The Distracted Preacher by Thomas Hardy Read Free Book Online Page B

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    â€œIs this what you meant the other day when you spoke of having business with Owlett?” the young man asked.
    â€œThis is it,” she replied. “I never see him on any other matter.”
    â€œA partnership of that kind with a young man is very odd.”
    â€œIt was begun by my father and his, who were brother-laws.”
    Her companion could not blind himself to the fact that where tastes and pursuits were so akin as Lizzy’s and Owlett’s, and where risks were shared, as with them, in every undertaking, there would be a peculiar appropriateness in her answering Owlett’s standing question on matrimony in the affirmative. This did not soothe Stockdale, its tendency being rather to stimulate in him an effort to make the pair as inappropriate as possible, and win her away from this nocturnal crew to correctness of conduct and a minister’s parlor in some far-removed inland county.
    They had been walking near enough to the file of carriers for Stockdale to perceive that, when they got into the road to the village, they split up into two companies of unequal size, each of which made off in a direction of its own. One company, the smaller of the two, went towards the church, and by the time that Lizzy and Stockdale reached their own house these men had scaled the church-yard wall, and were proceeding noiselessly over the grass within.
    â€œI see that Owlett has arranged for one batch to be put in the church again,” observed Lizzy. “Do you remember my taking you there the first night you came?”
    â€œYes, of course,” said Stockdale. “No wonder you had permission to broach the tubs—they were his, I suppose?”
    â€œNo, they were not—they were mine; I had permission from myself. The day after that they went several miles inland in a wagon-load of manure, and sold very well.”
    At this moment the group of men who had made off to the left some time before began leaping one by one from the hedge opposite Lizzy’s house, and the first man, who had no tubs upon his shoulders, came forward.
    â€œMrs. Newberry, isn’t it?” he said, hastily.
    â€œYes, Jim,” said she. “What’s the matter?”
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œVery well,” she said. “Be quick about it—that’s all. What can I do?”
    â€œNothing at all, please. Ah, it is the minister!—you two that can’t do anything had better get in-doors and not be seed.”
    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 which sustained his tubs slipped; the result was that both the kegs fell into the road, one of them being stove in by the blow.
    â€œâ€™Od drown it all!” said Owlett, rushing back.
    â€œIt is worth a good deal, I suppose?” said Stockdale.
    â€œOh 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 spilled 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