Wessex Tales

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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.