![]() I was now at the end of my resources almost too miserable to cry. A milestone told me that I was seventy miles from London. The man looked back and made a face at me, shaking his fist. "Don't I look a young swell, neither?"įor answer, his mother grabbed him by the arm, and the three hurried away from me in the direction from which I had come. "You keep your little jaw shut or I'll come after you." "Yes," said the man, as Bill buttoned up his jacket, and took my little bundle in his hand. And don't you dare breathe a word of what we done." In another minute they had my suit stripped from me and I had the sight of dirty little Bill, the tramper's boy, putting on my things. "Well," said the woman, "his jacket's better than Bill's, and we'll have his little portmanteau, what's more." "Only a prince and a chive," said the man, disgustedly, meaning my half-crown and a jack-knife. "What's he got on him?" said the woman, as the man rummaged through my pockets. "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. 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. ![]() "Then take that," cried the man, giving me a shove, just as the woman flung her shawl over my head. "You don't mean to tell me that us have come the wrong road?' "That's in London, at the House of Parliament." "Beg your pardon, young master," he said "but could you tell me the way to Big Ben?" "But that's in London," I said. 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. They got up, after I had been there for twenty minutes or so, and came along the road towards me, bowed under their bundles. 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. 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. ![]() I merely noted the way to London from the coaching-map and hurried out, repeating the direction so that I should not forget. You may be sure that I lost no time in leaving the inn.
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