The Distracted Preacher by Thomas Hardy Page A

to-night without saying a word, and come the first thing in the morning with more hands. I know they have storages about here, but we can do nothing by this owl’s light. We will look round the parish and see if everybody is in bed, John; and if all is quiet, we will do as I
say.”
    They went on, and the two inside the window could hear them passing leisurely through the whole village, the street of which curved round at the bottom and entered the turnpike road at another junction. This way the excisemen followed, and the amble of their horses died quite away.
    â€œWhat will you do?” said Stockdale, withdrawing from his position.
    She knew that he alluded to the coming search by the officers, to divert her attention from their own tender incident by the casement, which he wished to be passed over as a thing rather dreamed of than done. “Oh, nothing,” she replied, with as much coolness as she could command under her disappointment at his manner. “We often have such storms as this. You would not be frightened if you knew what fools they are. Fancy riding o’ horseback through the place: of course they will hear and see nobody while they make that noise; but they are always afraid to get off, in case some of our fellows should burst out upon ’em, and tie them up to the gate-post, as they have done before now. Good-night, Mr. Stockdale.”
    She closed the window and went to her room, where a tear fell from her eyes; and that not because of the alertness of the riding-officers.

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 gray light began to touch ever so faintly the whiter objects in his bedroom, he arose, dressed himself, and went down-stairs 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 one another 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.
    â€œD — — 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 labors.
    â€œNow,” 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