laces.

"One more!" I heard the villains cry--"one more run with the beam, and
down it comes!"

Just as they must have been starting for that "one more run," I opened
the back door and fled into the night, with the bookful of banknotes
in my bosom, the silver spoons in my pocket, and the cat in my arms.
I threaded my way easily enough through the familiar obstacles in the
backyard, and was out in the pitch darkness of the moor before I heard
the second shock, and the crash which told me that the whole door had
given way.

In a few minutes they must have discovered the fact of my flight with
the pocketbook, for I heard shouts in the distance as if they were
running out to pursue me. I kept on at the top of my speed, and the
noise soon died away. It was so dark that twenty thieves instead of two
would have found it useless to follow me.

How long it was before I reached the farmhouse--the nearest place to
which I could fly for refuge--I cannot tell you. I remember that I had
just sense enough to keep the wind at my back (having observed in the
beginning of the evening that it blew toward Moor Farm), and to go on
resolutely through the darkness. In all other respects I was by this
time half crazed by what I had gone through. If it had so happened that
the wind had changed after I had observed its direction early in the
evening, I should have gone astray, and have probably perished of
fatigue and exposure on the moor. Providentially, it still blew steadily
as it had blown for hours past, and I reached the farmhouse with my
clothes wet through, and my brain in a high fever. When I made my alarm
at the door, they had all gone to bed but the farmer's eldest son,
who was sitting up late over his pipe and newspaper. I just mustered
strength enough to gasp out a few words, telling him what was the
matter, and then fell down at his feet, for the first time in my life in
a dead swoon.

That swoon was followed by a severe illness. When I got strong enough
to look about me again, I found myself in one of the farmhouse beds--my
father, Mrs. Knifton, and the doctor were all in the room--my cat was
asleep at my feet, and the pocketbook that I had saved lay on the table
by my side.

There was plenty of news for me to hear as soon as I was fit to listen
to it. Shifty Dick and the other rascal had been caught, and were in
prison, waiting their trial at the next assizes. Mr. and Mrs. Knifton
had been so shocked at the danger I had r