the downs; and the moan of the sea was heard no more.
‘Is this what you meant the other day when you spoke of having business
with Owlett?’ the young man asked.
‘This is it,’ she replied. ‘I never see him on any other matter.’
‘A partnership of that kind with a young man is very odd.’
‘It was begun by my father and his, who were brother-laws.’
Her companion could not blind himself to the fact that where tastes and
pursuits were so akin as Lizzy’s and Owlett’s, and where risks were
shared, as with them, in every undertaking, there would be a peculiar
appropriateness in her answering Owlett’s standing question on
matrimony in the affirmative. This did not soothe Stockdale, its
tendency being rather to stimulate in him an effort to make the pair as
inappropriate as possible, and win her away from this nocturnal crew to
correctness of conduct and a minister’s parlour in some far-removed
inland county.
They had been walking near enough to the file of carriers for Stockdale
to perceive that, when they got into the road to the village, they
split up into two companies of unequal size, each of which made off in
a direction of its own. One company, the smaller of the two, went
towards the church, and by the time that Lizzy and Stockdale reached
their own house these men had scaled the churchyard wall, and were
proceeding noiselessly over the grass within.
‘I see that Owlett has arranged for one batch to be put in the church
again,’ observed Lizzy. ‘Do you remember my taking you there the first
night you came?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Stockdale. ‘No wonder you had permission to
broach the tubs—they were his, I suppose?’
‘No, they were not—they were mine; I had permission from myself. The
day after that they went several miles inland in a waggon-load of
manure, and sold very well.’
At this moment the group of men who had made off to the left some time
before began leaping one by one from the hedge opposite Lizzy’s house,
and the first man, who had no tubs upon his shoulders, came forward.
‘Mrs. Newberry, isn’t it?’ he said hastily.
‘Yes, Jim,’ said she. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘I find that we can’t put any in Badger’s Clump to-night, Lizzy,’ said
Owlett. ‘The place is watched. We must sling the apple-tree in the
orchet if there’s time. We can’t put any more under the church lumber
than I have sent on there, and my mixen hev already more in en than is
safe.’
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘Be quick about it—that’s all. What can I do?’
‘Nothing at all, please. Ah, it is the minister!—you two that can’t do
anything had better get indoors and not be zeed.’
While Owlett thus conversed, in a tone so full of contraband anxiety
and so free from lover’s jealousy, the men who followed him had been
descending one by one from the hedge; and it unfortunately happened
that when the hindmost took his leap, the cord slipped which sustained
his tubs: the result was that both the kegs fell into the road, one of
them being stove in by the blow.
‘’Od drown it all!’ said Owlett, rushing back.
‘It is worth a good deal, I suppose?’ said Stockdale.
‘O no—about two guineas and half to us now,’ said Lizzy excitedly. ‘It
isn’t that—it is the smell! It is so blazing strong before it has been
lowered by water, that it smells dreadfully when spilt in the road like
that! I do hope Latimer won’t pass by till it is gone off.’
Owlett and one or two others picked up the burst tub and began to
scrape and trample over the spot, to disperse the liquor as much as
possible; and then they all entered the gate of Owlett’s orchard, which
adjoined Lizzy’s garden on the right. Stockdale did not care to follow
them, for several on recognizing him had looked wonderingly at his
presence, though they said nothing. Lizzy left his side and went to the
bottom of the garden, looking over the hedge into the orchard, where
the men could be dimly seen bustling about, and apparently hiding the
tubs. All was done noiselessly, and without a light; and when it was
over they dispersed in different directions, those who had taken their
cargoes to the church having already gone off to their homes.
Lizzy returned to the garden-gate, over which Stockdale was still
abstractedly leaning. ‘It is all finished: I am going indoors now,’ she
said gently. ‘I will leave the door ajar for you.’
‘O no—you needn’t,’ said Stockdale; ‘I am coming too.’
But before either of them had moved, the faint clatter of horses’ hoofs
broke upon the ear, and it seemed to come from the point where the
track across the down joined the hard road.
‘They are just too late!’ cried Lizzy exultingly.
‘Who?’ said Stockdale.
‘Latimer, the riding-officer, and some assistant of his. We had better
go indoors.’
They entered the house, and Lizzy bolted the door. ‘Please don’t get a
light, Mr. Stockdale,’ she said.
‘Of course I will not,’ said he.
‘I thought you might be on the side of the king,’ said Lizzy, with
faintest sarcasm.
‘I am,’ said Stockdale. ‘But, Lizzy Newberry, I love you, and you know
it perfectly well; and you ought to know, if you do not, what I have
suffered in my conscience on your account these last few days!’
‘I guess very well,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Yet I don’t see why. Ah, you
are better than I!’
The trotting of the horses seemed to have again died away, and the pair
of listeners touched each other’s fingers in the cold ‘Good-night’ of
those whom something seriously divided. They were on the landing, but
before they had taken three steps apart, the tramp of the horsemen
suddenly revived, almost close to the house. Lizzy turned to the
staircase window, opened the casement about an inch, and put her face
close to the aperture. ‘Yes, one of ’em is Latimer,’ she whispered. ‘He
always rides a white horse. One would think it was the last colour for
a man in that line.’
Stockdale looked, and saw the white shape of the animal as it passed
by; but before the riders had gone another ten yards, Latimer reined in
his horse, and said something to his companion which neither Stockdale
nor Lizzy could hear. Its drift was, however, soon made evident, for
the other man stopped also; and sharply turning the horses’ heads they
cautiously retraced their steps. When they were again opposite Mrs.
