CHAPTER XIII.

"UP AND DOWN IN LONDON TOWN."

In Buckinghamshire the road became more and more alive with coaches. At Slough, Dick would have liked to turn southward to Windsor Castle and Eton College, of which edifices he had enjoyed the splendid view from Salt Hill; or northward to Stoke Pogis churchyard, where Gray composed his Elegy and was buried; but his lordship desired to arrive in London that evening. So Dick was content with what glimpses he got of the high white Castle, along a good part of the road. Into Middlesex rolled the chaise, crossing Hounslow Heath and passing there many sheep but no highwaymen; on by noble parks and residences, to Brentford, Dick feasting his eyes on what he could see of distant Richmond with its hill and terrace, and of Kew with its royal gardens and its favorite palace of George III., then reigning.

The numerous carriages, the stage-coaches with passengers inside and on top, and the other signs of nearness to a great city, increased as they bowled through Turnham Green and Hammersmith, whence there were houses on both sides all the way to Kensington. A great smoky mass ahead had now resolved itself distinctly into towers, domes, and spires, and, for watching each feature as it separately disclosed itself, Dick well nigh missed the verdant charms of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, on the left. At last they were rattling along Piccadilly, passing Green Park on the right, and getting a partial view of St. James's and the other ordinary-looking palaces in that direction. And presently, as Lord George wished his arrival in London to be for a day unknown, and as his house in Berkeley Square was occupied by his uncle's family, they turned through the Haymarket to Charing Cross, and thence into the Strand, where they were finally set down at the White Hart Inn, near the new church of St. Mary-le-Strand and the site of the bygone May-pole.

After supper, while his lordship kept indoors, Dick went out sightseeing; strode blithely up the lamp-lit Strand, with its countless shops lettered all over with tradesmen's signs; through Temple Bar, and along Fleet Street, with its taverns, coffee-houses, courts, and tributary streets; up Ludgate Hill to St. Paul's, which he walked around; returning over his route, and then making a shorter excursion, to see the theatres of Drury Lane and Covent Garden; all this with no adventure that need here be related.

The next day, his lordship took fine lodgings in Bond Street, near Hanover Square, and insisted that Dick remain his guest until the latter should hear from Cumberland,—Dick allowing his lordship to remain under the belief that the Cumberland from which he came was of England, and that he had been a great loser of valuables and money by the supposed defection of his servant at the time he was left for dead in the road.

Dick's second evening in London was passed at Covent Garden Theatre, where he saw, and was dazzled by, "The Duenna," that brilliant comic opera of serenading lovers in Seville, by the clever young Mr. Sheridan, which, first brought out in the previous November, was still the most popular piece in the company's list. The next day, Sunday, going for that purpose to the church of St. Clement Danes, Dick saw the great and bulky Doctor Johnson himself, and was duly impressed.

On Monday he took what he had left of his Bath winnings to a tailor's shop, and spent the greater part of them for a new black suit for full dress; and that evening he went with Lord George to a ridotto, in the vicinity of St. James's, Lord George having previously got tickets.

Not choosing to venture in a minuet, Dick imitated many of the impudent young beaux of the splendid company, walking through the gaily decorated room, and staring unreservedly at whatever lady's face, beneath its cushioned tower of powdered hair, attracted him. By the time the country-dances had begun, he had made up his mind which one of all the faces most rivalled the blazing candle-lights themselves. Its possessor was young, tall, well filled out, and of a dashing and frivolous countenance. Having learned by observation that the custom in London differed not from that in Bath, Dick went confidently up and begged to have the honor of dancing with her.

She flashed on him a quick, all-comprehensive look of scrutiny, then bowed with a gracious smile, and gave him her hand. During the dance, Dick made use of every possible occasion to comment jocularly upon passing incidents and persons, and the lady invariably answered with a smile or a merry remark, so that Dick was soon vastly pleased with his partner and himself.

After the dance, having led her to a seat, and as she would have no refreshments brought, he stood chatting with her. Lord George came up and greeted both, and continued talking to them familiarly, assuming, from the fact of her having granted Dick a dance in a public assembly, that they already knew each other. In the course of the talk, Lord George frequently addressed Dick by his name, and the lady by hers, so that, before long, Mr. Wetheral and Miss Mallby were so addressing one another. It developed, through Lord George's inquiries after her family, that her father was Sir Charles Mallby, of Kent, whose town house was in Grosvenor Square.

While the three were talking, Dick noticed an elegantly dressed young gentleman standing near, who regarded them with a peculiarly sullen expression.

"Why does that gentleman look at us so sourly?" asked Dick, innocently, of Lord George.

"La!" said Miss Mallby, smiling, and coloring. "Tis Lord Alderby."

Lord George smiled, and proposed that Dick should come with him to meet somebody or other; whereupon the two gentlemen, one of them very reluctantly, left Miss Mallby, who was then immediately joined by the surly-looking Lord Alderby.

"They've had a lovers' quarrel," explained Lord George to Dick, "which accounts for her comporting herself so amiably to us. Her gaiety with other gentlemen this evening has turned Alderby quite green with jealousy. Now that we have left the way open for him, he'll humiliate himself as abjectly as he must, for a reconciliation. Egad, what a thing it is to be the slave of an heiress!"

"Why," said Dick, his spirits suddenly damped, "I flattered myself her amiability to me was on my own account."

"Oh," said his lordship, with an amused look that escaped Dick, "so that's how the wind blows! Well, who knows but you are right? She may have tired of Alderby's sulks. 'Tis a rich prize, by Jove,—the Lord knows how many thousand a year! We shall certainly call at Grosvenor Square to-morrow."

What young man can honestly blame Dick for clinging to the belief that the radiant Miss Mallby's graciousness to him had another cause than the wish to pique Lord Alderby; or for supposing himself equal to the rôle of a lord's rival for the love of a great heiress? The romantic notion that love levels all, was no new one in Dick's time, and had often been exemplified. To win fortune by marriage was then held to be an entirely honorable act, calling for no reproach. Dick had no intention of deceiving the lady. But he would wait until her love was certainly his, before disclosing who and what he was. Once his, her love would not be altered by the unimportant circumstances that he was an American and penniless. Splendid was the future of which Dick dreamed that night,—a future of fair estates and great city residences, of coaches and footmen, of fine clothes, card playing, music, and dancing.

He went with Lord George in the latter's coach, the next afternoon, to the Grosvenor Square house; was graciously received by Miss Mallby's mother, on his lordship's account; met a great number of young beaux and a few modish ladies, drank tea, won some money at one of the card tables, and departed with his friend, having had very little of the heiress's society to himself.

As they were entering their own coach, they saw Lord Alderby get down from his; he bowed to Lord George, but bestowed on Dick a swift look of pretended contempt, though it showed real hostility.

"Miss Mallby must have praised you to Alderby last night," said Lord George, lightly.

