opped hovering. "I s'pose I oughtn't to be talking to you."

He hesitated and flitted away with a guilty back glance over his
shoulder....

The following week made life quite intolerable for me; these people
forced me at last into an Atheism that terrified me. When I learnt
that next Sunday the wrestling was to be resumed, my courage failed me
altogether.

I happened upon a map of Kent in a stationer's window on Saturday, and
that set me thinking of one form of release. I studied it intently for
half an hour perhaps, on Saturday night, got a route list of villages
well fixed in my memory, and got up and started for Bladesover about
five on Sunday morning while my two bed mates were still fast asleep.

III

I remember something, but not so much of it as I should like to recall,
of my long tramp to Bladesover House. The distance from Chatham is
almost exactly seventeen miles, and it took me until nearly one. It was
very interesting and I do not think I was very fatigued, though I got
rather pinched by one boot.

The morning must have been very clear, because I remember that near
Itchinstow Hall I looked back and saw the estuary of the Thames, that
river that has since played so large a part in my life. But at the time
I did not know it was the Thames, I thought this great expanse of mud
flats and water was the sea, which I had never yet seen nearly. And
out upon it stood ships, sailing ships and a steamer or so, going up to
London or down out into the great seas of the world. I stood for a long
time watching these and thinking whether after all I should not have
done better to have run away to sea.

The nearer I drew to Bladesover, the more doubtful I grew of the duality
of my reception, and the more I regretted that alternative. I suppose it
was the dirty clumsiness of the shipping I had seen nearly, that put me
out of mind of that. I took a short cut through the Warren across the
corner of the main park to intercept the people from the church. I
wanted to avoid meeting any one before I met my mother, and so I went to
a place where the path passed between banks, and without exactly hiding,
stood up among the bushes. This place among other advantages eliminated
any chance of seeing Lady Drew, who would drive round by the carriage
road.

Standing up to waylay in this fashion I had a queer feeling of
brigandage, as though I was some intrusive sort of bandit among these
orderly things. It is the first time I rememb