Newberry’s garden, Latimer dismounted, and the man on the dark horse
did the same.
Lizzy and Stockdale, intently listening and observing the proceedings,
naturally put their heads as close as possible to the slit formed by
the slightly opened casement; and thus it occurred that at last their
cheeks came positively into contact. They went on listening, as if they
did not know of the singular incident which had happened to their
faces, and the pressure of each to each rather increased than lessened
with the lapse of time.
They could hear the excisemen sniffing the air like hounds as they
paced slowly along. When they reached the spot where the tub had burst,
both stopped on the instant.
‘Ay, ay, ’tis quite strong here,’ said the second officer. ‘Shall we
knock at the door?’
‘Well, no,’ said Latimer. ‘Maybe this is only a trick to put us off the
scent. They wouldn’t kick up this stink anywhere near their
hiding-place. I have known such things before.’
‘Anyhow, the things, or some of ’em, must have been brought this way,’
said the other.
‘Yes,’ said Latimer musingly. ‘Unless ’tis all done to tole us the
wrong way. I have a mind that we go home for to-night without saying a
word, and come the first thing in the morning with more hands. I know
they have storages about here, but we can do nothing by this owl’s
light. We will look round the parish and see if everybody is in bed,
John; and if all is quiet, we will do as I say.’
They went on, and the two inside the window could hear them passing
leisurely through the whole village, the street of which curved round
at the bottom and entered the turnpike road at another junction. This
way the excisemen followed, and the amble of their horses died quite
away.
‘What will you do?’ said Stockdale, withdrawing from his position.
She knew that he alluded to the coming search by the officers, to
divert her attention from their own tender incident by the casement,
which he wished to be passed over as a thing rather dreamt of than
done. ‘O, nothing,’ she replied, with as much coolness as she could
command under her disappointment at his manner. ‘We often have such
storms as this. You would not be frightened if you knew what fools they
are. Fancy riding o’ horseback through the place: of course they will
hear and see nobody while they make that noise; but they are always
afraid to get off, in case some of our fellows should burst out upon
’em, and tie them up to the gate-post, as they have done before now.
Good-night, Mr. Stockdale.’
She closed the window and went to her room, where a tear fell from her
eyes; and that not because of the alertness of the riding-officers.
CHAPTER VI—THE GREAT SEARCH AT NETHER-MOYNTON
Stockdale was so excited by the events of the evening, and the dilemma
that he was placed in between conscience and love, that he did not
sleep, or even doze, but remained as broadly awake as at noonday. As
soon as the grey light began to touch ever so faintly the whiter
objects in his bedroom he arose, dressed himself, and went downstairs
into the road.
The village was already astir. Several of the carriers had heard the
well-known tramp of Latimer’s horse while they were undressing in the
dark that night, and had already communicated with each other and
Owlett on the subject. The only doubt seemed to be about the safety of
those tubs which had been left under the church gallery-stairs, and
after a short discussion at the corner of the mill, it was agreed that
these should be removed before it got lighter, and hidden in the middle
of a double hedge bordering the adjoining field. However, before
anything could be carried into effect, the footsteps of many men were
heard coming down the lane from the highway.
‘Damn it, here they be,’ said Owlett, who, having already drawn the
hatch and started his mill for the day, stood stolidly at the mill-door
covered with flour, as if the interest of his whole soul was bound up
in the shaking walls around him.
The two or three with whom he had been talking dispersed to their usual
work, and when the excise officers, and the formidable body of men they
had hired, reached the village cross, between the mill and Mrs.
Newberry’s house, the village wore the natural aspect of a place
beginning its morning labours.
‘Now,’ said Latimer to his associates, who numbered thirteen men in
all, ‘what I know is that the things are somewhere in this here place.
We have got the day before us, and ’tis hard if we can’t light upon ’em
and get ’em to Budmouth Custom-house before night. First we will try
the fuel-houses, and then we’ll work our way into the chimmers, and
then to the ricks and stables, and so creep round. You have nothing but
your noses to guide ye, mind, so use ’em to-day if you never did in
your lives before.’
Then the search began. Owlett, during the early part, watched from his
mill-window, Lizzy from the door of her house, with the greatest
self-possession. A farmer down below, who also had a share in the run,
rode about with one eye on his fields and the other on Latimer and his
myrmidons, prepared to put them off the scent if he should be asked a
question. Stockdale, who was no smuggler at all, felt more anxiety than
the worst of them, and went about his studies with a heavy heart,
coming frequently to the door to ask Lizzy some question or other on
the consequences to her of the tubs being found.
‘The consequences,’ she said quietly, ‘are simply that I shall lose
’em. As I have none in the house or garden, they can’t touch me
personally.’
‘But you have some in the orchard?’
‘Owlett rents that of me, and he lends it to others. So it will be hard
to say who put any tubs there if they should be found.’
There was never such a tremendous sniffing known as that which took
place in Nether-Moynton parish and its vicinity this day. All was done
methodically, and mostly on hands and knees. At different hours of the
day they had different plans. From daybreak to breakfast-time the
officers used their sense of smell in a direct and straightforward
manner only, pausing nowhere but at such places as the tubs might be
supposed to be secreted in at that very moment, pending their removal
on the following night. Among the places tested and examined were
Hollow trees Cupboards Culverts
Potato-graves Clock-cases Hedgerows
Fuel-houses Chimney-flues Faggot-ricks
Bedrooms Rainwater-butts Haystacks
Apple-lofts Pigsties Coppers and ovens.
