Well, after I gave up preaching to the chaps at Merivale, owing to the row about Browne and Stopford and all the unpleasantness afterwards, I felt that my occupation was gone in a sort of way; and it so weighed on my mind that I was one of the first to get German measles and one of the last to recover. I was shut up in the hospital and had a great deal of time on my hands for thought, and the more I thought, the more I felt that my preaching gift ought not to be wasted like this. I tried preaching to myself once or twice, to keep my hand in, and I found that I was clean out of practice and couldn't work up to "thirdly and lastly" without getting regularly tied in a knot. Then I tried to preach to the matron, and she said it was morbid and told the doctor (for I heard her through the door) that I was very low and taking a most unhealthy interest in religion. After which I had a lot more most uncalled for and beastly medicine, and was isolated for three more days; because the doctor said it might be something else threatening. What was threatening really was my conscience. I was perfectly well and frightfully eager to be doing good in the world; and as it seemed simply useless to try to do any more good at Merivale, chiefly owing to that son of Belial called Stopford, I came to the terrific resolve of going. I decided to leave quietly. I thought on the last day of being isolated I would steal out into the world in a spirit of calm courage, and try to do good, and leave the rest to Providence.
I did nothing rashly, because it is well known that Heaven helps those who help themselves, and we must not throw all the burden on Providence, however much inclined we may feel to do so. We are given our talents to use, not to put under a bushel. I had ten shillings and a telescope, worth eight-and-six. I had nothing else but my volume of Skeleton Sermons. It seemed enough.
One is bound to be worldly-wise up to a certain point; and this is right and proper. If you have a mission, you must use the best means for carrying it out, and even money may be put to very proper purposes if it is spent with a high object. Besides, the labourer is worthy of his hire.
With my money I determined to use artificial means for getting as far from Merivale as possible. For ten shillings you can go an immense distance by train, though a half-ticket was no longer possible for me, as I was over twelve; but a train is far too public and I should have been discovered. Therefore I decided upon the simple plan of hiring a bicycle. The time was May and the evenings were long. Therefore I determined to hire the bicycle during the hour when everybody would be in chapel for evening prayer. Being isolated I could do this.
The eventful night was fine and warm. I slipped out unperceived, but I had taken the precaution not to wear my hat with the school colours, as that would have been instantly observed. So I went to my private box and took out my round bowler hat, which could not lead to detection. I then got over the hedge into the main road, because to have walked out of the gate by the lodge would have much decreased my chances of escape.
All went well. The people at the bicycle shop raised no difficulty, and for five shillings they let me have a machine for two hours—also matches to light the lamp. It was put into their minds to trust me, and I saw from the first that Providence was going to help me. The man even shortened the steps a little as I am unusually stumpy in the legs.
I gave him five shillings and set off. Pursuit would not begin till my supper was brought by the matron, and I had a clear hour before that time. Then I knew what would happen; because two terms before, young Watkinson, who was homesick, had run away and tried to walk from Merivale, in Devonshire, to Edinburgh, where his grandmother lives; but he had been taken by Mannering riding that way on his bicycle, two miles out of Merivale. So I knew that the masters on bicycles and policemen on foot would soon be after me, and I intended to avoid the main roads and spend the night in some harmless and wholesome cowhouse on a bed of sweet meadow hay. Then in the morning I should rise, get a drink of milk and a little bread-and-butter from some simple and kind-hearted housewife, and leave the bicycle with her to be returned by train to the bicycle shop at Merivale. What would happen after that I left entirely to Providence.
A telescope and a rather fat book are awkward things on a bicycle, and they bumped me rather heavily, one on each side, as I started. So after riding a few miles I dismounted, slung the telescope over my back and buttoned the Skeleton Sermons to my chest. Though not comfortable, they did not bump, and I went steadily on my way. At a quarter to nine I lighted my lamp and well knew that Mannering and Chambers had started, and that many telegrams, including one to my father, had probably been sent off by Dr. Dunstan from Merivale. For the first time I considered what view my father would take of my action, and I was bound to feel that he might not care much about it. My father, though a good father to me, has never trusted as much in Providence as I could have wished; which is curious, seeing that he is not only a clergyman but also a rural dean. He wants me to go into some lucrative business, but I never will, for I have no feeling for it. My father thinks that money is everything, and I know well it is not. He said to me once that you can always tell a gentleman by his neckties and the cigars he smokes. Which is childish, because many perfect gentlemen never smoke cigars at all.
I got rather depressed after dark—entirely owing to thinking about my father. I also got strangely hungry and was beginning to wonder whether I had better try for some supper anywhere, or just leave nature to settle that. Then a most serious and unforeseen thing happened and the hind tyre of the bicycle went off with a loud explosion, like a pistol. I dismounted instantly. I kept my nerve and quietly considered the situation. For a moment it looked as if Providence was against me, but I could not be sure of this yet. I wheeled the bicycle to a gate and sat on the gate and considered. Then, far down the road I had come, I saw a light and instantly perceived that another bicycle was approaching at quite twenty miles an hour. To drag my bicycle through the gate into the field, to shut the gate, extinguish the lamp, and crouch in the hedge motionless and silent, was the work of an instant. The bicycle flew past and the man on it grunted with little grunts. It was, in fact, the well-known grunt of Mannering—a sound he always makes at footer and hockey. So I saw that Providence was still with me and felt very much cheered; because, if the lyre had not burst, I should have been quietly riding along not thinking of Mannering, and he would have overtaken me and all would have been over.
My resolutions were soon made. I left the main road, which was evidently now no place for me, and wheeled the bicycle down a lane near a farm. I felt that it would be necessary to my health to eat something before sleeping, but cared little what it was, and decided that I would just take the fruits of the earth—corn or a few turnips, or anything. In the morning I should mention it to the farmer's wife and ask her to change my five-shilling piece. For the change from my ten-shilling piece, after paying for the bicycle hire, was a five-shilling piece.