Page:Narrative of a captivity and adventures in France and Flanders between the years 1803 and 1809.djvu/130

 arrived at the suburbs of Courtray, expecting there to find as snug a retreat as the one we had left the preceding evening; but, to our mortification, the town was enclosed with wet ditches, which obliged us to seek safety elsewhere. Observing a farm house on the right, our steps were directed towards it, and thence through bye lanes, until a mansion was discovered; this we approached, in the hope of finding an out-house which would afford us shelter for the day; nothing of the kind could be seen; but, not far distant, a thicket was descried, of about 150 paces square, surrounded by a wet ditch, from fourteen to twenty feet wide; here then we determined to repose our wearied limbs, and, it being day-light, not a moment was to be lost: the opposite side of the narrowest part of the ditch, was one entire bed of brambles, and, in the midst of these, we were obliged to leap. Hunter, Mansell, and myself, got over tolerably well; but, when Whitehurst made the attempt, stiff with wet and cold, and the bank giving way, from his great weight, he jumped