But hardly had I walked twenty paces
when I heard the cab coming up behind and the old driver crying:
"'Old on, missie."
I stopped, and to my surprise he drew up by my side, got down from his
box, opened the door of his cab and said:
"Ger in."
I told him I could not afford to ride.
"Ger in," he said again more loudly, and as if angry with himself for
having to say it.
Again I made some demur, and then the old man said, speaking fiercely
through his grizzly beard:
"Look 'ere, missie. I 'ave a gel o' my own lost somewheres, and I
wouldn't be ans'rable to my ole woman if I let you walk with a face like
that."
I don't know what I said to him. I only know that my tears gushed out
and that at the next moment I was sitting in the cab.
What happened then I do not remember, except that the dull rumble of the
wheels told me we were passing over a bridge, and that I saw through the
mist before my eyes a sluggish river, a muddy canal, and patches of
marshy fields.
I think my weariness and perhaps my emotion, added to the heavy
monotonous trotting of the old horse, must have put me to sleep, for
after a while I was conscious of a great deal of noise, and of the old
driver twisting about and shouting in a cheerful voice through the open
window at the back of his seat:
"Stratford Market.
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