That evening Wetheral and Lord George stayed late at a fashionable tavern in Pall Mall, their party having increased to a numerous and merry one. Finally it was joined by no other than Lord Alderby himself, with whom came a thin, middle-aged Irish gentleman addressed as captain and wearing a cockade in his hat. Neither of these newcomers had much to say for awhile. Presently the talk fell upon the American war, and an argument arose as to whether General Howe's evacuation of Boston was to be accounted a British defeat. The name of cowards being applied to the Americans, Dick broke out with the assertion that, to his personal knowledge, Americans had given as convincing proofs of courage as he had ever seen or heard of as coming from Englishmen.

"Courage is like many other things," put in Lord Alderby, not looking at Dick, yet speaking with a quiet sneer; "people are apt to set up as judges of if, who never practise it themselves."

A surprised silence fell over the company.

"If you mean that remark for me, sir," said Dick, as soon as he could command his voice, "I am ready to let you judge of my practice, whenever and wherever you choose!"

"Without knowing very well who you are, sir," replied Lord Alderby, who was thickly built and below middle height, but all the more arrogant in his tone for that, "I believe there is a difference in rank between us, which forbids my giving your courage an opportunity."

"Perhaps there is a difference of courage itself, as well!" snapped out Dick.

"I take that, gintlemen," put in the Irish captain, who, it was plain, had been brought in by Lord Alderby for precisely what he now proceeded to do, "as a reflection on the opinion of ivery man that knows what my Lord Alderby's courage is. And, as I'm one of thim min, and seeing there's no difference of rank bechune this gintleman and me, I offer him here ivery opportunity he may require for the dishplay of courage."

"And I take your offer," cried Dick instantly. "I've no scruples about difference in rank, and I'm willing to fight anybody, high or low,—even a hired lickspittle that takes up gentlemen's quarrels for pay! Lord Alderby can tell you where I lodge; he knows where he can find that out!"

Lord Alderby indeed found that out,—not from Miss Mallby, but through his valet, who knew Lord George Winston's. And next day, to Bond Street, came Captain Delahenty's challenge in regular form. Lord George, who never concerned himself about his rank, or let it affect his doings, readily consented to serve Dick in the business; and so, on the following morning, at dawn, Dick found himself in Hyde Park, about to undertake his first duel.

He had chosen to fight with swords, the blade being the weapon in whose use he most desired practice. In his shirt-sleeves, with that acquired serenity which comes of the mind's forcing itself not to contemplate the peril at hand, he stood under a tree at one end of a clear space, while his antagonist, seconded by an old faded beau, emerged from a hackney coach and got himself ready. The men fought in the centre of the clear space. Dick began defensively, but he had not parried more than three of the captain's thrusts, till he perceived that the enemy was shaky with liquor. Dick therefore waited only until the other's panting indicated failing wind. Then he suddenly pressed matters, with such accuracy and persistence that the whole thing was over in a minute,—Dick putting on his waistcoat and frock, with Lord George's assistance, and Captain Delahenty on the ground with a wounded shoulder that the surgeon was pronouncing likely to heal in a month or six weeks. Dick drove back to Bond Street in great elation, eager for more duels.

Lord Alderby's state of mind towards Dick was not sweetened by this occurrence, as was shown by his lordship's ill-sustained pretence of ignoring Dick's presence when next the two were in the same company. This happened to be in a clubhouse in St. James's Street, Dick's name having been written down there by Lord George, to whom he had satisfactorily accounted for his ignorance of London and of London society. Chance brought Lord Alderby and Dick to the same card table, and not as partners. His lordship soon had his revenge, and a far greater one than he thought it to be, for Dick, playing on after first losses, in the confidence that fortune would serve him as usually, lost his every guinea. He would have staked the few loose shillings he still had left, but that the largeness of the bets would have made such a proposition ridiculous. He went home to Bond Street in a kind of consternation, faced by the reality that he was a pauper in London, and that luck had turned against him. Now that he had tasted the life of pleasure, poverty seemed not again endurable. Yet he braced himself to consider what was to be done.

Now that he had no money worth mentioning, the hospitality he received from Lord George was to Dick nothing else than charity. To continue accepting it would make his situation soon insupportable. He quickly took his resolution. He must fall back to a lower sphere, where a shilling was worth something, and recoup himself; that done, he would emerge again into the world to which Lord George had introduced him.

So, the next morning, pretending he had found at a lawyer's office in Chancery Lane a letter from his people, Dick told Lord George he must leave London immediately. Then, having sent for a hackney coach and taken a very friendly farewell of his lordship, he was driven to the starting-place of the Manchester stage. Being set down there, he hastened afoot, with his baggage, in search of cheap lodgings. These he presently found at a widow's house in George Street, which ran from the Strand towards the Thames. He engaged a room at sixteen shillings a week.

The widow had a grown-up son employed by a mercer in the Strand, and from him Dick learned where to dispose of clothes most profitably, the son giving the name of a salesman in Monmouth Street, and adding, "Be sure, tell him 'twas I recommended you to him." Dick parted first with the new black suit he had so recently bought, and so found himself comparatively well in fund for his present station.

Not finding his landlady's son a companion to his taste, and not making any acquaintances in the various coffee-houses, taverns, and eating-houses that he now frequented in and about Fleet Street and the Strand, he became afflicted with loneliness. A mere unnoticed mite among thousands, and utterly ignored by the hastening multitude, he sent his thoughts from the vast and crowded city, back to the bleak Maine wilderness, and he had a kind of homesick longing for the hearty comradeship of the time of freezing and starving there.

One evening, determined to enliven himself and have another fling at pleasure at any cost, he went to Westminster Bridge afoot, and thence by boat up the Thames, to Vauxhall. He had no sooner paid his shilling, on entering the garden, than his spirits began to rise. The sound of the orchestra and of singers, heard while he passed by the little groves and the statues, brought back his zest for gay life, and this was redoubled as he came into the brilliantly lighted space around the orchestra, where the small boxes on either side were filled with people who sat eating or drinking at the tables, and where the walks were thronged with pleasure-seekers of every rank. He sat down on an empty bench in one of the boxes, thinking to drink a bottle of wine and listen to the music.

Before the waiter had brought the wine, a gaily dressed young woman, handsome enough in her powder and paint, came with almost a rush to the vacant place at his side, and said, with a bold smile, "My dear sir, I can't endure to see so pretty a gentleman drink alone! I'm going to keep you company."

Dick, having inspected the amiable creature in a glance, was nothing loath. So the waiter, having brought the wine, was sent for an additional glass, and then again for eatables. Dick's companion proved so agreeable that he soon ordered more wine and presently forgot the music in contemplating her charms, her air of piquant impudence, her affectations, and the shallow smartness of her talk. He was so entertained by her that, when the night was late, on arriving with her at Westminster Bridge, he took a hackney coach and accompanied her to her lodgings, which, to his astonishment, were in the quite respectable-looking house of a hosier in High Holborn.

At his frank expression of surprise, she seemed huffed; wondered why she should not be supposed to live like any other lady, and said it was nobody's business if she chose now and then to go out for an evening of pleasure in a free and easy manner. Her ruffled feelings were soon smoothed down, however, and when Dick left her it was with an appointment to take her to the next Hampstead Assembly.