After breakfast they recommenced with renewed vigour, taking a new
line; that is to say, directing their attention to clothes that might
be supposed to have come in contact with the tubs in their removal from
the shore, such garments being usually tainted with the spirit, owing
to its oozing between the staves. They now sniffed at—
Smock-frocks Smiths’ and shoemakers’ aprons Old shirts and
waistcoats Knee-naps and hedging-gloves Coats and hats Tarpaulins
Breeches and leggings Market-cloaks Women’s shawls and
gowns Scarecrows
And as soon as the mid-day meal was over, they pushed their search into
places where the spirits might have been thrown away in alarm:-
Horse-ponds Mixens Sinks in yards Stable-drains Wet
ditches Road-scrapings, and Cinder-heaps Cesspools Back-door
gutters.
But still these indefatigable excisemen discovered nothing more than
the original tell-tale smell in the road opposite Lizzy’s house, which
even yet had not passed off.
‘I’ll tell ye what it is, men,’ said Latimer, about three o’clock in
the afternoon, ‘we must begin over again. Find them tubs I will.’
The men, who had been hired for the day, looked at their hands and
knees, muddy with creeping on all fours so frequently, and rubbed their
noses, as if they had almost had enough of it; for the quantity of bad
air which had passed into each one’s nostril had rendered it nearly as
insensible as a flue. However, after a moment’s hesitation, they
prepared to start anew, except three, whose power of smell had quite
succumbed under the excessive wear and tear of the day.
By this time not a male villager was to be seen in the parish. Owlett
was not at his mill, the farmers were not in their fields, the parson
was not in his garden, the smith had left his forge, and the
wheelwright’s shop was silent.
‘Where the divil are the folk gone?’ said Latimer, waking up to the
fact of their absence, and looking round. ‘I’ll have ’em up for this!
Why don’t they come and help us? There’s not a man about the place but
the Methodist parson, and he’s an old woman. I demand assistance in the
king’s name!’
‘We must find the jineral public afore we can demand that,’ said his
lieutenant.
‘Well, well, we shall do better without ’em,’ said Latimer, who changed
his moods at a moment’s notice. ‘But there’s great cause of suspicion
in this silence and this keeping out of sight, and I’ll bear it in
mind. Now we will go across to Owlett’s orchard, and see what we can
find there.’
Stockdale, who heard this discussion from the garden-gate, over which
he had been leaning, was rather alarmed, and thought it a mistake of
the villagers to keep so completely out of the way. He himself, like
the excisemen, had been wondering for the last half-hour what could
have become of them. Some labourers were of necessity engaged in
distant fields, but the master-workmen should have been at home; though
one and all, after just showing themselves at their shops, had
apparently gone off for the day. He went in to Lizzy, who sat at a back
window sewing, and said, ‘Lizzy, where are the men?’
Lizzy laughed. ‘Where they mostly are when they’re run so hard as
this.’ She cast her eyes to heaven. ‘Up there,’ she said.
Stockdale looked up. ‘What—on the top of the church tower?’ he asked,
seeing the direction of her glance.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I expect they will soon have to come down,’ said he gravely. ‘I
have been listening to the officers, and they are going to search the
orchard over again, and then every nook in the church.’
Lizzy looked alarmed for the first time. ‘Will you go and tell our
folk?’ she said. ‘They ought to be let know.’ Seeing his conscience
struggling within him like a boiling pot, she added, ‘No, never mind,
I’ll go myself.’
She went out, descended the garden, and climbed over the churchyard
wall at the same time that the preventive-men were ascending the road
to the orchard. Stockdale could do no less than follow her. By the time
that she reached the tower entrance he was at her side, and they
entered together.
Nether-Moynton church-tower was, as in many villages, without a turret,
and the only way to the top was by going up to the singers’ gallery,
and thence ascending by a ladder to a square trap-door in the floor of
the bell-loft, above which a permanent ladder was fixed, passing
through the bells to a hole in the roof. When Lizzy and Stockdale
reached the gallery and looked up, nothing but the trap-door and the
five holes for the bell-ropes appeared. The ladder was gone.
‘There’s no getting up,’ said Stockdale.
‘O yes, there is,’ said she. ‘There’s an eye looking at us at this
moment through a knot-hole in that trap-door.’
And as she spoke the trap opened, and the dark line of the ladder was
seen descending against the white-washed wall. When it touched the
bottom Lizzy dragged it to its place, and said, ‘If you’ll go up, I’ll
follow.’
The young man ascended, and presently found himself among consecrated
bells for the first time in his life, nonconformity having been in the
Stockdale blood for some generations. He eyed them uneasily, and looked
round for Lizzy. Owlett stood here, holding the top of the ladder.
‘What, be you really one of us?’ said the miller.
‘It seems so,’ said Stockdale sadly.
‘He’s not,’ said Lizzy, who overheard. ‘He’s neither for nor against
us. He’ll do us no harm.’
She stepped up beside them, and then they went on to the next stage,
which, when they had clambered over the dusty bell-carriages, was of
easy ascent, leading towards the hole through which the pale sky
appeared, and into the open air. Owlett remained behind for a moment,
to pull up the lower ladder.
‘Keep down your heads,’ said a voice, as soon as they set foot on the
flat.
Stockdale here beheld all the missing parishioners, lying on their
stomachs on the tower roof, except a few who, elevated on their hands
and knees, were peeping through the embrasures of the parapet.
