A Rogue by Compulsion | Page 6

done better, but I was too tired
to bother. I just dropped peacefully down where I stood, and in spite of
my bruises and my soaked clothes I don't think I had been two minutes
on the ground before I was fast asleep.
* * * * *
Tommy Morrison always used to say that only unintelligent people
woke up feeling really well. If he was right I must have been in a
singularly brilliant mood when I again opened my eyes.
It was still fairly dark, with the raw, sour darkness of an early March
morning, and all round me the invisible drip of the trees was as
persistent as ever. Very slowly and shakily I scrambled to my feet. My
head ached savagely, I was chilled to the core, and every part of my
body felt as if it had been trampled on by a powerful and rather
ill-tempered mule.
I was hungry too--Lord, how hungry I was! Breakfast in the prison is
not exactly an appetizing meal, but at that moment the memory of its
thin gruel and greasy cocoa and bread seemed to me beautiful beyond
words.
I looked round rather forlornly. As an unpromising field for foraging in,
a Dartmoor wood on a dark March morning takes a lot of beating. It is
true that there was plenty of water--the whole ground and air reeked
with it--but water, even in unlimited quantities, is a poor basis for
prolonged exertion.
There was nothing else to be got, however, so I had to make the best of
it. I lay down full length beside a small spring which gurgled along the
ground at my feet, and with the aid of my hands lapped up about a pint
and a half. When I had finished, apart from the ache in my limbs I felt
distinctly better.
The question was what to do next. Hungry or not, it would be madness
to leave the shelter of the woods until evening, for not only would the

warders be all over the place, but by this time everyone who lived in
the neighbourhood would have been warned of my escape. My best
chance seemed to lie in stopping where I was as long as daylight lasted,
and then staking everything on a successful burglary.
It was not a cheerful prospect, and before the morning was much older
it seemed less cheerful still. If you can imagine what it feels like to
spend hour after hour crouching in the heart of a wood in a pitiless
drizzle of rain, you will be able to get some idea of what I went through.
If I had only had a pipe and some baccy, things would have been more
tolerable; as it was there was nothing to do but to sit and shiver and
grind my teeth and think about George.
I thought quite a lot about George. I seemed to see his face as he read
the news of my escape, and I could picture the feverish way in which
he would turn to each edition of the paper to find out whether I had
been recaptured. Then I began to imagine our meeting, and George's
expression when he realized who it was. The idea was so pleasing that
it almost made me forget my present misery.
It must have been about midday when I decided on a move. In a way I
suppose it was a rash thing to do, but I had got so cursedly cramped and
cold again that I felt if I didn't take some exercise I should never last
out the day. Even as it was, my legs had lost practically all feeling, and
for the first few steps I took I was staggering about like a drunkard.
Keeping to the thickest part of the wood, I made my way slowly
forward; my idea being to reach the top of the valley and then lie low
again until nightfall. My progress was not exactly rapid, for after
creeping a yard or two at a time I would crouch down and listen
carefully for any sounds of danger. I had covered perhaps a mile in this
spasmodic fashion when a gradual improvement in the light ahead told
me that I was approaching open ground. A few steps farther, and
through a gap in the trees a red roof suddenly came into view, with a
couple of chimney-pots smoking away cheerfully in the rain.
It gave me a bit of a start, for I had not expected to run into civilization
quite so soon as this. I stopped where I was and did a little bit of rapid

thinking. Where there's a house there must necessarily be some way of
getting at it, and the only way I could think of in