This Vauxhall incident cost Dick so much of the money got from the sale of his new suit that he was soon fain to visit the Monmouth Street dealer again, this time carrying the gamekeeper's suit and wearing that bestowed on him by the whimsical gentleman met at Taunton. For both these suits, the shopkeeper gave him a sum of money and a very plain blue frock, a worn white waistcoat, and a pair of mended black breeches. Thus Dick left the shop in vastly different attire from that in which he had entered it, and when he returned to his lodging the change made his landlady's son gape with wonder.

Before Dick had made up his mind as to how he should rebuild his fortunes, he received one afternoon a visitor in a hackney coach, who was none other than the companionable young lady of Vauxhall, to whom he had made known his place of residence. Her errand now was to learn why he had failed to keep his engagement for the Hampstead Assembly. She did not stay long to reproach him, for no sooner had she taken note of his cheapened appearance, and made sure that it came from necessity, than she swept out of his room and back to the coach, on the pretence of being offended at the broken appointment.

On leaving the house, she was seen by the landlady's son, who came to Dick presently, with a grin, and remarked that Sukey Green had become a great lady since she had ceased to walk the Strand of nights. On inquiring, Dick learned that his visitor was well known by sight to the landlady's son as having been, not many weeks before, one of the countless frail damsels infesting the sidewalks of the town after nightfall. Some turn of fortune had taken her from her rags and a hole in Butcher Row to the fine clothes and comfortable lodgings she now possessed, instead of to the Bridewell or the river or a pauper's grave, as another turn might have done. Perhaps she had but returned to the condition from which she had fallen.

Dick soon had fallen fortunes of his own to think of. He knew not how to attempt to make his money multiply; or rather he devised in his mind so many methods that he could not confine his thoughts to any one of them. Thus rendered inert by his very versatility, he saw his money go for mere necessities, and at last he had to seek still cheaper lodgings, which he found in Green Arbor Court, a place redeemed in his eyes by the fact that Oliver Goldsmith had once lived there.

It was not a locality designed to increase his cheerfulness. He had a narrow, bare room, high up in a dirty, squalid house; from his window he could see old clothes flying from countless windows and lines; and the sounds most common to his ears were the voices of washerwomen laughing or quarrelling and of children shouting or squalling. Not far in one direction was Newgate Prison, and not far in another was that of the Fleet.

In going to Fleet Street, he had to descend Breakneck Stairs,—which numbered thirty-two and were in two steep flights and led him to the edge of Fleet Ditch,—traverse a narrow street, and go through Fleet Market. This was a route that Dick often took, for he preferred still to dine in and about Fleet Street, though no longer at the Grecian Coffee-house or Dick's or the Mitre Tavern, to all which places he had resorted while lodging in George Street, but at the cheaper places,—Clifton's Eating-house, in Butcher Row, for one. Sometimes his meal consisted solely of a pot of beer at the Goat Ale House in Shire Lane. He fell at last to the down-stairs eating-houses, where his table-mates were hackney coachmen, servants poorly paid or unemployed, and poverty-stricken devils and unsuccessful rascals of every sort. It was here that his fortune took an upward course again.

Appealed to, one day, in a low tavern, to settle a card dispute between two bloated, sore-faced fellows who had come to the point of accusing each other of being, one a footpad and the other a grave robber, Dick acted the umpire to the satisfaction of both, and then went on to do a few astonishing things with their cards. Others in the tavern gathered round him, until presently, seeing the crowd and the interest both increasing, Dick observed that his time was valuable and that he could not afford to show any more skill for nothing. But the body-stealer refused to receive the dirty cards handed back to him by Dick, and the footpad speedily took up a collection, with such a "money-or-your-life" air that a hatful of greasy coins was soon raised to induce Dick to go on with his tricks. As many of these tricks were of old Tom's invention, they differed from those with which the London scamps were familiar.

The footpad and the resurrectionist now persuaded Dick to go to another tavern, where they opened the way for his apparently extemporaneous performances, and where they raised good sums for him. He wondered at first at the zeal with which they worked to enrich him, but he presently saw that they, pretending to be chance observers, were quietly making bets with other spectators on the results of certain of his card manipulations. He thereupon left off, and escaped from this undesired partnership. But he now engaged an honest, impoverished hack writer, whom he met in an eating-cellar, to sit at tavern tables with him and appear an interested observer of his card tricks, enlist the crowd's attention, and suggest the inevitable passing around of the hat. This combination continued for a week, during which time the low taverns were visited in succession, from Whitefriars to St. Catherine's, from Cripplegate to Southwark. Dick's earnings consisted only of what the spectators willingly gave for their amusement, but at the week's end that amount sufficed for the purchase of a good suit of clothes at a tailor's in the Strand, and for another purpose besides, which Dick, once more clad like a gentleman, speedily set out upon.

He went boldly back to Pall Mall, ran across several acquaintances to whom Lord George Winston had made him known, and got one of them to introduce him to a certain respectable-looking house in Covent Garden; and in that house, whose interior showed an activity not promised by its outside, he won at faro an amount that filled every other player at the table with resentful envy. When he left, he felt himself again a made man; his pockets were heavy with money.

The night was well advanced when he issued from the gambling-house, enjoying the relief and the fresh air after the excitement and heat of the rooms. He walked to the Strand and turned towards Temple Bar, intending to sup at the Turk's Head Coffee-house. When he reached the Strand end of Catherine Street, he was accosted, with more than ordinary importunity, by one of the most miserable-looking of the frail creatures that walked the street there. As he was in the act of avoiding her, she called out his name in sudden recognition, and he then knew her as the gay young woman of High Holborn whom he had met at Vauxhall.

Struck with pity to see in so sad a plight a person recently so prosperous, he could not but walk along with her to hear her story. She had lost the means of support that had enabled her to live in a good neighborhood and flaunt her finery at Vauxhall, Ranelagh, and the Hampstead Assembly. She lodged no longer in High Holborn, nor even in Butcher's Row; in fact, she knew not where she was to pass that night. She showed, through all her cast-down demeanor, a decided reawakening of regard for Dick, and even hinted, after they had talked for some time, that her loss of favor had arisen from her acceptance of his escort from Vauxhall. So Dick gave her a few shillings for her immediate necessities, and told her to call at his lodging in Green Arbor Court on the morrow, when they would discuss what might be done for her. It was at her own suggestion that his residence was selected as the place of meeting.

But, on the morrow, she did not call at the appointed time. So Dick went out to attend to business of pressing importance, which was no other than to buy a new black suit and other necessaries. In the afternoon he went to Pall Mall and renewed acquaintances, saying he had returned to London the day before yesterday. Pumping a young gentleman whom he knew to be on close terms with the Mallby family, he learned that the dazzling heiress was still in town and that a place had been taken for her for that night's performance at the little theatre in the Haymarket. Dick hastened to secure a seat as near as possible to the box in which Miss Mallby was to be.

