Jim Davis by Masefield, John, 1878-1967

CHAPTER XIX

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."

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.

"Here," said the woman. "You put on Bill's things. They're good enough for you. And don't you dare breathe a word of what we done."

"Yes," said the man, as Bill buttoned up his jacket, and took my little bundle in his hand. "You keep your little jaw shut or _I_'ll come after you."

"Oh, Mother," said Bill. "Don't I look a young swell, neither?"

For answer, his mother grabbed him by the arm, and the three hurried away from me in the direction from which I had come. The man looked back and made a face at me, shaking his fist. I was left penniless in the road. A milestone told me that I was seventy miles from London.