Stockdale did the same, and saw the village lying like a map below him,
over which moved the figures of the excisemen, each foreshortened to a
crablike object, the crown of his hat forming a circular disc in the
centre of him. Some of the men had turned their heads when the young
preacher’s figure arose among them.
‘What, Mr. Stockdale?’ said Matt Grey, in a tone of surprise.
‘I’d as lief that it hadn’t been,’ said Jim Clarke. ‘If the pa’son
should see him a trespassing here in his tower, ’twould be none the
better for we, seeing how ’a do hate chapel-members. He’d never buy a
tub of us again, and he’s as good a customer as we have got this side
o’ Warm’ll.’
‘Where is the pa’son?’ said Lizzy.
‘In his house, to be sure, that he mid see nothing of what’s going
on—where all good folks ought to be, and this young man likewise.’
‘Well, he has brought some news,’ said Lizzy. ‘They are going to search
the orchet and church; can we do anything if they should find?’
‘Yes,’ said her cousin Owlett. ‘That’s what we’ve been talking o’, and
we have settled our line. Well, be dazed!’
The exclamation was caused by his perceiving that some of the
searchers, having got into the orchard, and begun stooping and creeping
hither and thither, were pausing in the middle, where a tree smaller
than the rest was growing. They drew closer, and bent lower than ever
upon the ground.
‘O, my tubs!’ said Lizzy faintly, as she peered through the parapet at
them.
‘They have got ’em, ’a b’lieve,’ said Owlett.
The interest in the movements of the officers was so keen that not a
single eye was looking in any other direction; but at that moment a
shout from the church beneath them attracted the attention of the
smugglers, as it did also of the party in the orchard, who sprang to
their feet and went towards the churchyard wall. At the same time those
of the Government men who had entered the church unperceived by the
smugglers cried aloud, ‘Here be some of ’em at last.’
The smugglers remained in a blank silence, uncertain whether ‘some of
’em’ meant tubs or men; but again peeping cautiously over the edge of
the tower they learnt that tubs were the things descried; and soon
these fated articles were brought one by one into the middle of the
churchyard from their hiding-place under the gallery-stairs.
‘They are going to put ’em on Hinton’s vault till they find the rest!’
said Lizzy hopelessly. The excisemen had, in fact, begun to pile up the
tubs on a large stone slab which was fixed there; and when all were
brought out from the tower, two or three of the men were left standing
by them, the rest of the party again proceeding to the orchard.
The interest of the smugglers in the next manoeuvres of their enemies
became painfully intense. Only about thirty tubs had been secreted in
the lumber of the tower, but seventy were hidden in the orchard, making
up all that they had brought ashore as yet, the remainder of the cargo
having been tied to a sinker and dropped overboard for another night’s
operations. The excisemen, having re-entered the orchard, acted as if
they were positive that here lay hidden the rest of the tubs, which
they were determined to find before nightfall. They spread themselves
out round the field, and advancing on all fours as before, went anew
round every apple-tree in the enclosure. The young tree in the middle
again led them to pause, and at length the whole company gathered there
in a way which signified that a second chain of reasoning had led to
the same results as the first.
When they had examined the sod hereabouts for some minutes, one of the
men rose, ran to a disused porch of the church where tools were kept,
and returned with the sexton’s pickaxe and shovel, with which they set
to work.
‘Are they really buried there?’ said the minister, for the grass was so
green and uninjured that it was difficult to believe it had been
disturbed. The smugglers were too interested to reply, and presently
they saw, to their chagrin, the officers stand several on each side of
the tree; and, stooping and applying their hands to the soil, they
bodily lifted the tree and the turf around it. The apple-tree now
showed itself to be growing in a shallow box, with handles for lifting
at each of the four sides. Under the site of the tree a square hole was
revealed, and an exciseman went and looked down.
‘It is all up now,’ said Owlett quietly. ‘And now all of ye get down
before they notice we are here; and be ready for our next move. I had
better bide here till dark, or they may take me on suspicion, as ’tis
on my ground. I’ll be with ye as soon as daylight begins to pink in.’
‘And I?’ said Lizzy.
‘You please look to the linch-pins and screws; then go indoors and know
nothing at all. The chaps will do the rest.’
The ladder was replaced, and all but Owlett descended, the men passing
off one by one at the back of the church, and vanishing on their
respective errands.
Lizzy walked boldly along the street, followed closely by the minister.
‘You are going indoors, Mrs. Newberry?’ he said.
She knew from the words ‘Mrs. Newberry’ that the division between them
had widened yet another degree.
‘I am not going home,’ she said. ‘I have a little thing to do before I
go in. Martha Sarah will get your tea.’
‘O, I don’t mean on that account,’ said Stockdale. ‘What _can_ you have
to do further in this unhallowed affair?’
‘Only a little,’ she said.
‘What is that? I’ll go with you.’
‘No, I shall go by myself. Will you please go indoors? I shall be there
in less than an hour.’
‘You are not going to run any danger, Lizzy?’ said the young man, his
tenderness reasserting itself.
‘None whatever—worth mentioning,’ answered she, and went down towards
the Cross.
Stockdale entered the garden gate, and stood behind it looking on. The
excisemen were still busy in the orchard, and at last he was tempted to
enter, and watch their proceedings. When he came closer he found that
the secret cellar, of whose existence he had been totally unaware, was
formed by timbers placed across from side to side about a foot under
the ground, and grassed over.
The excisemen looked up at Stockdale’s fair and downy countenance, and
evidently thinking him above suspicion, went on with their work again.
