When Todd found himself in such comparatively close quarters with the
enemy, he felt perfectly sure that to continue scampering along the high
road was not the most likely way to escape. If he were to succeed in
eluding his foes, he felt that it must be by _finesse_, and not by
speed. With this idea, he did not go along the road for a greater distance than
sufficed to bring him to a hedge, across which he then instantly made
his way, and then turning, he crouched down and crept back towards the
other direction. On the side of the hedge where he was now, there was
not a very pleasant kind of field-drain, but Todd's circumstances did
not permit of his being very particular, and getting right down into the
drain, he crept along, stooping so low that only a portion of his head
and back were visible above it. This was certainly the most likely way to baffle his pursuers, who were
not very likely to think that he had so rapidly doubled upon them. Knowing now that his destination was Gravesend, they would in all
probability run along the road after him, or if they took to the fields
it would still be with the idea that he was ahead of them. After proceeding for some distance, Todd thought it would be just as
well if he were to reconnoitre the foe a little, and, accordingly, he
raised his head sufficiently to enable him just to peep through the
hedge, and when he did so, he found that he was on sufficiently high
ground to command a view of the road, and the landing-place, and the
river. To his immense consternation, he saw the police advancing rapidly
towards him. "Lost! lost!" said Todd, as he sunk down into the ditch, with a
conviction that he was all but taken. He felt in his pocket for a
pistol, and getting one out, he placed it to his ear, and there held it,
for he had made up his mind now, to shoot himself, rather than be
dragged back to prison, from where another escape would be quite out of
the question. "They shall not take me. I will die--I will die," he murmured; and then
he concentrated all his attention to the act of listening to the
proceedings of the police. They came on in a straggling kind of way from the landing-place, and the
principal officer cried out--

"You, Jenkins, get up the first tree you come to, and take a long look
about you. The country is flat enough, and he will find it no easy
matter to hide from us, I should say." "Oh, it's all right, sir," said another voice. "We have him as safe as
if he were lying at the bottom of our boat with the darbies on him; and
as far as I can judge of him, sir, I should say it is Todd." "I hope so," said the officer. "It will not be a bad morning's work for
you all, my lads, if it is." Not very far off from where Todd lay concealed in the ditch, only,
fortunately for him, on the other side of the road, was a stunted tree,
rising about twenty feet from the barren soil, and upon this the man,
who was named Jenkins, made his way carefully, and took a long look all
round him, and particularly in advance. "Do you see him?" said the officer commanding the party. "No, sir, I don't." "Then he is hiding somewhere, and the only plan is to go right on, and
hunt him up if he is among the hedges. Come on, now, at once. We must
have him. He cannot possibly escape us now." Todd, upon this, again gave himself up for lost; but, as luck would have
it, although two of the men got over the hedge, and began looking about,
and dashing their cutlasses into the hedge, the officer called to them--

"Oh, he never came so far up the road. You don't suppose he was goose
enough to come back again? If he is hiding, it will be more likely by
the time he lost breath, I should say. Come now; I saw him myself get
past yonder little chestnut trees, and the white cottage." Upon this the men ran on, and Todd felt, for the present, at all events,
he was saved. "The idiots!" said Todd, as he looked up and listened. "The idiots!--So
they think that I am as far gone in stupidity as they are, and that I
have nothing to do, but to run on until they, younger and more fleet of
foot, overtake me." He crawled out of the ditch, and a most pitiable figure he was when he
did so. In his anxiety to hide himself completely, he had, in fact, lain
himself down comfortably enough, as far as regarded the softness of the
place, right at the bottom of the ditch, and had only, in the midst of a
thick growth of rank weeds, kept his face above the water. "This is horrible," he said; "and they will be back soon, too. What on
earth am I to do?" He heard a loud shout at this moment, and he raised his head
sufficiently to see along the road to observe the actions of the
officers. He found that they had paused, and were talking to a man on
horseback, who was pointing in the very direction where he (Todd) stood,
or rather crouched. The idea that this man had from some eminence, he
being mounted, too, seen him (Todd) hide in the ditch, at once crossed
his mind, and from that moment he felt that he was not in the safety
that he had fondly hoped he was. To remain where he was, with such an idea prevailing in his mind, would
have been madness and, accordingly, crawling down close to the hedge, he
ran along, splashing, like some gigantic water-fowl, in the ditch, until
he came to a thickly-planted fence, at right angles with the hedge that
bordered the road. There he was forced to come to a stand-still. The fence was composed of the common privet, so that there would have
been neither difficulty nor danger in forcing his way through it; but
what he might encounter upon the other side was a subject of
consideration well worth his attention. Through the interstices of the foliage he could see that there was a
pretty and well-kept mixed garden on the other side. Roses and other
flowers grew in quite loving companionship with all kinds of culinary
vegetables, and the little plot of ground was well shadowed by some
half-dozen fruit trees. A part of the ground was made into a kind of
lawn, and upon that lawn was a child about one year old crawling about,
and amusing itself by making weak efforts to pull up the grass. While Todd was observing these things, a woman came out of a little
white-washed cottage that was at the farther end of the garden, with
some clothes to hang up to dry. The woman spoke to the child, and from
the tone in which she did so, it was quite evident she was the mother of
it. Todd waited until she had hung the clothes up that she had brought out
into the garden, and then when she went into the house for more, he
burst his way through the hedge, and with a resolution and firmness that
nothing but the exigencies of his situation could possibly have endowed
him with, he took the child up in his arms and walked slowly across the
lawn towards the cottage. The woman, with another heap of wet clothes in her arms, met him, and
uttered a loud scream. "Peace," said Todd. "Peace, I say. There is no danger unless you make
some.