Page:Hornung - Rogues March.djvu/64

44 His plans for the night were as yet unmade. He thought of his old lodgings off Fetter Lane; but only for a moment. He could not be there before one o’clock in the morning; they were early people, and he had traded enough upon their good-nature. One more night in the open would not hurt him; and could there be a better place than in these very fields? Tom looked about him and espied a promising thicket not thirty paces from the path. And here, being tired out, he did actually lie down, after first kneeling, as he had not knelt for months, and thanking the Maker of All Good Things for having made the world so kind, and his love so true and so forgiving.

But he never quite fell asleep; he was near it when a sound of slipshod feet, running downhill through the grass, passed close by the thicket, and left him wide awake and wondering. It was hopeless after that. And two o’clock struck upon his ears with the sound of his own footsteps trudging down Haverstock Hill to no immediate goal.

Yet still the world was kind. A waggon came creaking at his heels, slowly overhauling him, and unexpectedly stopping when it did so. It was green mountains high with country vegetables, smelling notably in the clean night air; and with this sweet whiff of home and the past there came a hearty, elderly voice evidently hailing Tom.

“Now then, young man! If you want a lift, joomp oop!”

Tom was not sure what he wanted; but his feet were sore, the voice liked him, and up he jumped. And between darkness and dawn—the quiet foot of the sleeping hill and the half-awakened but already noisy