As soon as all the tubs were taken out, they began tearing up the turf;
pulling out the timbers, and breaking in the sides, till the cellar was
wholly dismantled and shapeless, the apple-tree lying with its roots
high to the air. But the hole which had in its time held so much
contraband merchandize was never completely filled up, either then or
afterwards, a depression in the greensward marking the spot to this
day.
CHAPTER VII—THE WALK TO WARM’ELL CROSS AND AFTERWARDS
As the goods had all to be carried to Budmouth that night, the
excisemen’s next object was to find horses and carts for the journey,
and they went about the village for that purpose. Latimer strode hither
and thither with a lump of chalk in his hand, marking broad-arrows so
vigorously on every vehicle and set of harness that he came across,
that it seemed as if he would chalk broad-arrows on the very hedges and
roads. The owner of every conveyance so marked was bound to give it up
for Government purposes. Stockdale, who had had enough of the scene,
turned indoors thoughtful and depressed. Lizzy was already there,
having come in at the back, though she had not yet taken off her
bonnet. She looked tired, and her mood was not much brighter than his
own. They had but little to say to each other; and the minister went
away and attempted to read; but at this he could not succeed, and he
shook the little bell for tea.
Lizzy herself brought in the tray, the girl having run off into the
village during the afternoon, too full of excitement at the proceedings
to remember her state of life. However, almost before the sad lovers
had said anything to each other, Martha came in in a steaming state.
‘O, there’s such a stoor, Mrs. Newberry and Mr. Stockdale! The king’s
excisemen can’t get the carts ready nohow at all! They pulled Thomas
Ballam’s, and William Rogers’s, and Stephen Sprake’s carts into the
road, and off came the wheels, and down fell the carts; and they found
there was no linch-pins in the arms; and then they tried Samuel Shane’s
waggon, and found that the screws were gone from he, and at last they
looked at the dairyman’s cart, and he’s got none neither! They have
gone now to the blacksmith’s to get some made, but he’s nowhere to be
found!’
Stockdale looked at Lizzy, who blushed very slightly, and went out of
the room, followed by Martha Sarah. But before they had got through the
passage there was a rap at the front door, and Stockdale recognized
Latimer’s voice addressing Mrs. Newberry, who had turned back.
‘For God’s sake, Mrs. Newberry, have you seen Hardman the blacksmith up
this way? If we could get hold of him, we’d e’en a’most drag him by the
hair of his head to his anvil, where he ought to be.’
‘He’s an idle man, Mr. Latimer,’ said Lizzy archly. ‘What do you want
him for?’
‘Why, there isn’t a horse in the place that has got more than three
shoes on, and some have only two. The waggon-wheels be without strakes,
and there’s no linch-pins to the carts. What with that, and the bother
about every set of harness being out of order, we shan’t be off before
nightfall—upon my soul we shan’t. ’Tis a rough lot, Mrs. Newberry, that
you’ve got about you here; but they’ll play at this game once too
often, mark my words they will! There’s not a man in the parish that
don’t deserve to be whipped.’
It happened that Hardman was at that moment a little further up the
lane, smoking his pipe behind a holly-bush. When Latimer had done
speaking he went on in this direction, and Hardman, hearing the
exciseman’s steps, found curiosity too strong for prudence. He peeped
out from the bush at the very moment that Latimer’s glance was on it.
There was nothing left for him to do but to come forward with
unconcern.
‘I’ve been looking for you for the last hour!’ said Latimer with a
glare in his eye.
‘Sorry to hear that,’ said Hardman. ‘I’ve been out for a stroll, to
look for more hid tubs, to deliver ’em up to Gover’ment.’
‘O yes, Hardman, we know it,’ said Latimer, with withering sarcasm. ‘We
know that you’ll deliver ’em up to Gover’ment. We know that all the
parish is helping us, and have been all day! Now you please walk along
with me down to your shop, and kindly let me hire ye in the king’s
name.’
They went down the lane together; and presently there resounded from
the smithy the ring of a hammer not very briskly swung. However, the
carts and horses were got into some sort of travelling condition, but
it was not until after the clock had struck six, when the muddy roads
were glistening under the horizontal light of the fading day. The
smuggled tubs were soon packed into the vehicles, and Latimer, with
three of his assistants, drove slowly out of the village in the
direction of the port of Budmouth, some considerable number of miles
distant, the other excisemen being left to watch for the remainder of
the cargo, which they knew to have been sunk somewhere between
Ringsworth and Lulstead Cove, and to unearth Owlett, the only person
clearly implicated by the discovery of the cave.
Women and children stood at the doors as the carts, each chalked with
the Government pitchfork, passed in the increasing twilight; and as
they stood they looked at the confiscated property with a melancholy
expression that told only too plainly the relation which they bore to
the trade.
‘Well, Lizzy,’ said Stockdale, when the crackle of the wheels had
nearly died away. ‘This is a fit finish to your adventure. I am truly
thankful that you have got off without suspicion, and the loss only of
the liquor. Will you sit down and let me talk to you?’
‘By and by,’ she said. ‘But I must go out now.’
‘Not to that horrid shore again?’ he said blankly.
‘No, not there. I am only going to see the end of this day’s business.’
He did not answer to this, and she moved towards the door slowly, as if
waiting for him to say something more.
‘You don’t offer to come with me,’ she added at last. ‘I suppose that’s
because you hate me after all this?’
‘Can you say it, Lizzy, when you know I only want to save you from such
practices? Come with you of course I will, if it is only to take care
of you. But why will you go out again?’
