When she came out of the shop, there was still half-an-hour to while away before the coach was due to start, and she wandered into the market-place. Here there were quite a number of people already busy about the day’s business. Pen caught sight of Mrs Hopkins bargaining with a salesman over the price of a length of calico, but since she did not feel that she wanted to learn any more details about the Hopkins family, she avoided her, and pretended to be interested in a clockmaker’s shop. So intent was she on avoiding Mrs Hopkins’s motherly eye, that she was blissfully unaware that she herself was being closely scrutinized by a thickset man in a duffle coat, and a wide-brimmed hat, who, after gazing fixedly at her for some moments, stepped up to her, and, laying a heavy hand on her shoulder, said deeply: “Got you!”
Pen jumped guiltily, and looked round in sudden alarm. The voice sounded familiar; to her dismay she found herself staring up into the face of the Bow Street Runner who had overtaken Jimmy Yarde at the inn near Wroxhall.
“Oh!” she said faintly. “Oh! Are you not the—the man I met—the other day? Good—good-morning! A fine day, isn’t—isn’t it?”
“That’s so, young sir,” said the Runner, in a grim tone. “And a werry complete hand you be, and no mistake! I’ve been wanting another touch at you. Ah, and when Nat Gudgeon wants a touch at a cove, he gets it, and no mistake about that neither! You come along with me!”
“But I haven’t done anything wrong! Indeed I haven’t!” said Pen.
“If you haven’t, then there’s no call for you to be scared of me,” said Mr Gudgeon, with what seemed to her a fiendish leer. “But what I been thinking, young sir, is, that you and that fine gentleman what was with you loped off mighty quick from that there inn. Why, anyone might have thought, so they might, as how you had took an unaccountable dislike to me!”
“No, no, we didn’t! But there was nothing to stay for, and we were already much delayed.”
“Well,” said Mr Gudgeon, shifting his grip to her arm, and grasping this firmly above the elbow, “I’ve got a fancy to question you more particular, young sir. Now, don’t you make the werry great mistake of trying to struggle with me, because it won’t do you no good. Maybe you ain’t never heard tell on a cove by the name o’ Yarde: likewise you wouldn’t reckernize a set o’ sparklers if you was to see one. Lor’! If I had a brace of meggs for every green-looking young chub like you which I’ve took up—ah, and shut up in the Whit just as snug as you please!—I’d be a werry rich man, so I would. You come along of me, and stop trying to gammon me, because I’ve got a werry strong notion you know a deal more about a certain set o’ sparklers nor what you’re wishful I should get wind of.”
By this time, the attention of several persons had been attracted, and a small crowd was beginning to gather. Pen cast a hunted look around. She saw the aghast face of Mrs Hopkins, but no means of escape, and gave herself up for lost. Mr Gudgeon evidently meant to march her off to the gaol, or at any rate to some place of safe-keeping, where her sex, she suspected, would soon be discovered. Meanwhile, the crowd was swelling, several members of it loudly demanding to know what the young gentleman had done, and one knowledgeable individual explaining to his neighbours that that was one of the Bow Street Runners from London, that was. Nothing would serve her, Pen decided, but a certain measure of frankness. Accordingly, she made no attempt to break away from the Runner’s hold, but said in as calm a tone as she was able to assume: “Indeed, I do not mind going with you at all. In fact, I know just what you want, and I dare say I can furnish you with some very valuable information.”
Mr Gudgeon, who was not accustomed to be met with any appearance of sang-froid, was not in the least softened by this speech. He said in a shocked voice: “There’s a sauce! Ay, you’re a rare gager, young as you be! Why, you young varmint, and you with your mother’s milk not dry on your lips! You come along, and no bamming, now!”