In the evening, which was that of Wednesday, July 10, attired in his best, Dick occupied a seat in the pit, in the midst of a crowded audience, and had the satisfaction of seeing not only the heiress, but also their Majesties, George III. and Queen Charlotte, who both laughed immoderately at Mr. Foote as "Lady Pentweazle,"—especially when he appeared under a vast head-dress filled with feathers, in exaggeration of the reigning mode.

It was some time before Dick's admiring gaze held the attention of Miss Mallby, which it caught while she scanned the crowded house from her box; and some time after that before she recalled who he was. But when she did recognize him, it was with a smile so radiant that Lord Alderby, then standing at her side, turned quite red and pale successively, and glared at Dick with a most deadly expression. In response to a slight movement of her fan, Dick forced his way to her, between acts, and had a brief chat about the audience, the weather, his supposed absence from town, Lord George Winston, and such matters, which in themselves certainly contained nothing to warrant the mischievous smiles on her part, and the languishing glances on his, that accompanied the talk.

Any one but Dick and Lord Alderby could have seen that the lady's sole motive was a desire to keep his lordship jealous. But Dick took all signs as they appeared on the surface, and when he left the playhouse it was with a flattering delusion that her hopes of seeing him soon again were from the heart. He did not observe that Lord Alderby, before handing Miss Mallby into her coach, pointed him out to a footman and hurriedly whispered some instructions.

Dick went on air to his room in Green Arbor Court,—for he intended to retain his lodging there until he should find a residence perfectly to his taste. He laughed to think of a gentleman of his figure coming home to Green Arbor Court, and wondered whether such contrast was typical of any one's else career, as it was of his.

The next day, to his astonishment,—for he supposed the Vauxhall girl to be the only outside person knowing where he lived,—he received in his wretched room a visit from a man dressed like a servant but evidently horrified at the rickety surroundings. This person, being assured by Dick that the latter was Mr. Richard Wetheral, handed him a letter, and fled forthwith. The letter, on clean plain paper, and in an ill-formed but fine feminine hand, read thus:

"Hounerd sir:

"I mak bolde to tell you for heavings sak taike outher lodgings and do not go neer them wch you now live att—tis a qestchun of life or Deth and sure do not go neer them at nite, this nite above all—do not waite a minute but take outher wons att wonse—from Won that noes and wch deesirs you noe harm yr respeckfull an dutyfull servt."

Dick was completely puzzled. What danger could he be in, through remaining at his present abode? Who could be his unknown warner? Not the Vauxhall girl, for she had written her name for him on a card, and this was not her handwriting. The quality and cleanliness of the paper indicated a person living in good case,—perhaps a maid-servant in some fine house. Then he recalled the face of the man who had brought the letter, and whom, at the moment, he had thought he had seen somewhere before. Recollecting singly each incident of his life in London, he at last located the man's face. It was that of a footman at the Mallbys' house in Grosvenor Square. But what maid-servant in that house could have noticed Dick? Indeed, what person in that house had done so but Miss Mallby herself? So the heiress, to avoid discovery in the matter, might have caused her maid to send the warning. Now what possible danger to Dick could Miss Mallby be aware of, save one that Lord Alderby might have threatened or planned? But would Lord Alderby have informed her of such plans? Perhaps so, in a moment of anger, as men will anticipate the pleasure of revenge, by announcing that revenge in advance; perhaps not. If not, one or two of his lordship's servants would probably have been in his confidence, and thus the cat might have been let out of the bag to one of Miss Mallby's maids. So Dick concluded that, if he was in any danger, it must be from Lord Alderby, his only powerful enemy. But he resolved to disdain the warning, nevertheless, and he went forth to look in a leisurely way for suitable lodgings, as he had intended to do, though he would not move into them for two or three days.

But he wasted the day in riding about London, viewing things he had not seen before. In the evening the whim seized him to go to Ranelagh. It was not until late at night, when he turned from Fleet Street, through the market, that he thought of the morning's warning. He felt a momentary tremor, so dark and deserted was the narrow street leading to Breakneck Stairs. But he braced himself within, and strode along with apparent blitheness; yet he could not help thinking that Breakneck Stairs would be an excellent place for an attack by his enemies. Peering forward in the darkness, he turned from the border of Fleet Ditch, and mounted the first steps. At the side of the stairs, there ascended a row of houses, all now in deep shadow.

He had reached the landing between the two flights, without incident, when suddenly from the shadow at the side a dark lantern was flashed upon his face, and out rushed three or four burly figures. "Heave the spalpeen down the shtairs!" cried a voice from the shadow,—a voice that Dick instantly recognized as Captain Delahenty's, and from which he knew the attack was indeed at Lord Alderby's instigation.

The men were armed with bludgeons, and three rushed upon Dick at once. But he had no mind to make his bed in Fleet Ditch; hence he met the middle rascal with a violent kick in the belly, and, getting instantly between the other two, shot out both arms simultaneously, clutching at their throats. But now the captain and one other man rushed out from the shadow, and Dick thought all was up.

Suddenly there came a cry from the top of the stairs, "Hold off, that man belongs to us!" There followed a flashing of other lanterns, and a scuffle of footsteps down from the top. In another moment, Dick's first assailants were resisting this new force, who had fallen upon them with bludgeons. A sharp, quick fight, in which Dick himself took no part whatever, left the newcomers in possession of the landing and of him, while Captain Delahenty and his gang were carrying their broken heads rapidly down the stairs and off towards Fleet Market.

"I thank you for the rescue," said Dick to the stalwart leader of the victorious party, as that leader held up a lantern before Dick's face.

"You may call it a rescue, if you like," growled the leader, "but some would rather die in a street brawl than swing at Tyburn. Edward Lawson, otherwise known as Captain Ted," and the man, who had pronounced these names in an official manner, waited as if for Dick to answer to them.

"If you mean that you take me for a person of that name," said Dick, "I have to tell you that you are disappointed."

"Oho!" was the answer. "That game ain't worthy of you, captain! But if you wish to play it out, you can play it out in Bow Street, and at the Old Bailey after that. I arrest you, Edward Lawson, commonly called Captain Ted, on a charge of highway robbery. Here's the warrant, which God knows I've carried around long enough! You know the usual formality, captain."

And at this the bewildered Dick unresistingly saw himself seized by his arms, while another of the constables—for constables these were—adorned him with a pair of handcuffs. He was then marched back to Fleet Street—for it appeared he was no common prisoner, for the nearest roundhouse—and thence, by way of the Strand and other familiar thoroughfares, to a building in Bow Street, celebrated for the fact that Fielding wrote "Tom Jones" therein.

But another Fielding presided there now. Dick received free lodging till morning, and then he was escorted to the court-room close at hand, to take his turn as one among a crowd of anxious wretches of both sexes, who stood in a railed enclosure at one side of a vacant space, before the table at which sat the grave magistrate in all the vestments and solemnity of his office. To Dick's amazement, he beheld in an opposite railed space certain faces with which he was acquainted,—those of his George Street landlady's son, the Monmouth Street shopman to whom he had sold the clothes, and the Vauxhall girl. Dick wondered what the whole business meant, and what it would lead to. At last his turn came.