‘Because I cannot rest indoors. Something is happening, and I must know
what. Now, come!’ And they went into the dusk together.
When they reached the turnpike-road she turned to the right, and he
soon perceived that they were following the direction of the excisemen
and their load. He had given her his arm, and every now and then she
suddenly pulled it back, to signify that he was to halt a moment and
listen. They had walked rather quickly along the first quarter of a
mile, and on the second or third time of standing still she said, ‘I
hear them ahead—don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ he said; ‘I hear the wheels. But what of that?’
‘I only want to know if they get clear away from the neighbourhood.’
‘Ah,’ said he, a light breaking upon him. ‘Something desperate is to be
attempted!—and now I remember there was not a man about the village
when we left.’
‘Hark!’ she murmured. The noise of the cartwheels had stopped, and
given place to another sort of sound.
‘’Tis a scuffle!’ said Stockdale. ‘There’ll be murder! Lizzy, let go my
arm; I am going on. On my conscience, I must not stay here and do
nothing!’
‘There’ll be no murder, and not even a broken head,’ she said. ‘Our men
are thirty to four of them: no harm will be done at all.’
‘Then there _is_ an attack!’ exclaimed Stockdale; ‘and you knew it was
to be. Why should you side with men who break the laws like this?’
‘Why should you side with men who take from country traders what they
have honestly bought wi’ their own money in France?’ said she firmly.
‘They are not honestly bought,’ said he.
‘They are,’ she contradicted. ‘I and Owlett and the others paid thirty
shillings for every one of the tubs before they were put on board at
Cherbourg, and if a king who is nothing to us sends his people to steal
our property, we have a right to steal it back again.’
Stockdale did not stop to argue the matter, but went quickly in the
direction of the noise, Lizzy keeping at his side. ‘Don’t you
interfere, will you, dear Richard?’ she said anxiously, as they drew
near. ‘Don’t let us go any closer: ’tis at Warm’ell Cross where they
are seizing ’em. You can do no good, and you may meet with a hard
blow!’
‘Let us see first what is going on,’ he said. But before they had got
much further the noise of the cartwheels began again; and Stockdale
soon found that they were coming towards him. In another minute the
three carts came up, and Stockdale and Lizzy stood in the ditch to let
them pass.
Instead of being conducted by four men, as had happened when they went
out of the village, the horses and carts were now accompanied by a body
of from twenty to thirty, all of whom, as Stockdale perceived to his
astonishment, had blackened faces. Among them walked six or eight huge
female figures, whom, from their wide strides, Stockdale guessed to be
men in disguise. As soon as the party discerned Lizzy and her companion
four or five fell back, and when the carts had passed, came close to
the pair.
‘There is no walking up this way for the present,’ said one of the
gaunt women, who wore curls a foot long, dangling down the sides of her
face, in the fashion of the time. Stockdale recognized this lady’s
voice as Owlett’s.
‘Why not?’ said Stockdale. ‘This is the public highway.’
‘Now look here, youngster,’ said Owlett. ‘O, ’tis the Methodist
parson!—what, and Mrs. Newberry! Well, you’d better not go up that way,
Lizzy. They’ve all run off, and folks have got their own again.’
The miller then hastened on and joined his comrades. Stockdale and
Lizzy also turned back. ‘I wish all this hadn’t been forced upon us,’
she said regretfully. ‘But if those excisemen had got off with the
tubs, half the people in the parish would have been in want for the
next month or two.’
Stockdale was not paying much attention to her words, and he said, ‘I
don’t think I can go back like this. Those four poor excisemen may be
murdered for all I know.’
‘Murdered!’ said Lizzy impatiently. ‘We don’t do murder here.’
‘Well, I shall go as far as Warm’ell Cross to see,’ said Stockdale
decisively; and, without wishing her safe home or anything else, the
minister turned back. Lizzy stood looking at him till his form was
absorbed in the shades; and then, with sadness, she went in the
direction of Nether-Moynton.
The road was lonely, and after nightfall at this time of the year there
was often not a passer for hours. Stockdale pursued his way without
hearing a sound beyond that of his own footsteps; and in due time he
passed beneath the trees of the plantation which surrounded the
Warm’ell Cross-road. Before he had reached the point of intersection he
heard voices from the thicket.
‘Hoi-hoi-hoi! Help, help!’
The voices were not at all feeble or despairing, but they were
unmistakably anxious. Stockdale had no weapon, and before plunging into
the pitchy darkness of the plantation he pulled a stake from the hedge,
to use in case of need. When he got among the trees he shouted—‘What’s
the matter—where are you?’
‘Here,’ answered the voices; and, pushing through the brambles in that
direction, he came near the objects of his search.
‘Why don’t you come forward?’ said Stockdale.
‘We be tied to the trees!’
‘Who are you?’
‘Poor Will Latimer the exciseman!’ said one plaintively. ‘Just come and
cut these cords, there’s a good man. We were afraid nobody would pass
by to-night.’
Stockdale soon loosened them, upon which they stretched their limbs and
stood at their ease.
‘The rascals!’ said Latimer, getting now into a rage, though he had
seemed quite meek when Stockdale first came up. ‘’Tis the same set of
fellows. I know they were Moynton chaps to a man.’
‘But we can’t swear to ’em,’ said another. ‘Not one of ’em spoke.’
‘What are you going to do?’ said Stockdale.
‘I’d fain go back to Moynton, and have at ’em again!’ said Latimer.
‘So would we!’ said his comrades.
