And toward Water Lane he hurried. It was a low-lying offshoot of the town, leading along the water meadows, with a straggling row of houses on each side, the perennial haunts of fever and ague. Before them, on each side the road, and fringed with pollard willows and tall poplars, ran a tiny branch of the Whit, to feed some mill below; and spread out, meanwhile, into ponds and mires full of offal and duckweed and rank floating grass. A thick mist hung knee-deep over them, and over the gardens right and left; and as Tom came down on the lane from the main street above, he could see the mist spreading across the water-meadows and reflecting the moon-beams like a lake; and as he walked into it, he felt as if he were walking down a well. And he hurried down the lane, looking out anxiously ahead for the long cloak.
At last he came to a better sort of house. That might be it. He would take the chance. There was a man of the middle class, and two or three women, standing at the gate. He went up—
"Pray, sir, did a medical man named Briggs ever live here?"
"What do you want to know for?"
"Why"—Tom thought matters were too serious for delicacy—"I am looking for a gentleman, and thought he might have come here."
"And so he did, if you mean one in a queer hat and a cloak."
"How long since?"
"Why, he came up our garden an hour or more ago; walked right into the parlour without with your leave, or by your leave, and stared at us all round like one out of his mind; and so away, as soon as ever I asked him what he was at—"
"Which way?"
"To the river, I expect: I ran out, and saw him go down the lane, but I was not going far by night alone with any such strange customers."