was now getting dark, but I quite forgot that it was necessary to look
out for a lodging; the fact is, that I had been completely upset by the
observations of the magistrate, and the theft of my bundle; and, in a
sort of brown study, from which I was occasionally recalled for a moment
by stumbling over various obstructions, I continued my walk on the
pathway until I was two or three miles away from Brentford. I was
within a mile of Hounslow, when I was roused by the groans of some
person, and it being now dark, I looked round, trying to catch by the
ear the direction in which to offer my assistance. They proceeded from
the other side of a hedge, and I crawled through, where I found a man
lying on the ground, covered with blood about the head, and breathing
heavily. I untied his neckcloth, and, as well as I could, examined his
condition. I bound his handkerchief round his head, and perceiving that
the position in which he was lying was very unfavourable, his head and
boulders 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 mean time my pursuers, warned by the
loud splash, had paused when they came