Well, it is a bad night's work,' said Stockdale heavily.

'But I'll carry the bar and rope for you.' 'Thank God, the tubs have got so far all right,' said she.
Stockdale shook his head, and, taking the bar, walked by her side towards the downs; and the moan of the sea was heard no more.
'Is this what you meant the other day when you spoke of having business with Owlett ?' the young man asked.
'This is it,' she replied.

'I never see him on any other matter.' 'A partnership of that kind with a young man is very odd.' 'It 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 parlour 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 churchyard wall, and were proceeding noiselessly over the grass within.
'I see that Owlett has arranged for one batch to be put in the church again,' observed Lizzy.