The magistrate glanced at him indifferently, and addressed him coldly, in a few words whose meaning Dick did not take pains to gather. Then a clerk at the table read monotonously a long document, wherein it appeared that a number of people had sworn to certain occurrences, which, as far as Dick could see, did not concern him in the least; namely, that Moreton Charteris, gentleman, of Bloomsbury Square, had been robbed of money, valuables, and wardrobe, early in the previous February, by a highwayman who had stopped his coach near Turnham Green; that a woman who had quarrelled at Reading with one Edward Lawson, known as Captain Ted, knew the said Lawson to have been the robber of Mr. Charteris, and, on her threatening to inform against him, to have fled towards Bath in one of the stolen suits of clothes; and that Mr. Charteris's servant had, in June, recognized one of the stolen suits in a Monmouth Street shop.

And now the shopkeeper in the witness box identified that suit as the one so recognized, and Dick as the man who had sold it; and from further testimony Dick could infer that the servant's discovery had sent Bow Street runners to the shopman, who had referred them for information regarding Dick's whereabouts to the landlady's son, who in turn had sent them to the Vauxhall girl; and that through her treachery they had learned his place of lodging. In fact, that grateful creature had stood in wait with the constables at the head of Breakneck Stairs, and announced, when his first assailants' lantern had lit up his features, that he was the man the constables wanted. She had, though, kept out of his sight, from a greater sense of shame than many of her class would have shown. As for the attack by the Delahenty party, it had been as great a surprise to the waiting constables as to Dick.

And now Dick was hastily identified by two bold-looking women, as the aforesaid Edward Lawson, otherwise Captain Ted. He remembered that the whimsical gentleman met at Taunton had resembled him, and he perceived now, considering the danger of being betrayed by the woman quarrelled with, and of being far sought by the Bow Street men, why that gentleman had taken the caprice of exchanging good clothes for bad. In putting this and that together, as he stood in the dock, Dick lost track of the court's proceedings, and it came like a sudden blow when he saw Sir John Fielding gaze hard upon him, and heard Sir John Fielding commit him, as Edward Lawson, to the jail of Newgate, there to be kept in custody until he should be brought forth to stand his trial!

To Newgate, to await trial for highway robbery, the penalty of which was death by hanging; readily identified as the guilty man by those who would stick to their oath; unable to prove by any person in England that he was not that man, for all his acquaintances had been made since the exchange of clothes,—a pleasant series of thoughts to keep the adventurous Master Dick company in the hackney coach that rattled him swiftly away from the Bow Street court to the great, vile, many-chambered stone cage where such gallows-birds as Master Jack Sheppard and Monsieur Claude Duval had lodged before him! And if those thoughts were not enough, there was that of the cart-ride out Holborn to Tyburn tree, a picturesque ending for a journey over so many hills and so far away!

CHAPTER XIV.

"FAIR STOOD THE WIND FOR FRANCE."

It was not so much the confinement that crushed him, though that was a terribly galling thing; he had endured closer confinement in Boston, and on the Adamant. But never had he been surrounded by so vile a herd of beings. He accustomed himself, though, in time, to their crime-stamped faces, their disgusting talk, and the sodden drunkenness they were enabled to maintain by means of the liquor smuggled to them by visitors,—for the courtyard and the cells thronged every day with visitors of either sex, and of quality similar to that of the prisoners themselves. Dick was presently able to discriminate among his jail-mates, and so he found one or two of more gentle stuff.

One of these was a young Frenchman awaiting trial for an assault of which he declared that he had been the victim and that the complainant had been the aggressor. In order to converse with this one refined companion without being understood by their coarse associates, Dick resumed, with him, the study of French, and, as he now had plenty of time, he made rapid progress. There were several French books brought by this tutor's visitors, from which to learn the written language, and there was the tutor's own speech from which to acquire the pronunciation.

It will be seen, thus, that Dick had plucked up heart, as it was his nature to do. He steadfastly refrained from looking into the future, and he made no provision in regard thereto. A grinning attorney had benevolently buttonholed him on his first day of imprisonment, and had proposed to take his case in hand, but, on learning how little money Dick would have for the luxury of a defence, this person had gone away, minus grin and benevolence.

Dick had more money than he had offered the shark of the law, but he needed it in order to pay for quarters and food of a grade above that which had to be endured by those miserable prisoners who could pay nothing and who had to live on a penny loaf a day. The court in which Dick abode was neither the best nor the worst in Newgate; but the best, where those dwelt who paid most, was loathsome enough as to the company.

To follow the example set by Wetheral himself in his memoirs, and to make swift work of his Newgate life,—for only in the "Beggar's Opera" is Newgate life a merry thing to contemplate,—let it be said at once that a true bill was duly found against him by the grand jury, and that his trial was set for the September sessions at the Old Bailey Sessions House, next door to Newgate Prison. As Dick surveyed the long list of witnesses who would be called for the Crown, and bethought him that he was without witness or counsel, the vision of Tyburn gallows was for a moment or two exceedingly vivid before his mind's eye.

It was now about the middle of August, and that same day there came to Dick another piece of news brought in by visitors,—that on the fourth day of July the American rebels, in the State House in Philadelphia, had declared the colonies to be free and independent States. A thrill of joy and pride brought the tears to Dick's eyes, and the apparition of Tyburn, the very sense of the Newgate walls and herd around him, gave way to visions of things far over seas, of people rejoicing in the cities he had passed through towards Cambridge, of his father rubbing hands and crying "Well done!" over the news, at home in the Pennsylvania valley; of the cheers of Washington's men, and the sage comments of old Tom MacAlister. When he awoke to Newgate and the Tyburn phantom, he brought his teeth hard together and fretted at fate.

Early in September, sitting idly on a bench at an end of the court, his ears pricked up at the words, "American prisoner," uttered in course of talk by a woman who was making a visit to an imprisoned waterman accused of robbing a passenger.

"They say as 'ow, afore 'e was picked up, off the Lizard, by the ship as brought 'im 'ere," she went on, "the rebel 'ad got out o' jug, by jumpink on a 'orse in Pendennis Castle, and ridink away in broad daylight, afore a multitood o' people."

A prisoner escaped from Pendennis Castle on horseback! Dick instantly joined in the conversation. "You say a ship picked the man up, off the Lizard," he put in. "How did they know he was the man who had escaped on the horse?"

"By 'is clothes, in course," said the woman, "and by the descriptions as was sent everywhere."

"But you say the ship has brought him to London?"

"Yes. 'E was picked up in a small boat, far hout to sea, a-trying for to make the French coast. The ship's captain, having put out of Plymouth on a long voyage,—for this 'appened last February,—'ad no mind to turn back, and so he took the fellow all the way to the Barbados, and then brought him 'ome to London. So now he lies at St. Catherine's, on shipboard, while the Government is making up its mind what to do with 'im."

