The String of Pearls (1850), p. 699

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 Tod 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