Book Two The Woman - Chapter 46 How I Came to London

Justly to narrate all that befell me during my flight and journey
to London, would fill many pages, and therefore, as this book of
mine is already of a magnitude far beyond my first expectations,
I shall hurry on to the end of my story.

Acting upon the advice of the saturnine Jeremy, I lay hidden by
day, and traveled by night, avoiding the highway. But in so
doing I became so often involved in the maze of cross-roads,
bylanes, cow-paths, and cart-tracks, that twice the dawn found me
as completely lost as though I had been set down in the midst of
the Sahara. I thus wasted much time, and wandered many miles out
of my way; wherefore, to put an end to these futile ramblings, I
set my face westward, hoping to strike the highroad somewhere
between Tonbridge and Sevenoaks; determined rather to run the
extra chance of capture than follow haphazard these tortuous and
interminable byways.

It was, then, upon the third night since my escape that, faint
and spent with hunger, I saw before me the welcome sight of a
finger-post, and hurrying forward, eager to learn my whereabouts,
came full upon a man who sat beneath the finger-post, with a
hunch of bread and meat upon his knee, which he was eating by
means of a clasp-knife.

Now I had tasted nothing save two apples all day, and but little
the day before--thus, at sight of this appetizing food, my hunger
grew, and increased to a violent desire before which prudence
vanished and caution flew away. Therefore I approached the man,
with my eyes upon his bread and meat.