“There’s no call to do that!” growled his companion. “Dang me, master, if I don’t think you’re unaccountable crazed!”
Eustacie, who had had time by now to take stock of her surroundings, discovered that the darker shadows a little way off were not shadows at all, but ponies. There seemed to be about a dozen of them, and as she peered at them she was gradually able to descry what they were carrying. She had been living in Sussex for two years, and she was perfectly familiar with the appearance of a keg of brandy. She exclaimed: “You are smugglers, then!”
“Free traders, my dear, free traders!” replied the young man cheerfully. “At least, I am. Ned here is only what we call a land smuggler. You need not heed him.”
Eustacie was so intrigued that for the moment she forgot all about the mail coach. She had heard a great deal about smugglers, but although she knew that they were in general a desperate, cut-throat set of outlaws, she was so accustomed to her grandfather and most of his neighbours having dealings with them that she did not think their illicit trade in the least shocking. She said: “Well, you need not be afraid of me, I assure you. I do not at all mind that you are smug—free traders.”
“Are you French?” asked the young man.
“Yes. But tell me, why are you hiding here?”
“Excisemen,” he replied. “They’re on the watch. You know, the more I think of it the more it seems a very odd thing to me that you should be riding about by yourself in the middle of the night.”
“I have told you: I am going to London.”
“Well, it still seems very odd to me.”
“Yes, but, you see, I am running away,” explained Eustacie. “That is why I have to catch the night mail. I am going to London to be a governess.”