'I have been listening to the officers, and they are going to search the orchard over again, and then every nook in the church.' Lizzy looked alarmed for the first time.

'Will you go and tell our folk ?' she said.

'They ought to be let know.' Seeing his conscience struggling within him like a boiling pot, she added, 'No, never mind, I'll go myself.' She went out, descended the garden, and climbed over the churchyard wall at the same time that the preventive-men were ascending the road to the orchard.

Stockdale could do no less than follow her.

By the time that she reached the tower entrance he was at her side, and they entered together.
Nether-Moynton church-tower was, as in many villages, without a turret, and the only way to the top was by going up to the singers' gallery, and thence ascending by a ladder to a square trap-door in the floor of the bell-loft, above which a permanent ladder was fixed, passing through the bells to a hole in the roof.