Chapter 3

It was a rainy morning, and very damp. The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the marshes, so that instead of my running at everything, everything seemed to run at me. The gates and dikes and banks cried as plainly as could be, “A boy with Somebody’s else’s pork pie! Stop him!” The cattle came upon me, staring out of their eyes, and steaming out of their nostrils, “Halloa, young thief!”

All this time, I was getting on towards the river. I had just crossed a ditch, and had just scrambled up the mound beyond the ditch, when I saw the man sitting before me. His back was towards me, and he had his arms folded, and was nodding forward, heavy with sleep. But it was not the same man, but another man!

And yet this man was dressed in coarse gray, too, and had a great iron on his leg. All this I saw in a moment, for I had only a moment to see it in: he ran into the mist, stumbling twice as he went, and I lost him.

“It’s the man!” I thought, feeling my heart shoot as I identified him.

Soon I saw the right Man, waiting for me. He was awfully cold, to be sure. His eyes looked so awfully hungry too.

“What’s in the bottle, boy?” said he.

“Brandy,” said I.

“I think you have got the ague,” said I.

“Sure, boy,” said he.

“It’s bad about here,” I told him. “You’ve been lying out on the meshes, and they’re dreadful aguish.”

“You’re not a deceiving imp? You brought no one with you?”

“No, sir! No!”

“Well,” said he, “I believe you.”

Something clicked in his throat as if he had works in him like a clock, and was going to strike. And he smeared his ragged rough sleeve over his eyes.

“I am glad you enjoy the food,” said I.

“What?”

“I said I was glad you enjoyed it.”

“Thank you, my boy. I do.”

I had often watched a large dog of ours eating his food; and I now noticed a decided similarity between the dog’s way of eating, and the man’s. The man took strong sharp sudden bites, just like the dog.

“I am afraid you won’t leave any food for him,” said I, timidly.

“Leave for him? Who’s him?” said my friend.

“The man. That you spoke of.”

“Oh ah!” he returned, with something like a gruff laugh. “Him? Yes, yes! He don’t want any wittles.”

“I thought he looked as if he did,” said I.

The man stopped eating, and regarded me with the greatest surprise.

“Looked? When?”

“Just now.”

“Where?”

“Yonder,” said I, pointing; “over there, where I found him sleeping, and I thought it was you.”

He held me by the collar and stared at me so, that I began to think his first idea about cutting my throat had revived.

“Dressed like you, you know, only with a hat,” I explained, trembling. “Didn’t you hear the cannon last night?”

“Then there was firing!” he said to himself.

“He had a badly bruised face,” said I, recalling what I hardly knew I knew.

“Not here?” exclaimed the man, striking his left cheek.

“Yes, there!”

“Where is he?” He crammed what little food was left, into the breast of his gray jacket. “Show me the way he went. I’ll pull him down,[15] like a bloodhound. But first give me the file, boy.”

I indicated in what direction the other man had gone away, and he looked up at it for an instant. But then he sat on the wet grass and began to file his iron like a madman. I told him I must go, but he took no notice.

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