I ventured at last to creep back into the road and look to right and left.
I was terribly undecided as to what I ought to do. Go back I would not, and to go forward seemed like rushing straight into danger. To right or left was nothing but tangled wood, wherein I should soon lose myself, and therefore nothing was left for me to do but go straight on, and this I did in fear and trembling, keeping a sharp look-out in front, and meaning to take to the woods and fields should Mr Blakeford’s chaise again appear in sight.
For quite an hour I journeyed on, and then the roofs of cottages and a church tower appeared, making me at one moment press eagerly forward, the next shrink back for fear Mr Blakeford should be there. But at last hunger prevailed, and making a bold rush, I walked right on, and seeing no sign of danger, I went into the village shop and bought a little loaf and some wonderfully strong-smelling cheese.
“Did you see a gentleman go by here in a chaise?” I ventured to say.
“What, with a boy in it?” said the woman who served me.
I nodded.
“Yes, he went by ever so long ago. You’ll have to look sharp if you want to catch them. The gentleman was asking after you.”
I felt that I turned pale and red by turns, as I walked out into the road, wondering what it would be best to do, when, to my great delight I saw that there was a side lane off to the left, just a little way through the village, and hurrying on, I found that it was quite a byway off the main road. Where it led to I did not know, only that there was a finger-post with the words “To Charlock Bridge” upon it, and turning down I walked quite a couple of miles before, completely worn out, I sat down beside a little brook that rippled across the clean-washed stones of the road, and made the most delicious meal I ever ate in my life.
Bread and cheese and spring water under the shade of a high hedge, in which a robin sat – it looked to me like the one I had seen in the wood – and darted down and picked up the crumbs I threw it from time to time. As my hunger began to be appeased, and I had thoroughly slaked my burning thirst, by using my closed hand for a scoop, I began to throw crumbs into the bubbling brook, to see them float down for some distance, and then be snapped up by the silvery little fishes with which the stream seemed to swarm. All the while, though, my head had been constantly turning from side to side, in search of danger, and at last just as I was about to continue my journey, hoping to gain the London Road once more, I saw the danger I sought, in the shape of the boy with my bundle running across the fields, as if he had come from the high road, and was trying to get into the lane below me to cut me off.
I looked sharply behind me, expecting to see the chaise of Mr Blakeford, but it was not in sight; so, stooping down, I waded quickly through the brook, kept under the shelter of the hedge, and ran on steadily, so as not to be out of breath.
The water filled my boots, but it only felt pleasantly cool, and, as I thought, made me better able to run, while, as I raised my head from time to time, I could catch sight of the boy with the bundle running hard across field after field, and losing so much time in getting through hedges or over gates that I felt that I should be past the spot where he would enter the lane before he could reach it.
To my surprise, though, I found that the lane curved sharply round to the right, giving him less distance to run, so that when I tried hard to get by him, having given up all idea of hiding, I found that he had jumped over into the lane before I came up. Then to my horror, as I turned a sharp corner, I came straight upon him, he being evidently quite as much surprised as I at the suddenness of our encounter – the winding of the lane and the height of the hedges having kept us out of sight the one of the other, until the very last moment, when we came face to face, both dusty, hot, weary, and excited as two lads could be, and for the moment neither of us moved.
I don’t know how it was that I did not try to run off by the fields in another direction, but it seems to me now that I was stirred by the same savage instincts as an ostrich, who, seeing any hunter riding as if to cut him off, immediately forgets that there is plenty of room behind, and gallops across his pursuer’s track, instead of right away.
As I ran panting up, the lad stopped short, and my eyes falling upon my bundle, a new set of thoughts came flashing across my mind, making me forget my pursuer in the high road.
As for the lad, he stood staring at me in a shifty way, and it soon became evident that he gave me as much credit for chasing him as I did him for chasing me.
He was the first to speak, and calling up the low cunning of his nature, he advanced a step or two, saying:
“I say, you’d better hook it; that, gent’s a-looking for you.”
“You give me my bundle,” I said, making a snatch at it, and getting hold with one hand, to which I soon joined the other.
“’Taint your bundle,” he said fiercely. “Let go, or I’ll soon let you know. Let go, will yer?”
He shook at it savagely, and dragged me here and there, for he was the bigger and stronger; but I held on with all my might. I was horribly frightened of him, for he was a coarse, ruffianly-looking fellow; but inside that bundle was my little all, and I determined not to give it up without a struggle.
“Here, you wait till I get my knife out,” he roared. “It’s my bundle, yer young thief!”
“It is not,” I panted: “you stole it from me while I lay asleep.”
“Yer lie! Take that!”
That was a heavy blow on my chin which cut my lip, and seemed to loosen my teeth, causing me intense pain; but though for a moment I staggered back, the blow had just the opposite effect to that intended by the boy. A few moments before, I was so horribly afraid of him, that I felt that I must give up; now the pain seemed to have driven all the fear out of me, for, springing at him with clenched fists, I struck out wildly, and with all my might; the bundle went down in the dust, and, after a minutes scuffle, and a shower of blows, there, to my intense astonishment, lay the boy too, grovelling and twisting about, rubbing his eyes with his fists, and howling dismally.
“You let me alone; I never did nothing to you,” he whined.
“You did; you stole my bundle,” I cried, in the heat of my triumph.
“No, I didn’t. I on’y picked it up. I didn’t know it was yourn.”
“You knew I was by it,” I said.
“Yes; but I thought perhaps it weren’t yourn,” he howled.
“Now look here,” I said, “you give me what you took out of it.”
“I didn’t take nothing out of it,” he whined. “I was only going to, when that gent came along on the shay, and asked me where you was.”
“You’ve got my best shoes on,” I said. “Take them off.”
He pulled them off, having half spoiled them by cutting the fronts, to let his feet go in.
“Where’s that gentleman now?” I said.
“I don’t know,” he whined. “He said if I didn’t show him where you was, he’d hand me over to the police; and I cut off across the fields, when we was walking the pony up a hill.”
“You’re a nice blackguard,” I said, cooling down fast now, as the fear of Mr Blakeford came back. I was wondering, too, how to get rid of my conquest, when, just as I stooped to pick up the shoes, he shrank
