The Distracted Preacher (7 page)

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 in-doors, 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.

“Oh, 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 linchpins in the arms; and then they tried Samuel Shane's wagon, 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 wagon-wheels be without strakes, and there's no linchpins to the carts. What with that, and the bother about every set of harness being out of order, we sha'n't be off before nightfall—upon my soul we sha'n'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 farther 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.”

“Oh 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 Lullstead 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 in-doors. 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 loads. 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 neighborhood.”

“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 cart-wheels 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 farther the noise of the cart-wheels 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—“oh, '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 parlor 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 among 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.”