And thus had fate treated Edward Lawson, otherwise Captain Ted, Dick's whimsical gentleman of Taunton! To think that a fugitive, in exchanging himself out of an incriminating suit of clothes to avoid detection, should exchange himself into the clothes of another fugitive, and be caught as the latter! Dick laughed to himself, even as he went to beg a turnkey to inform the governor that he, Dick, had an important disclosure to make.

The turnkey carried the message, for a consideration, and Dick was summoned to the governor's room, where it was finally got into the head of that functionary that Dick claimed to be the American prisoner for whom the other man had been taken. Dick was sent back to his court, with no satisfaction; but the next day he was led again into the governor's room, and confronted with the whimsical gentleman himself, who looked decidedly the worse for wear. It appeared that the highwayman was glad to be known, even in his true colors, rather than as a rebel prisoner who might be charged with treason.

The two were taken by hackney coach to Bow Street, and there the whimsical gentleman, much to his relief, was identified as Captain Ted, by the very ladies who had identified Dick as the same person, Justice Fielding subsequently observing that the resemblance between the two men was so great as to leave no ground for a charge of perjury against the identifiers. Captain Ted was then promptly committed to Newgate, on the evidence of the woman who had first laid information against him. With a friendly smile and courteous bow to Dick, he was led away.

And now Dick, relieved of the oft-recurring Tyburn vision, was to learn what disposition was to be made of himself. Standing out from the prisoners' pen, and in the vacant space before the magistrate's table, he was addressed at some length by Sir John Fielding. It appeared that his story, as related to the governor of Newgate the previous day, having tallied with certain statements made by the other prisoner, had been considered by no less a personage than the Secretary of State. If he was one of the American prisoners who had been confined at Pendennis Castle, the justice said, his treatment ordinarily would have been the same as theirs,—that is to say, he would have been taken aboard the Solebay frigate on the 8th of January, and sent back to America as a prisoner of war, subject to exchange (this was Dick's first intimation of what had befallen Allen and the others). But he had broken from custody while he still regarded it as likely that he would be proceeded against for high treason, and he was therefore to be considered as having admitted his guilt of high treason. However, it was the desire of the King to exhibit great clemency to his rebellious American subjects, even in the most aggravated cases; hence the justice dared presume that the Crown would not move against the prisoner on the charge of treason (Dick afterward guessed that the real reason for this self-denial on the Crown's part lay in the difficulty and expense of getting witnesses to the alleged treason). The prisoner had, however, been shown to have sold a stolen suit of clothes; he ought to have known, by the circumstances in which he had acquired the clothes, even if those circumstances were as he alleged, that the clothes had been stolen; his not so knowing was a fault, yet was the fault of no one other than him, hence must be his fault. The justice was, therefore, compelled, on information sworn by the Monmouth Street dealer and by Mr. Charteris's servant, to commit the prisoner for trial on this new charge.

So back to Newgate went Dick, wondering whether matters were improved, after all. At the September sessions he was haled, upon indictment, before the bewigged judges and the stolid jury in the Old Bailey; pleaded not guilty, was tried with great expedition, convicted without delay, and sentenced (at the end of a solemn speech in which he thought at first the judge was driving at nothing less than death by hanging with the next Tyburn batch) to hard labor for three years on the river Thames. It appeared that the prisoner's general honesty, to which his George Street landlady's son voluntarily testified, influenced the judge against a capital sentence. Well, what is three years' hard labor to a man who has seriously contemplated a gibbet for several weeks past?

The vessel on which Dick found himself, in consequence of this manifestation of British justice,—which in those benighted days was almost as dangerous for an honest man to come in contact with as New York City justice is to-day,—resembled an ordinary lighter, though of broader gunwale on the larboard side. A floor about three feet wide ran along the starboard side, for the men to work on, and their duty was to raise ballast, of which the vessel's capacity was twenty-seven tons, by means of windlass and davits. The convicts slept aft, where the vessel was decked in, and the overseer had a cabin in the forecastle.

The men were chained together in pairs, and Dick, to his surprise, recognized his own comrade as none other than the body-snatcher through whom he had accidentally come to try his card tricks in London taverns. This amiable person had been caught while conveying a pauper's body, wrapped in a sack, by hackney coach, from Shoreditch to St. George's hospital, for the use of surgeons. He belonged to a gang that worked for the Resurrectionist, an inhabitant of the Borough, who was a famous trader to the surgeons.

Dick had to work all day, and to eat nothing but ox-cheek, legs and shins of beef, and equally coarse food; to drink only water or small beer, and to wear a mean uniform, which, as autumn wore into winter, ill protected him from the cold. Yet the hard work kept his blood going by day, gave him appetite for the food, and made sleep a pleasure. The fatigues of the day left the convicts no inclination to talk at night. One day was like another, and the monotony of uninteresting toil was endurable only for the prospect of freedom at the end of the three years. Dick had no mind to attempt an escape, for on receiving sentence he had been told that his term might be abridged for good behavior, that it would certainly be doubled on a first attempt to escape, and that on a such second attempt he would be liable to suffer death. So when, in the fifth month of his durance, he was awakened one night by the grave-robber, and a general plot to break away was cautiously broached to him, he resolutely refused to take part or to hear more, and went to sleep again. He observed, the next few days, that he was narrowly watched by the other convicts, who doubtless feared he might inform the overseer; but he had no such intention.

One night in February,—it was between Sunday and Monday,—when the vessel was moored off Woolwich, Dick was violently awakened by a kind of tugging at his leg. Throwing out his hand in the darkness to investigate, he heard a threatening whisper, "If you move or call out, I'll blow your head off with this pistol! Bill the Blacksmith is taking off our irons. You can join us if you like, or you can stay here, but you'll keep quiet!"

The voice was that of the body-stealer, to whom Dick was chained. In releasing the former, the Blacksmith, working in the darkness, had necessarily disturbed the chain attached to Dick. Bill the Blacksmith was a person unknown to Dick. As afterward appeared, he was one of a rescue party that had come on this dark night to free those prisoners who were in the plot. Some of the party had got aboard, crawled unseen within a few feet of the guards, reached the sleeping-place of the convicts, supplied some of these with weapons, and were now at work removing their irons.

Dick lay perfectly still. Presently the grave-robber stood up, unshackled. The chain was still fastened to Dick's leg.

"Well," whispered the grave-robber, "will you stay as you are, or will you join us?"

To be shortly free of the chafing fetters, able to use his whole body in a dash for liberty; to seize now what would not be offered to him for two long and miserable years! The temptation was too strong. "I'll join," whispered Dick.

"This one, too, Bill," said the grave-robber, and the Blacksmith went to work on Dick's fetters.

