‘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.