uard against detection he supplied himself with
a rude crutch, and feigning himself a cripple, hobbled straight through
the town, followed by a perverse-minded cur, which kept up a continual,
spiteful, suspicious bark. Israel longed to have one good rap at him
with his crutch, but thought it would hardly look in character for a
poor old cripple to be vindictive.

A few miles further, and he came to a second village. While hobbling
through its main street, as through the former one, he was suddenly
stopped by a genuine cripple, all in tatters, too, who, with a
sympathetic air, inquired after the cause of his lameness.

"White swelling," says Israel.

"That's just my ailing," wheezed the other; "but you're lamer than me,"
he added with a forlorn sort of self-satisfaction, critically eyeing
Israel's limp as once, more he stumped on his way, not liking to tarry
too long.

"But halloo, what's your hurry, friend?" seeing Israel fairly
departing--"where're you going?"

"To London," answered Israel, turning round, heartily wishing the old
fellow any where else than present.

"Going to limp to Lunnun, eh? Well, success to ye."

"As much to you, sir," answers Israel politely.

Nigh the opposite suburbs of this village, as good fortune would have
it, an empty baggage-wagon bound for the metropolis turned into the main
road from a side one. Immediately Israel limps most deplorably, and begs
the driver to give a poor cripple a lift. So up he climbs; but after a
time, finding the gait of the elephantine draught-horses intolerably
slow, Israel craves permission to dismount, when, throwing away his
crutch, he takes nimbly to his legs, much to the surprise of his honest
friend the driver.

The only advantage, if any, derived from his trip in the wagon, was,
when passing through a third village--but a little distant from the
previous one--Israel, by lying down in the wagon, had wholly avoided
being seen.

The villages surprised him by their number and proximity. Nothing like
this was to be seen at home. Well knowing that in these villages he ran
much more risk of detection than in the open country, he henceforth did
his best to avoid them, by taking a roundabout course whenever they came
in sight from a distance. This mode of travelling not only lengthened
his journey, but put unlooked-for obstacles in his path--walls, ditches,
and streams.

Not half an hour after throwing away his crutch, he leaped a great ditch
ten feet