Other skilful hands were employed at the same time on the shackles of other convicts. The operations went on in the utmost silence. Now and then, at some sound from without, they would stop for a while. It was only after he had been awake some time, that Dick could distinguish the dark forms of the artisans working over the prostrate forms of the prisoners. Never had he seen such a combination of skill, patience, persistence, and noiselessness. Pick-locks, burglars, jail-breakers, all, exercising their abilities this time to free their comrades, were the men at work; yet Dick could not but admire the manner in which they went about their business. Doubtless there was a large reward to be earned, perhaps from some employer of certain of these convicts,—some such great man as the Resurrectionist, of the Borough, or as Gipsy George, leader of smugglers; for any one of these rescuers would as soon turn King's evidence against a comrade as liberate him.

At last all irons were off. Instantly, with the grave-robber at the head, there was a general rush to the platform on which the men worked. The surprised guards were either shot at, struck, intimidated, or swept into the hold, by the advancing convicts. The latter scrambled over the vessel's side, some dropping into a boat that suddenly unmasked two lanterns. Another boat, also belonging to the rescue party, now showed a light a little farther off. For this boat Dick swam, with many others who had plunged at once into the water, and presently he was hauled aboard like a hooked shark.

Some of the convicts, as if fearing there would not be room for them on the boats, struck out for the shore. Dick never knew what became of them, or of those who crowded into the first boat. The craft in which he found himself was speedily filled, whereupon the men at the oars, aided by convicts who had found other oars waiting, pulled rapidly down the river, the boat's lantern again being darkened. By this time those in charge of the convict vessel had recovered their senses and begun firing shots of alarm. Dick made up his mind to get away from his villainous company at the first opportunity.

Presently the men at the oars were relieved by another force, which included Dick. Thus, aided by the river's current, and thanks to their system of alternating at the oars, as well as to the strength derived from fear of recapture, the desperate crew made incredible speed. As dawn began to show itself, Dick saw, on the southern bank of the Thames, a considerable town against a hillside, environed by meadows and fields, pleasure grounds and country-seats. A high hill near by was crowned by a windmill. Vessels of every size lay in the harbor. Dick learned from the talk in the boat that this was Gravesend.

The men rowed straight for a certain sloop, which, it appeared from their conversation, was engaged in the business of conveying stolen horses to Dunkirk and other Continental ports. Dick inwardly determined to follow the fortunes of this rascal boat's crew no longer. Once alongside the sloop, the convicts proceeded to board it, each man for himself. The stern of the boat drifted several feet away from the sloop. Dick, pretending he would leap in his turn, across the intervening space, purposely missed hold of the sloop, and sank into the water. Diving some distance, he came up at a spot far from where the attention of his erstwhile comrades was directed. He then struck out for the outskirts of Gravesend, and landed a little east of the town, in the gray of the morning.

Skirting the town, and passing only bare vegetable gardens and fishermen's houses, he reached the Dover road, and walked on four miles to Gad's Hill, where Sir John Falstaff had played valorous pranks. Three miles more of walking brought him to Rochester, with its twelfth century Cathedral, and its ruined Norman Castle aloft by the Medway. A sailor's wife, living in a small house in a squalid part of the town, gave him a breakfast of porridge, while he dried his clothes at her fire.

Knowing he might be detected by his uniform, and finding the woman good-hearted, Dick offered to exchange the suit he had on for some worn-out raiment of her husband's, saying that the cloth of his garments might be made over into clothes for her little son. This exchange being made in the woman's parlor while she was at work in the kitchen, Dick proceeded on his way. At Sittingbourne, ten miles farther southeast, he stopped at a villager's house, on pretence of asking the road, and received a glass of milk and an egg, which he ate raw. Thus refreshed, he trudged on seven miles, to Ospringe, where he passed the night under a sheep-skin, in a cart-house.

The next morning (Tuesday), breakfasting on a pot of ale given him by an oysterman of Faversham, Dick went on to Canterbury, where, procuring a pack of cards from an hostler of an inn in High Street, he fell back on his card tricks for a living, though now with great aversion. He risked wearing out his welcome at the Canterbury inns and tap-rooms, for that he so much liked the town; and it was reluctantly that, on Saturday morning, he left the old Cathedral behind, and set his face southeastward. Passing the Gothic towers of Lee Priory, he plodded on, mile after mile, hour after hour, over downs and through villages, till he stood at last on the hills at whose feet, before him, lay the town and the harbor of Dover, and from whose top, near the old castle supposed to have been founded by Julius Cæsar, could be seen, beyond the ruffled waves of the Channel, the distant coast of France.

Tired and hungry, Dick descended from the cliff and proceeded along narrow Snaregate Street to a straggling suburb of low-built houses inhabited by sailors and fishermen. It was late in the afternoon, when he entered a small tippling-house, where were a number of seafarers boisterously talking, and called at the bar for a glass of rum. While drinking, he asked the barman how one might go to France more cheaply than by the regular packet. He was immediately referred to one of the fellows drinking at a small table in the room. Thus introduced to this person, who was a stalwart, sea-browned man of fifty, Dick ingratiated himself into his liking, drank with him, and presently began his usual procedure with the cards.

As invariably happened, certain of his spectators offered Dick small sums to show them how one or other of his most puzzling tricks were done. As always, Dick refused. But his first acquaintance, under a curiosity to which Dick had adroitly ministered, persisted hard in begging to know the secret of a certain sleight. Dick finally replied:

"I shall tell you on the other side of the Channel."

"T'other side of the Channel?" repeated the seafarer. "When shall I see you there, man?"

"When you shall have taken me there in your fishing-smack."

"So 'tis settled I'm to take you? But the pay?"

"Good Lord! If I show you my card trick, isn't that pay? I call a miserable passage across the Channel a mighty cheap price for one of my secrets. But if you will haggle, you shall have all my money into the bargain,—one shilling, and one sixpence. Well, well, so you don't want to learn the trick? Good evening, then!"

"Oh, hold! I didn't say no. I don't haggle. I'll take you, lad, to-morrow night,—when I go a-fishing."

If Dick thought it strange to go fishing by night, particularly Sunday night, he kept his thoughts to himself. He had heard tales of the fisherfolk and other worthy people of the coast towns, and was prepared to be blind to certain signs. As for the readiness with which the seafarers in the ale-house let him come among them, his own appearance of poverty had quickly served to establish a fellowship. His winning, yet confident, manner prevented his being despised for the poverty he showed. Moreover, his desire to cross the Channel indicated, in a person of his attire, such motives for absence from England as these men were of a class to sympathize with. They knew at first glance that he had no purpose inimical to them, so keen was their scent for a government spy in any disguise. In fine, Dick had the gift of adapting his demeanor to the society of a Lord or of a cutthroat, and easily made himself received without distrust by these wary folk who fished by night.

On Saturday night, that of his arrival at this humble suburb of Dover, he slept in a corner of the fisherman's loft. All the next day, he lay quiet indoors, sharing the Sunday life of the fisherman's family, which included a wife and two huge, awkward sons, respectively sixteen and eighteen years old. At night, preceded by these sons, the fisherman led Dick some distance from the town, to a cove, where lay the smack. An unknown man was already aboard, adjusting sail. The four immediately joined him, Dick bestowing himself in the stern while the fisherman and his sons assisted the unknown at the ropes. Few, short, and low were the words spoken, and very soon the little craft glided out from shore, upon the easy swell of the Channel. The night was lit by stars only, the wind was fair, and the heave of the sea was not violent.

