"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 away,
uttering a cowardly howl, as if I had aimed a blow at him; and, starting
up, he ran back along the lane shoeless, and seemed making for the high
road.
"He'll tell Mr Blakeford," I thought; and catching up the bundle, I
hurried on in the opposite direction, till, finding the brook again
cross the road, I hastily stooped down and washed my bleeding knuckles,
before starting off once more, getting rid of the marks of the struggle
a fast as I could, and looking back from time to time, in momentary
expectation of seeing Mr Blakeford's head above the hedge.