HOW I CAME TO LONDON
Justly to narrate all that befell me during my flight and journey to London, would fill many pages, and therefore, as this book of mine is already of a magnitude far beyond my first expectations, I shall hurry on to the end of my story.
Acting upon the advice of the saturnine Jeremy, I lay hidden by day, and traveled by night, avoiding the highway. But in so doing I became so often involved in the maze of cross-roads, bylanes, cow-paths, and cart-tracks, that twice the dawn found me as completely lost as though I had been set down in the midst of the Sahara. I thus wasted much time, and wandered many miles out of my way; wherefore, to put an end to these futile ramblings, I set my face westward, hoping to strike the highroad somewhere between Tonbridge and Sevenoaks; determined rather to run the extra chance of capture than follow haphazard these tortuous and interminable byways.
It was, then, upon the third night since my escape that, faint and spent with hunger, I saw before me the welcome sight of a finger-post, and hurrying forward, eager to learn my whereabouts, came full upon a man who sat beneath the finger-post, with a hunch of bread and meat upon his knee, which he was eating by means of a clasp-knife.
Now I had tasted nothing save two apples all day, and but little the day before—thus, at sight of this appetizing food, my hunger grew, and increased to a violent desire before which prudence vanished and caution flew away. Therefore I approached the man, with my eyes upon his bread and meat.
But, as I drew nearer, my attention was attracted by something white that was nailed up against the finger-post, and I stopped dead, with my eyes riveted by a word printed in great black capitals, and stood oblivious alike of the man who had stopped eating to stare at me, and the bread and meat that he had set down upon the grass; for what I saw was this:
G. R. MURDER L500———REWARD
WHEREAS, PETER SMITH, blacksmith, late of SISSINGHURST, in the county of Kent, suspected of the crime of WILFUL MURDER, did upon the Tenth of August last, make his escape from his gaolers, upon the Tonbridge road, somewhere between SISSINGHURST and PEMBRY; the above REWARD, namely, FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS, will be paid to such person, or persons who shall give such INFORMATION as shall lead to the ARREST, and APPREHENSION of the aforesaid PETER SMITH. In the furtherance of which, is hereunto added a just and close description of the same—VIZ.—He is six foot tall, and a sizable ROGUE. His hair, black, his eyes dark and piercing. Clad, when last seen, in a worn velveteen jacket, kneebreeches buckled at the knees, gray worsted stockings, and patched shoes. The coat TORN at the RIGHT shoulder. Upon his wrists, a pair of steel HANDCUFFS. Last seen in the vicinity of PEMBRY.
While I yet stared at this, I was conscious that the man had risen, and now stood at my elbow; also, that in one hand his carried a short, heavy stick. He stood very still, and with bent head, apparently absorbed in the printed words before him, but more than once I saw his eyes gleam in the shadow of his hat-brim, as they turned to scan me furtively up and down. Yet he did not speak or move, and there was something threatening, I thought, in his immobility. Wherefore I, in turn, watched him narrowly from the corner of my eye, and thus it chanced that our glances met.
"You seem thoughtful?" said I.