Dick noticed that his skipper kept a very keen lookout, seeming to search the sea ahead for some particular object. He wondered how soon these nocturnal fishermen would begin to cast lines, and what sort of fish they would be catching at this season. But presently he drew in all his thoughts to his own affairs, for he had become unmistakably seasick. Busy for a long while in seeking relief, his head over the side of the boat, he gave no heed to the doings or words of the crew.

He was, in time, vaguely aware of a hail from another vessel; of the fact that this vessel loomed into close view; that his own boat lay to alongside of it; that the two crews conversed in mixed French and English; that sundry bales, kegs, ankers, and two or three barrels, were lowered from the other vessel into the boat, and then that he was shaken at the shoulder by his conductor, who said, "Come aboard the lugger, lad, and make haste!"

Surprised but unquestioning, Dick staggered after the fisherman and clambered from the boat's gunwale, with the crew's help, to the other vessel. Just as the fisherman was about to follow, one of his sons gave a low cry. The fisherman uttered a curse, and leaped to his rudder, while the son who had called out seized a rope and began vigorously making sail. At the same moment a man on the lugger instantly released the line by which the Dover smack had been kept alongside, and there was a general noise of ropes, blocks, and canvas, in quick movement. Before Dick knew what was the matter the two vessels had parted company, and the lights of a third appeared, from which came a sharp, mandatory hail. This, being unanswered, was followed by a flash and a boom and a splashing up of water,—the last in the wake of the boat from Dover. That craft showing its heels in fine fashion, and Dick's vessel also making speed, the former was soon out of sight. The revenue cutter, for such was the intruder whose advent had caused the two smuggling vessels to part so suddenly, chose to pursue the English boat, so that the French lugger to which Dick had been transferred went its way unhindered.

Dick turned with an inquiring look to the man who seemed in command of the lugger. The latter, evidently supposing that Dick's solicitude was in regard to the Dover smack, said in French, "Have no fear, my brother. Your comrades will carry their fish safe home. Their King's vessels waste time and powder chasing them. Mon Dieu, the bottom of the ocean must be paved with the cannon-shot the revenue vessels have sent after the night fishermen in vain!"

Dick, from his long association with the French teacher in Newgate, could grasp the meaning of this speech after a few moments. He knew from the words and manner that the Frenchman understood him to be on a good understanding with the Dover fishermen, and would treat him as one who deserved well of the vast fraternity of Channel smugglers. It was comforting to know that his way had thus been made smooth by the Dover man when the latter had bespoken Dick's passage, for the French smuggler was as villainous-looking a rascal as Dick had seen in Newgate, and, had Dick come to him without proper introduction, would doubtless have been as ready with a hostile knife or belaying-pin as he now was with deference and amiability. Dick found, without directly asking, that the lugger was bound for Boulogne.

It was that darkest hour which precedes the dawn, when the vessel anchored some distance off that port. The skipper and one of the crew rowed ashore with Dick in a small boat, getting out in the surf, and dragging the boat after them while they waded to dry beach. They were now on the sands near the town. The captain took polite leave of Dick, pointing out the most convenient way to go, and adding, with a grin, that, as this road was not obstructed by custom-house officers, Dick would undergo no delay over his baggage. Nothing was said about passage money. The Dover skipper had evidently provided for Dick's transportation, which was doubtless a matter of reciprocal favor between the English and the French smugglers. Dick was sorry the Dover man had been disappointed, by the interference of the revenue cutter, of the intended trip to the French coast and of the proposed payment for Dick's passage. "I'll show him the card trick if ever we meet again," thought Dick, as he walked towards the town and realized that he was on French ground; "but, if we never meet, it isn't my fault he was left behind."

Dick entered Boulogne with two sailors whom he happened to overtake, and to whom he contrived to make known in French his desire of learning the nearest way to a public house. They led him to the upper town and to the cabaret for which they were bound. His pockets and stomach were alike empty, and his teeth were chattering from the cold. He was goaded by his condition to immediate effort.

As soon as he entered the kitchen, where the sailors promptly sat down to bread and butter and brandy, Dick proposed he should share free their loaf, their firkin, and their keg, on condition that any card they might name should be found on the top of the pack he now held face downward before him. If the top card should be any other, he should pay for their breakfast. Of course they jumped at the proposition, and of course the top card was the one they had named.

An hour later, filled with bread and butter, warmed inside by the brandy and outside by the kitchen fire, Dick went forth with some thought of soliciting employment from one of the several British merchants who, as he had learned at breakfast, dwelt in Boulogne.

In the streets, he felt as if he had been suddenly transported to a new world. The one night's trip across the Channel, between coasts in sight of each other, had wrought a greater transformation in his surroundings than the five weeks' voyage across the Atlantic had produced. The spareness, alertness, fussiness, and excessive politeness of the people was as great a contrast to the characteristics of the rubicund Britons he had been among a day ago, as he could have imagined. The jabbering of the people, though, was not entirely strange to his ears; he had heard its like from the habitans of Canada. Nor was the ubiquity of soldiers and priests new to eyes that had seen Quebec and its environs. Yet the tall, straight, carefully powdered French soldiers that he saw as he walked near the fortifications, little resembled the stout, well-fed English troops he had faced at Bunker Hill.

Now and then he could recognize in the crowd, at a glance, some round, red, contented-looking English face; and, when two of these passed together, it was a pleasure to Dick to hear the English words that fell from either mouth.

As he was approaching one of the best hotels of the place, Dick got a rear view of a gentleman standing before it, from whose broad back and solid-looking legs Dick would have sworn him to be an Englishman. Dick observed that this gentleman was looking at a pretty girl at an upper window of a house across the street. Himself gazing at the same object, he bumped heavily against the gentleman in passing.

"Damme," cried the gentleman, in a robust voice, "must you frog-eaters be always tumbling over people, because you have no footways in your cursed streets?" And he glared indignantly into the face of Dick, who had stopped and was inspecting him.

"I don't happen to be a Frenchman, and I agree with you in cursing the lack of footways," said Dick. "How have you fared since we met—and parted—at the Pelican at Newbury, Sir Hilary?"

"Eh? Sir Hilary? Pelican? Why, who the devil—By the lord, 'tis the gentleman that offered to pay the landlord, so we might all get away betimes! Welcome, sir! By your looks, I can guess you're like some others of us on this side the Channel,—you've had your own reasons to try the air of France! Well, by George, you shall keep me company awhile! You shall come in, and break a bottle with me, sir,—half a dozen bottles, damme! And after that you shall be my guest. Come in! I won't hear you say no! God save the King, and huzza for old England!"

And, having capped these patriotic exclamations with a defiant look around at the French passers-by, the exiled Berkshire fox-hunter caught hold of Dick, who had not the slightest intention of saying no, and hustled him cordially into the inn.