'To-day I saw that the cliff has parted under mother's cottage. The rock is torn in half, and I climbed the crack from the beach to the top. Where I went up you can go down. The crack is quite new and is narrow. At the end it is choked with earth and stones. If you have ropes you can lower the kegs and then steal away by the coast, and by water to Beer. Then let the soldiers and the rest draw together; they will take neither you nor what you are carrying. They will not know what has become of you. No one knows of this hiding-place but myself—there was none a week ago, only some cracking of the surface that tumbled down our wall.'
The men consulted in an undertone.
'If the soldiers do come along the roads from all sides they will meet to shake hands, that is all,' said Winefred. 'I should laugh to see their faces.'
'The girl is right,' said Jack. 'Winefred, lead the way at once.'
Then again the men formed in line, and she, walking beside the young man, headed the procession.
'But where is the captain?' she asked.
'No occasion to be alarmed about him,' answered Jack. 'Trust to his cleverness. They can do nothing with him if he has nothing in his carts. He is going, he will say, to fetch hay from Axmouth which he has contracted to deliver at Lyme.'
Winefred led the way, partly along lanes, partly over hedges, through gates, under the boughs of the young firs. She was fearless now; her only care was not to stumble on any of the preventive men.
She laughed in her heart to think that she who had lectured Jack against smuggling should herself be involved in one of these illegal ventures. But what she was doing was not for the sake of gain, but in discharge of a debt of gratitude.
Jack, however, was ill at ease. He did not relish the business on which he was engaged, and he was drawn into it solely by obligations to his father, who needed his services at the time, which was one of emergency.