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CHAPTER 13

THE SEQUEL OF MY

RESOLUTION

F

or anything I know, I may have had some wild idea of

running all the way to Dover, when I gave up the pur-

suit of the young man with the donkey-cart, and started for

Greenwich. My scattered senses were soon collected as to

that point, if I had; for I came to a stop in the Kent Road, at

a terrace with a piece of water before it, and a great foolish

image in the middle, blowing a dry shell. Here I sat down on

a doorstep, quite spent and exhausted with the efforts I had

already made, and with hardly breath enough to cry for the

loss of my box and half-guinea.

It was by this time dark; I heard the clocks strike ten, as I

sat resting. But it was a summer night, fortunately, and fine

weather. When I had recovered my breath, and had got rid

of a stifling sensation in my throat, I rose up and went on.

In the midst of my distress, I had no notion of going back.

I doubt if I should have had any, though there had been a

Swiss snow-drift in the Kent Road.

But my standing possessed of only three-halfpence in