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.
