ky-like, "if 'tis to the prison you mean to carry
me, then carry me you shall. Back to the road I'll go with you, but
not a step farther on my own legs, and on that you may bet your last
dollar."

'The soldiers--they were three raw youngsters of the Somerset
Militia--threatened at first to prick him along the road with their
bayonets. But by this time the little Jew had come up panting and
yet almost capering with excitement.

'"No bloodthed!" said he, in his lisping way. "I'll have no
bloodthed! The man 'ith worth three guineath to me ath he ith.
He thall have a cart, if it cotht me five shillingth! Where 'th the
nearetht village?"

'He ran off and down the road, while my grandfather sat down on the
turf along with the soldiers, and smoked a pipe of tobacco.
Very nice lads they were, too; but he felt shy in their company,
thinking how badly he had deceived them, and also that the joke was
near running dry. For, whatever cart the Jew might hire, the driver
couldn't help recognising a man so widely known as my grandfather.

'But his luck stood yet. For the little man hadn't run above
three-quarters of a mile on the road and was not half-way towards
Buckland--his nearest chance of a cart--when he came full tilt upon a
light wagon and three more soldiers, with a fourth riding behind, and
all conveying the prisoners' weekly pocket-money up to Princetown, in
sacks filled with small change. Here was a chance to save breath as
well as carriage hire, and the little Jew charged down on them so
fiercely, as they crawled up the hill, that the corporal who sat on
the money with a musket across his knees, had nearly shot him for a
highwayman before giving him time to explain.

'They whipped up the horses though, when they heard his story; and
so, coming to the road under Sharpitor, and halting, they very soon
had my grandfather trussed and laid upon the bags of money, and
jogged away with him towards the Two Bridges, the Jew and three
militiamen tramping behind at the cart-tail.

'It was one o'clock, or a little past, when they drove up to the
prison gate; and a mist beginning to gather above North Hessary, as
at this time of year it often does after a clear morning.
My grandfather, looking out from under the tilt of the cart, felt as
he'd never felt before what a cheerless place it must seem to a
new-comer, and his heart melted a little bit further towards the lad
he was hiding at home.

'"Hallo!" says the sentry