“As for the boy, he had better be taken home to his parents; and whoever takes him must be particular in impressing on his father the necessity of his being here again this day week,” observed the gentleman with the green spectacles.
There was other business for the court to attend to, and when our case was concluded, I followed the police in charge of it and the two gamekeepers out into the high street The men stood together talking for a little while, and then they adjourned to a tavern hard by, and, scarcely knowing what I did, I went with them. My confusion, however, did not arise from the circumstance of Mr. Perks being remanded to prison, nor was it due to the dazzling effect of the green spectacles; it was the last words of their wearer that had so completely upset me. “As for the boy, he had better be taken home!” This, indeed, was a climax to the ruin I had brought on myself by my stupid meddling in matters in which I really had no concern. Better be taken home! Better be taken back to my father by a policeman who would inform him of my connexion with the body-snatchers, and, worse than all, of my recommendation to them by innocent Mrs. Winkship! Why, the alley wouldn’t be able to hold him from murdering that good old soul, as well as myself if such news came to his ears, and this after the many acts of kindness she had exhibited towards me. It must not be. Such a terrible catastrophe must be avoided somehow—anyhow—even though I dared the terrible beak of the law and his mandates, and took such prompt measures as should put it beyond the power of the officers of justice to carry me back to Fryingpan Alley.
The only way of accomplishing this was to escape from my present custodians, to make my way out of Ilford, and hide away somewhere in my old haunts at Westminster. I say my custodians, but it really seemed that I was in no one’s custody. I tried it by walking in and out of the parlour in which the police and the two game-keepers were sitting drinking beer—into the public bar, into the yard in the rear of the premises, into the street—and found that I might do so without let or hindrance. It certainly appeared as though I was free to go; but knowing the artfulness of the police, and of their well-known habit of appearing most indifferent to an object they are in reality looking sharpest after, I restrained my itching to be oft, and resolved to go back and sit in the parlour a little while, keeping my ears open.
I had not long to wait; indeed, the two policemen seemed to have been talking about me while I was outside.
“Oh! here he is,” remarked one of them, as I entered the parlour; “you’d best keep close by us, young gentleman; you’ll have that chap with the gun after you else.”
This was supposed to be a joke, so the other policeman and the gamekeepers laughed.
“You’ll be glad to get home again and out of danger, my lad, won’t you?” one of the men asked.
It was clear that to express a disinclination to going home would be to increase the anxiety of the police to convey me thither carefully, according to his worship’s directions.
“I shall be very glad indeed; I wish I was there now,” I answered. “I’ll take jolly good care never to run away again.”
“Do you know your way home from here?”
“Very well indeed, sir,” I eagerly replied. “Can I go at once, please?”
“You mustn’t go till I’m ready to take you,” answered the policeman; “and that won’t be till after the court rises at four this afternoon. You ain’t obliged to stay here, though. You ain’t a prisoner, you know, you’re a witness. You can go down to the station and sit down there, or you can walk about a bit, so long as you don’t go far.”
I could scarcely restrain an exhibition of my delight at hearing the officer express himself in this way. I wasn’t a prisoner, I was a witness, and was free to take a little walk!
“Thanky, sir,” I replied, and strolled out of the parlour, saying no more, and leaving the police uncertain as to which of the proffered indulgences I intended to avail myself.
Avoiding all appearance of hurry, I walked down the Ilford road, which, as the reader is probably aware, is in a direct line with the principal highway at the east of London, Bow and Stratford lying between. It will be remembered that on depositing the sack of “soot” in the cart at the churchyard at Romford, Mr. Belcher had presented me with a shilling, which I had carefully transferred from the pocket of my wet rags to a similar receptacle in the dry and comfortable clothes which were supplied me at the police station. It was my rapidly-formed intention to expend this shilling, or part of it, in feeing the first driver of an available vehicle that might happen to pass that way to give me a lift Londonwards. But by good luck I was spared this extravagant expenditure. I had barely struck into a bend of the road that hid me from the court-house, when there came bowling along at a handsome rate a pair-horse carriage, with a convenient and unspiked splinter-board behind. Such a splendid opportunity was not to be lost, and in half a minute I was seated on the end of one of the carriage-springs, holding on to the board, and whisking along at the rate of ten miles an hour.
Chapter XXXI. In which I break new and dangerous ground, and find myself the owner of immense wealth.
My carriage ride continued through Great and Little Ilford, through Bow and Stratford as far as the Mile End Road, and even then it was only brought to a premature close through the malicious conduct of a boy about my own age, who, desirous of a gratuitous lift down the road, and disappointed at finding no room for him at the back of my barouche, appealed to the coachman to “cut me down behind” in so energetic and pertinacious a manner, that at last the coachman (who was engaged in deep conversation with the footman by his side, and not at all obliged, I am sure, to the villain for his interruption) was compelled to hear him, and to act on his suggestion. It was a rash thing for a fugitive to do, but I don’t think I could have resisted the satisfaction of punching that boy’s head, even if the terrible beak of the law himself with the green spectacles had at the same time appeared coming down the road.
It was yet early in the day, however, (it did not take long to settle with my envious young friend,) and by two o’clock I had reached Whitechapel. It was not until I saw “Whitechapel Road” written up against a wall that I knew where I was, and the discovery gave me considerable satisfaction. Personally, I knew nothing of that part of the metropolis; but I had, during my Dark Arches’ experience, made the acquaintance of several boys who originally came from Whitechapel, and they one and all agreed in declaring it the “slummiest crib anywheres.”
A “slummy” place—a hole-and-corner court-and-alley neighbourhood—was exactly the place for me in the position in which I then found myself, my great first and foremost desire being seclusion until such time as the unlucky body-snatching affair had blown over; and then—.