ferocious-looking ruffians, who stared at me as I went by; and stopped, perhaps, and called after me to come back and speak to them; and when I took to my heels, stoned me. I recollect one young fellow—a tinker, I suppose, from his wallet and brazier—who had a woman with him, and who faced about and stared at me thus; and then roared to me in such a tremendous voice to come back, that I halted and looked round.
"Come here, when you're called," said the tinker, "or I'll rip your young body open."
I thought it best to go back. As I drew nearer to them, trying to propitiate the tinker by my looks, I observed that the woman had a black eye.
"Where are you going?" said the tinker, griping the bosom of my shirt with his blackened hand.
"I am going to Dover," I said.
"Where do you come from?" asked the tinker, giving his hand another turn in my shirt, to hold me more securely.
"I come from London," I said.
"What lay are you upon? " asked the tinker. "Are you a prig?"
"N—no," I said.
"Ain't you, by G—? If you make a brag of your honesty to me," said the tinker, "I'll knock your brains out."
With his disengaged hand he made a menace of striking me, and then looked at me from head to foot.
"Have you got the price of a pint of beer about you?" said the tinker. "If you have, out with it, afore I take it away!"
I should certainly have produced it, but that I met the woman's look, and saw her very slightly shake her head, and form "No!" with her lips.
"I am very poor," I said, attempting to smile, "and have got no money."
"Why, what do you mean?" said the tinker, looking so sternly at me, that I almost feared he saw the money in my pocket.
"Sir!" I stammered.
"What do you mean," said the tinker, "by wearing my brother's silk hankercher? Give it over here!" And he had mine off my neck in a moment, and tossed it to the woman.
The woman burst into a fit of laughter, as if she thought this a joke, and tossing it back to me, nodded once, as slightly as before, and made the word "Go!" with her lips. Before I could obey, however, the tinker seized the handkerchief out of my hand with a roughness that threw me away like a feather, and putting it loosely round his own neck, turned upon the woman with an oath, and knocked her down. I never shall forget seeing her fall backward on the hard road, and lie there with her bonnet tumbled off, and her hair all whitened in the dust; nor, when I looked back from a distance, seeing her sitting on the pathway, which was a bank by the roadside, wiping the blood from her face with a corner of her shawl, while he went on ahead.
This adventure frightened me so, that, afterwards, when I saw any of these people coming, I turned back until I could find a hiding-place, where I remained until they had gone out of sight; which happened so
