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 Idon't want to lose my venture. I don't know what to do now! Why Ihave 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?'