ch
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 labours.

'Now,' 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 and the other on Latimer and his
myrmidons, prepared to put them off the scent if he should be asked a
question. Stockdale, who was no smuggler at all, felt more anxiety than
the worst of them, and went about his studies with a heavy heart, coming
frequently to the door to ask Lizzy some question or other on the
consequences to her of the tubs being found.

'The consequences,' she said quietly, 'are simply that I shall lose 'em.
As I have none in the house or garden, they can't touch me personally.'

'But you have some in the orchard?'

'Owlett rents that of me, and he lends it to others. So it will be hard
to say who put any tubs there if they should be found.'

There was never such a tremendous sniffing known as that which took place
in Nether-Moynton parish and its vicinity this day. All was done
methodically, and mostly on hands and knees. At different hours of the
day they had different plans. From daybreak to breakfast-time the
officers used their sense of smell in a direct and straightforward manner
only, pausing nowhere but at such places as the tubs might be supposed to
be secreted in at that very moment, pending their removal on the
following night. Among the places tested and exami