ithout delay, for my fears of recapture
quite unmanned me, making me needlessly dread any intercourse with
strangers. Having thus resolved to leave Warrington I bade goodbye to my
kind landlady, giving her a trifle over her demand, and then shaped my
way to the northward. I went to several towns, large and small, and
stayed in Manchester a week, where I sold what I made very readily. My
supposed infirmities excited general commiseration everywhere, and
numerous little acts of kindness did I receive. I wandered about the
neighbouring towns in the vicinity for a long time, being loth to leave
it for several reasons; in fact I quite established a connection amongst
the farmers and gentry, who employed me in fabricating little articles of
fancy work and repairing all sorts of things most diverse in their
natures and uses. At one farm-house I mended a tea-pot and a
ploughshare, and at a gentleman's house, near St. Helen's, repaired a
cart, and almost re-built a boat, which was used on his fish-pond. I
turned my hand to any and everything. I do not say I did everything
well, but I did it satisfactorily to those who employed me. I now began
to be troubled about my money which was accumulating, being obliged to
carry it about with me, as I feared being pillaged of it. I therefore
resolved on coming back to Liverpool and finding out Monsieur P--- at all
hazards, trusting to chance that I should not be recognised. Who could
do so? Who would know me in the town save the Tower gaolers who would
scarcely be out at night; even they would not recollect me in the dark
streets of the town? When this resolve came upon me I was at a place
called Upholland where I had been living three or four days, repairing
some weaver's looms--for there are a good many weavers in that little
town. I had nearly finished the work I had undertaken, and was intending
to come to Liverpool direct at the end of the following week, when my
design was frustrated by a curious and most unexpected circumstance.
About three miles from Upholland there is a very high hill called
Ashurst. On the top of this is a beacon tower which looks at a distance
like a church steeple rising over the top of the hill, just as if the
body of the church were on the other side of the crest. This beacon is
intended to communicate alarm to the neighbouring country in war time, it
being one of a line of beacons to and from different places. I had once
or twice walked to this