THE ROAD TO LONDON
You may be sure that I lost no time in leaving the inn. I merely noted the way to London from the coaching-map and hurried out, repeating the direction so that I should not forget. It was a bright, cool morning: and I walked very briskly for a couple of hours, when I sat down to rest by the roadside, under a patch of willows, which grew about a little bubbling brook. Presently I saw that a little way ahead of me were three gipsy-looking people (a boy with his father and mother), sitting by the road resting. They got up, after I had been there for twenty minutes or so, and came along the road towards me, bowed under their bundles. I got up, too, intending to continue my journey; but when I was about to pass them, the man drew up in front of me.
"Beg your pardon, young master," he said; "but could you tell me the way to Big Ben?" "But that's in London," I said. "That's in London, at the House of Parliament."
"What!" he cried. "You don't mean to tell me that us have come the wrong road?'
"Yes," I said. "You're going the wrong way for London."
"Then take that," cried the man, giving me a shove, just as the woman flung her shawl over my head. I stepped back, for the shove was no light one; but just behind me the boy had crouched on all fours (he had evidently practised the trick), so that I went headlong over him, and had a nasty fall into the road.
"Stop his mouth, Martha," said the man: and stop it she did, with her ragged old shawl, in which she had evidently carried the provisions of the gang.
"What's he got on him?" said the woman, as the man rummaged through my pockets.
"Only a prince and a chive," said the man, disgustedly, meaning my half-crown and a jack-knife.
"Well," said the woman, "his jacket's better than Bill's, and we'll have his little portmanteau, what's more."