‘Fight till we die!’ said Latimer.
‘We will, we will!’ said his men.
‘But,’ said Latimer, more frigidly, as they came out of the plantation,
‘we don’t _know_ that these chaps with black faces were Moynton men?
And proof is a hard thing.’
‘So it is,’ said the rest.
‘And therefore we won’t do nothing at all,’ said Latimer, with complete
dispassionateness. ‘For my part, I’d sooner be them than we. The
clitches of my arms are burning like fire from the cords those two
strapping women tied round ’em. My opinion is, now I have had time to
think o’t, that you may serve your Gover’ment at too high a price. For
these two nights and days I have not had an hour’s rest; and, please
God, here’s for home-along.’
The other officers agreed heartily to this course; and, thanking
Stockdale for his timely assistance, they parted from him at the Cross,
taking themselves the western road, and Stockdale going back to
Nether-Moynton.
During that walk the minister was lost in reverie of the most painful
kind. As soon as he got into the house, and before entering his own
rooms, he advanced to the door of the little back parlour in which
Lizzy usually sat with her mother. He found her there alone. Stockdale
went forward, and, like a man in a dream, looked down upon the table
that stood between him and the young woman, who had her bonnet and
cloak still on. As he did not speak, she looked up from her chair at
him, with misgiving in her eye.
‘Where are they gone?’ he then said listlessly.
‘Who?—I don’t know. I have seen nothing of them since. I came straight
in here.’
‘If your men can manage to get off with those tubs, it will be a great
profit to you, I suppose?’
‘A share will be mine, a share my cousin Owlett’s, a share to each of
the two farmers, and a share divided amongst the men who helped us.’
‘And you still think,’ he went on slowly, ‘that you will not give this
business up?’
Lizzy rose, and put her hand upon his shoulder. ‘Don’t ask that,’ she
whispered. ‘You don’t know what you are asking. I must tell you, though
I meant not to do it. What I make by that trade is all I have to keep
my mother and myself with.’
He was astonished. ‘I did not dream of such a thing,’ he said. ‘I would
rather have swept the streets, had I been you. What is money compared
with a clear conscience?’
‘My conscience is clear. I know my mother, but the king I have never
seen. His dues are nothing to me. But it is a great deal to me that my
mother and I should live.’
‘Marry me, and promise to give it up. I will keep your mother.’
‘It is good of you,’ she said, trembling a little. ‘Let me think of it
by myself. I would rather not answer now.’
She reserved her answer till the next day, and came into his room with
a solemn face. ‘I cannot do what you wished!’ she said passionately.
‘It is too much to ask. My whole life ha’ been passed in this way.’ Her
words and manner showed that before entering she had been struggling
with herself in private, and that the contention had been strong.
Stockdale turned pale, but he spoke quietly. ‘Then, Lizzy, we must
part. I cannot go against my principles in this matter, and I cannot
make my profession a mockery. You know how I love you, and what I would
do for you; but this one thing I cannot do.’
‘But why should you belong to that profession?’ she burst out. ‘I have
got this large house; why can’t you marry me, and live here with us,
and not be a Methodist preacher any more? I assure you, Richard, it is
no harm, and I wish you could only see it as I do! We only carry it on
in winter: in summer it is never done at all. It stirs up one’s dull
life at this time o’ the year, and gives excitement, which I have got
so used to now that I should hardly know how to do ‘ithout it. At
nights, when the wind blows, instead of being dull and stupid, and not
noticing whether it do blow or not, your mind is afield, even if you
are not afield yourself; and you are wondering how the chaps are
getting on; and you walk up and down the room, and look out o’ window,
and then you go out yourself, and know your way about as well by night
as by day, and have hairbreadth escapes from old Latimer and his
fellows, who are too stupid ever to really frighten us, and only make
us a bit nimble.’
‘He frightened you a little last night, anyhow: and I would advise you
to drop it before it is worse.’
She shook her head. ‘No, I must go on as I have begun. I was born to
it. It is in my blood, and I can’t be cured. O, Richard, you cannot
think what a hard thing you have asked, and how sharp you try me when
you put me between this and my love for ‘ee!’
Stockdale was leaning with his elbow on the mantelpiece, his hands over
his eyes. ‘We ought never to have met, Lizzy,’ he said. ‘It was an ill
day for us! I little thought there was anything so hopeless and
impossible in our engagement as this. Well, it is too late now to
regret consequences in this way. I have had the happiness of seeing you
and knowing you at least.’
‘You dissent from Church, and I dissent from State,’ she said. ‘And I
don’t see why we are not well matched.’
He smiled sadly, while Lizzy remained looking down, her eyes beginning
to overflow.
That was an unhappy evening for both of them, and the days that
followed were unhappy days. Both she and he went mechanically about
their employments, and his depression was marked in the village by more
than one of his denomination with whom he came in contact. But Lizzy,
who passed her days indoors, was unsuspected of being the cause: for it
was generally understood that a quiet engagement to marry existed
between her and her cousin Owlett, and had existed for some time.
Thus uncertainly the week passed on; till one morning Stockdale said to
her: ‘I have had a letter, Lizzy. I must call you that till I am gone.’
‘Gone?’ said she blankly.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am going from this place. I felt it would be better
for us both that I should not stay after what has happened. In fact, I
couldn’t stay here, and look on you from day to day, without becoming
weak and faltering in my course. I have just heard of an arrangement by
which the other minister can arrive here in about a week; and let me go
elsewhere.’
