“Which way? Why, he kep’ on straight along the Uxbridge Road, and that’s the truth.”
The carter was cautioned, threatened, but finally allowed to proceed upon his way. In a minute or two Tom heard him burst into a laugh, and whip up the draught-horse to an elephantine trot. Meanwhile the police-officers had run out of ear-shot along the Uxbridge Road; and the hay-cart was well upon its way to Turnham Green and Kew.
At the latter place the carter stopped for his breakfast, and Thomas Erichsen made good his escape, not a little encouraged by the fact that his late pursuers had manifestly not known who it was they were pursuing.
Tom had his breakfast in the beautiful early sunshine beside the river’s brim.
Overnight he had avoided the tavern, but not the pastry-cook’s shop; so he had made his supper in the empty house, and was provisioned still; moreover, his pocket was still weighted by poor Blaydes’s broken watch, nor could he make up his mind to pitch into the river his only asset, and one to which he was so justly entitled. He was clear of London now; the early sun gave him confidence and pluck. He would pawn the watch in one of these Thames Valley towns, and then get back to London and the docks by river and in new habiliments. It was Saturday morning; he would wait until that best of times, Saturday night; but first he must find a place to hide his head in during the day.
He found one in the boat-house of a small, new, white-brick villa, with a narrow garden leading down to the river’s edge. The boat-house had an open window. Hardened by his extremity into incredible alacrity in
