I was awakened in the morning by the entrance of an old cart-horse, who came to smell at the hay. It was light enough to see where I was going, so I opened my knapsack and made a rough breakfast before setting out. Overnight I had planned to go back to the inn. In the cool of the morning that plan did not seem so very wise as I had thought it. I was almost afraid to put it into practice. However, I went back along the lane. With some trouble, I got over the tall brick wall down which I had dropped the night before. Then I climbed up to the pigeon-house, down the loft-ladder, into the inn-yard, to the broken back door of the tavern. The door hung from one hinge, with its lower panels kicked in just as the soldiers had left it. The inn was open to anybody who cared to enter.
I entered cautiously, half expecting to find a few soldiers billeted there. But the place was empty. I went from room to room, finding no one; Mrs. Dick seemed to have disappeared. One of the rooms was in disorder. A few broken glasses were on the floor; a chair lay on its side under the table. I went upstairs. I tapped at the outside of the drawing-room. No answer there; all was still there. I listened attentively for some sound of breathing; none came. No one was inside. I went all over the house. No one was there. I was alone in the "Blue Boar," the only person in the house. I could only guess that Mr and Mrs Dick had been arrested. To be sure, they might have run away together during the night. I did not quite know what to think.
In my wanderings, I came to the bar, which I found in great disorder; the bench was upset, jugs and glasses were scattered on the floor, and the blinds had not been pulled up. Although I had some fear of being seen from outside, I pulled up the blinds to let in a little light, so that I might look at the coaching-map which hung at one end of the bar. When I passed behind the bar to trace out for myself the road to London, I saw an open book lying on a shelf among the bottles. It was a copy of Captain Johnson's Lives of the Highwaymen and Pirates, lying open at the life of Captain Roberts, the famous pirate Whydah. Some one must have been reading it when the soldiers entered.
I looked at it curiously, for it was open at the portrait of Roberts. Underneath the portrait were a few words written in pencil in a clumsy scrawl. I read them over, expecting some of the ordinary schoolboy nonsense.
"Captain Roberts was a bad one. Jim. Don't come back here. The lobsters is around." That was all the message. But I saw at once that it was meant for me; that Mrs Dick, knowing that I should come back, had done her best to leave a warning for me. "Lobsters," I knew, was the smugglers' slang for soldiers; and if the lobsters were dangerous to me it was plain that I was wanted for my innocent share in the fight. I looked through the book for any further message; but there was no other entry, except a brief pencilled memorandum of what some one had paid for groceries many years before, at some market town not named.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE ROAD TO LONDON
You may be sure that I lost no time in leaving the inn. I merely noted the way to London from the coaching-map and hurried out, repeating the direction so that I should not forget. It was a bright, cool morning: and I walked very briskly for a couple of hours, when I sat down to rest by the roadside, under a patch of willows, which grew about a little bubbling brook. Presently I saw that a little way ahead of me were three gipsy-looking people (a boy with his father and mother), sitting by the road resting. They got up, after I had been there for twenty minutes or so, and came along the road towards me, bowed under their bundles. I got up, too, intending to continue my journey; but when I was about to pass them, the man drew up in front of me.
"Beg your pardon, young master," he said; "but could you tell me the way to Big Ben?" "But that's in London," I said. "That's in London, at the House of Parliament."
"What!" he cried. "You don't mean to tell me that us have come the wrong road?'
"Yes," I said. "You're going the wrong way for London."
"Then take that," cried the man, giving me a shove, just as the woman flung her shawl over my head. I stepped back, for the shove was no light one; but just behind me the boy had crouched on all fours (he had evidently practised the trick), so that I went headlong over him, and had a nasty fall into the road.
"Stop his mouth, Martha," said the man: and stop it she did, with her ragged old shawl, in which she had evidently carried the provisions of the gang.
"What's he got on him?" said the woman, as the man rummaged through my pockets.
"Only a prince and a chive," said the man, disgustedly, meaning my half-crown and a jack-knife.
"Well," said the woman, "his jacket's better than Bill's, and we'll have his little portmanteau, what's more."
In another minute they had my suit stripped from me; and I had the sight of dirty little Bill, the tramper's boy, putting on my things.
"Here," said the woman. "You put on Bill's things. They're good enough for you. And don't you dare breathe a word of what we done."
"Yes," said the man, as Bill buttoned up his jacket, and took my little bundle in his hand. "You keep your little jaw shut or I'll come after you."
"Oh, Mother," said Bill. "Don't I look a young swell, neither?"
For answer, his mother grabbed him by the arm, and the three hurried away from me in the direction from which I had come. The man looked back and made a face at me, shaking his fist. I was left penniless in the road. A milestone told me that I was seventy miles from London.
I was now at the end of my resources; almost too miserable to cry. I did not know what was to become of me. I could only wander along the road, in a dazed sort of way, wishing for Marah. I was wretched and faint, and Marah was so strong and careless. Then I said to myself that Marah was dead, and that I should soon be dead, for I had neither food nor money. The smugglers had talked of shipwrecks once or twice. I had heard them say that a man could live for three days without food or drink, in fair weather; and that without food, drinking plenty of water, he could live for three weeks. They were very wild talkers, to be sure; but I remembered this now and got comfort from it. Surely, I thought, I shall be able to last for a week, and in a week I ought to be near London. Besides, I can eat grass; and perhaps I shall find a turnip, or a potato, or a partridge's nest with young ones still in it; and perhaps I shall be able to earn a few coppers by opening gates, or holding horses.
I plucked up wonderfully when I thought of all these things; though I did not at all like wearing Bill's clothes. I felt that I looked like a dirty young tramp, and that anybody who saw me would think that I was one. Besides, I had always hated dirt and untidiness, and the feeling that I carried both about me was hateful.
But Bill's clothes were to be a great help to me before noon that day. As I wandered along the road, wondering where I could get something to eat (for I was now very hungry), I came to a turnpike. The turnpike-keeper was cleaning his windows, outside his little house. When he saw me, he just popped his head inside the door, and said something to some people inside. His manner frightened me; but I was still more frightened when two Bow Street runners (as we called detectives then) and a yeomanry officer came out of the house, and laid hold of me.
"That's your boy, sir," said the turnpike-keeper.
"Come on in here," said the officer, "and give an account of yourself."
They led me into the room, where they were eating some bread and cheese.
"He doesn't answer the description," said one of the men, glancing at a paper.