’This violent exercise didn’t suit him at all, and glad enough he was, after two minutes of it, to note that the soldiers were shortening the distance hand over fist.  For a moment he had a mind to drop, as though worn out with hunger and exhaustion, but his face and shape wouldn’t lend themselves to that deceit.  So he held on and did his best, until the foremost soldier drew within thirty yards and shouted out, threatening to fire.  Turning and seeing that he had his musket almost at the “present,” my grandfather dropped his arms, stood still, and allowed them to take him like a lamb.

’"But,” said he, sulky-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.