without being observed. Leaving
my musket and shako behind me, I went up a long lane which brought
me on to the main road, crossed that, climbed a hill beyond, and
came down into a wooded country.

"At the first cottage I came to, I stopped. A man and woman came
out on my knocking. They looked kindly and good tempered, and I
told them a pitiful story, about how I had been unjustly accused
of striking an officer, and had been sentenced to two hundred
lashes; and that I had managed, in the night, to cut a slit in the
back of the guard tent and escape.

"As I had been walking along, a sudden thought had struck me. At
Oudenarde, I was wearing the same boots I had worn when we were
captured together. When we took the money out, we each left, if
you remember, five pieces of gold in one of our boots, which I had
never thought of till that day; and, as I came along, I opened the
sole and took them out. It was a perfect godsend, as you may
guess.

"The man and his wife expressed such sympathy that I did not
hesitate to say: 'I want to get rid of my coatee, and of this
cloak. The coatee would be of no use to you, and you had best burn
it, but the cloak, if you alter it, might be useful; or, if you cut
it up, will make a cover for your bed. I will give you that and a
gold piece--it is a French one I got in the wars, but you can change
it easily enough, when you go into the town marketing--if you will
give me a suit of your clothes.'

"This the man readily consented to do, and the woman set before me
a large bowl of milk, and some bread, which I ate as soon as I had
put on a pair of breeches, smock, and broad hat. Now I felt
perfectly safe. They might send news all over the country of the
escape of a French officer, but as I had never spoken a word of
English, from the time that I was taken, no one would suspect a
countryman speaking English to be the man whom they were in search
of.

"After leaving the cottage, I travelled quietly to Rye. I thought
it best to go there, for it was likely that it would be difficult,
elsewhere, for an unknown man to get a passage to France, and it
struck me that the man who took us across before, would carry me
over the first time he was going with despatches. I found him
easily enough, and though I was not dressed quite in the same way
as I was when we called on him before, he recognized me at once.

"'Another job for me?' he asked.

"'Not a special one,' I said. 'I am going across again