expedition, that before the end of the week no vessel was allowed to leave
either of those harbours without being strictly searched.

The natural method proved more effectual than the supernatural, though
again with the assistance of a singular accident. Garret had not gone to
London; unfortunately for himself, he had not gone to Wales as he had
intended. He left Oxford, as we saw, the evening of Saturday, February
21st. That night he reached a village called Corkthrop,[523] where he lay
concealed till Wednesday; and then, not in the astrologer's orange-tawny
dress, but in "a courtier's coat and buttoned cap," which he had by some
means contrived to procure, he set out again on his forlorn journey, making
for the nearest sea-port, Bristol, where the police were looking out to
receive him. His choice of Bristol was peculiarly unlucky. The "chapman" of
the town was the step-father of Cole, the Oxford proctor: to this person,
whose name was Master Wilkyns, the proctor had written a special letter, in
addition to the commissary's circular; and the family connection acting as
a spur to his natural activity, a coast guard had been set before Garret's
arrival, to watch for him down the Avon banks, and along the Channel shore
for fifteen miles. All the Friday night "the mayor, with the aldermen, and
twenty of the council, had kept privy watch," and searched suspicious
houses at Master Wilkyns's instance; the whole population were on the
alert, and when the next afternoon, a week after his escape, the poor
heretic, footsore and weary, dragged himself into the town, he found that
he had walked into the lion's mouth.[524] He quickly learnt this danger to
which he was exposed, and hurried off again with the best speed which he
could command; but it was too late. The chapman, alert and indefatigable,
had heard that a stranger had been seen in the street; the police were set
upon his track, and he was taken at Bedminster, a suburb on the opposite
bank of the Avon, and hurried before a magistrate, where he at once
acknowledged his identity.

With such happy success were the good chapman's efforts rewarded. Yet in
this world there is no light without shadow; no pleasure without its alloy.
In imagination, Master Wilkyns had thought of himself conducting the
prisoner in triumph into the streets of Oxford, the hero of the hour. The
sour formality of the law condemned him to ill-merited disappointment.
Garret had been taken beyond the lib