That he had all this time continued so firmly fixed in his resolution
came upon her as a grievous surprise. ‘You never loved me!’ she said
bitterly.
‘I might say the same,’ he returned; ‘but I will not. Grant me one
favour. Come and hear my last sermon on the day before I go.’
Lizzy, who was a church-goer on Sunday mornings, frequently attended
Stockdale’s chapel in the evening with the rest of the double-minded;
and she promised.
It became known that Stockdale was going to leave, and a good many
people outside his own sect were sorry to hear it. The intervening days
flew rapidly away, and on the evening of the Sunday which preceded the
morning of his departure Lizzy sat in the chapel to hear him for the
last time. The little building was full to overflowing, and he took up
the subject which all had expected, that of the contraband trade so
extensively practised among them. His hearers, in laying his words to
their own hearts, did not perceive that they were most particularly
directed against Lizzy, till the sermon waxed warm, and Stockdale
nearly broke down with emotion. In truth his own earnestness, and her
sad eyes looking up at him, were too much for the young man’s
equanimity. He hardly knew how he ended. He saw Lizzy, as through a
mist, turn and go away with the rest of the congregation; and shortly
afterwards followed her home.
She invited him to supper, and they sat down alone, her mother having,
as was usual with her on Sunday nights, gone to bed early.
‘We will part friends, won’t we?’ said Lizzy, with forced gaiety, and
never alluding to the sermon: a reticence which rather disappointed
him.
‘We will,’ he said, with a forced smile on his part; and they sat down.
It was the first meal that they had ever shared together in their
lives, and probably the last that they would so share. When it was
over, and the indifferent conversation could no longer be continued, he
arose and took her hand. ‘Lizzy,’ he said, ‘do you say we must part—do
you?’
‘You do,’ she said solemnly. ‘I can say no more.’
‘Nor I,’ said he. ‘If that is your answer, good-bye!’
Stockdale bent over her and kissed her, and she involuntarily returned
his kiss. ‘I shall go early,’ he said hurriedly. ‘I shall not see you
again.’
And he did leave early. He fancied, when stepping forth into the grey
morning light, to mount the van which was to carry him away, that he
saw a face between the parted curtains of Lizzy’s window, but the light
was faint, and the panes glistened with wet; so he could not be sure.
Stockdale mounted the vehicle, and was gone; and on the following
Sunday the new minister preached in the chapel of the Moynton
Wesleyans.
One day, two years after the parting, Stockdale, now settled in a
midland town, came into Nether-Moynton by carrier in the original way.
Jogging along in the van that afternoon he had put questions to the
driver, and the answers that he received interested the minister
deeply. The result of them was that he went without the least
hesitation to the door of his former lodging. It was about six o’clock
in the evening, and the same time of year as when he had left; now,
too, the ground was damp and glistening, the west was bright, and
Lizzy’s snowdrops were raising their heads in the border under the
wall.
Lizzy must have caught sight of him from the window, for by the time
that he reached the door she was there holding it open: and then, as if
she had not sufficiently considered her act of coming out, she drew
herself back, saying with some constraint, ‘Mr. Stockdale!’
‘You knew it was,’ said Stockdale, taking her hand. ‘I wrote to say I
should call.’
‘Yes, but you did not say when,’ she answered.
‘I did not. I was not quite sure when my business would lead me to
these parts.’
‘You only came because business brought you near?’
‘Well, that is the fact; but I have often thought I should like to come
on purpose to see you . . . But what’s all this that has happened? I
told you how it would be, Lizzy, and you would not listen to me.’
‘I would not,’ she said sadly. ‘But I had been brought up to that life;
and it was second nature to me. However, it is all over now. The
officers have blood-money for taking a man dead or alive, and the trade
is going to nothing. We were hunted down like rats.’
‘Owlett is quite gone, I hear.’
‘Yes. He is in America. We had a dreadful struggle that last time, when
they tried to take him. It is a perfect miracle that he lived through
it; and it is a wonder that I was not killed. I was shot in the hand.
It was not by aim; the shot was really meant for my cousin; but I was
behind, looking on as usual, and the bullet came to me. It bled
terribly, but I got home without fainting; and it healed after a time.
You know how he suffered?’
‘No,’ said Stockdale. ‘I only heard that he just escaped with his
life.’
‘He was shot in the back; but a rib turned the ball. He was badly hurt.
We would not let him be took. The men carried him all night across the
meads to Kingsbere, and hid him in a barn, dressing his wound as well
as they could, till he was so far recovered as to be able to get about.
He had gied up his mill for some time; and at last he got to Bristol,
and took a passage to America, and he’s settled in Wisconsin.’
‘What do you think of smuggling now?’ said the minister gravely.
‘I own that we were wrong,’ said she. ‘But I have suffered for it. I am
very poor now, and my mother has been dead these twelve months . . .
But won’t you come in, Mr. Stockdale?’
Stockdale went in; and it is to be supposed that they came to an
understanding; for a fortnight later there was a sale of Lizzy’s
furniture, and after that a wedding at a chapel in a neighbouring town.
He took her away from her old haunts to the home that he had made for
himself in his native county, where she studied her duties as a
minister’s wife with praiseworthy assiduity. It is said that in after
years she wrote an excellent tract called _Render unto Caesar; or, The
Repentant Villagers_, in which her own experience was anonymously used
as the introductory story. Stockdale got it printed, after making some
corrections, and putting in a few powerful sentences of his own; and
many hundreds of copies were distributed by the couple in the course of
their married life.
_April_ 1879.