ad and shoulders being much lower than his
body, I was dragging the body round so as to raise those parts, when I
heard footsteps and voices. Shortly after, four people burst through the
hedge and surrounded me.

"That is him, I'll swear to it," cried an immense stout man, seizing me;
"that is the other fellow who attacked me, and ran away. He has come to
get off his accomplice, and now we've just nicked them both."

"You are very much mistaken," replied I, "and you have no need to hold
me so tight. I heard the man groan, and I came to his assistance."

"That gammon won't do," replied one of them, who was a constable; "you'll
come along with us, and we may as well put on the _darbies_," continued
he, producing a pair of handcuffs.

Indignant at the insult, I suddenly broke from him who held me, and
darting at the constable, knocked him down, and then took to my heels
across the ploughed field. The whole four pursued, but I rather gained
upon them, and was in hopes to make my escape. I ran for a gap I perceived
in the hedge, and sprang over it, without minding the old adage, of "look
before you leap;" for, when on the other side, I found myself in a deep
and stagnant pit of water and mud. I sank over head, and with difficulty
extricated myself from the mud at the bottom, and when at the surface I
was equally embarrassed with the weeds at the top, among which I
floundered. In the meantime my pursuers, warned by the loud splash, had
paused when they came to the hedge, and perceiving my situation, were at
the brink of the pit watching for my coming out. All resistance was
useless. I was numbed with cold and exhausted by my struggles, and when
I gained the bank I surrendered at discretion.

Chapter LVIII

Worse and worse--If out of gaol, it will be to go out of the
world--I am resolved to take my secret with me.

The handcuffs were now put on without resistance on my part, and I was
led away to Hounslow by the two constables, while the others returned
to secure the wounded man. On my arrival I was thrust into the clink,
or lock-up house, as the magistrates would not meet that evening, and
there I was left to my reflections. Previously, however, to this, I was
searched, and my money, amounting, as I before stated, to upwards of
twenty pounds, taken from me by the constables, and what I had quite
forgotten, a diamond solitaire ring, which I had intended to have left
with my other bijouterie for Timothy