The String of Pearls (1850), p. 594

The man who had last spoken got over a gate that was at some little distance off, and stood upon an elevated spot of the meadows to look about him.
"There's nothing moving," he said.
"Come along, then," cried another. "Let's get on."
"Here's a compost heap; they are perhaps in the middle of that. Is it worth looking at?"
"Not exactly. Come on."
The man retired to the road again and mounted, and in the course of a few moments the two parties rode back again upon the way that they had come.
"Todd?" said Lupin, "Todd?"
"Oh!" groaned Todd.
"Todd, I say, get up. Are you out of your mind? The danger is past now. They are gone."
"Gone!" said Todd, looking up. "You don't say so? Didn't I hear one of them say that he would look in this very place?"
"Yes; but that was only a joke."
"A joke?" said Todd with a deep groan. "A joke was it? Oh, how very careful people should be when they make jokes, when other people are hiding from their enemies. It might be very funny to him, but it was quite the reverse to me."
"That's true enough; but get up now, and in the name of everything that's safe and comfortable, let us get to the wood. These fellows are evidently patrolling the road, and they will be back again in a little while, and still come across us if we don't manage to get out of their way before that time.—Come along. We can get to the wood now quickly."
"Ah, dear me!" said Todd, as he shook himself to get rid of as much of the unsavoury mess he had lain in as possible. "Ah dear me! truly I have now hit upon evil times ; and fortune, that I thought petted me, has slipped from me like a shadow, leaving me glad of a manure heap in afield as a place of shelter."
"All that is very true," said Lupin, "but it don't get us on a bit."
"I'm ready—I'm quite ready," groaned Todd.
They were upon the point of going into the lane again, but they were compelled—or rather thought it prudent—to wait until a man had passed, who, by the box that he carried on his back, was evidently a hawker of goods about the country. He soon trudged out of their way, and then they both got through the hedge again into the lane.
The place of their destination was now close at hand, upon their left; and watching a favourable spot by which to do so, they crossed the hedge upon
that side and got into the fields ; but although a sharp run across two or three
meadows would have taken them at once to Caen Wood, they did not think it
at all prudent so to expose themselves to observation.
"Skirt the hedge, Todd," said Lupin, "and stoop down so as to keep your head as much below the top of the hedgerow as possible. You are inconveniently tall, just now."
Upon this instruction, Todd bent himself almost double, and in that attitude he managed to scramble close to the hedge, and up to his kness, at times, in the ditches and drains that he came across in such a situation.
In this way, then, they got on until they reached the outskirts of Caen Wood. Not a creature was to be seen, and the most profound and solemn stillness, reigned around them. Todd was not used to that intense quiet of the country and he shook at it rather, but Lupin took no notice of his emotion.
"Here we are, at last," he said, "and all you have to do, Todd, is to point out the spot where you have hidden your money, and then we will divide it, and wait until nightfall before we venture out of this snug place."
"Come along," said Todd; "it's all right."
And then they both dived amongst the trees, which, in some places, quite shut out the daylight.