I spread my cloak upon a builder's stone,
and made her sit there; she would have kept her hold upon me, for
she still shook with the late affronts; but I wanted to think
clear, disengaged myself, and paced to and fro before her, in the
manner of what we call a smuggler's walk, belabouring my brains for
any remedy. By the course of these scattering thoughts I was
brought suddenly face to face with a remembrance that, in the heat
and haste of our departure, I had left Captain Sang to pay the
ordinary. At this I began to laugh out loud, for I thought the man
well served; and at the same time, by an instinctive movement,
carried my hand to the pocket where my money was. I suppose it was
in the lane where the women jostled us; but there is only the one
thing certain, that my purse was gone.
"You will have thought of something good," said she, observing me
to pause.
At the pinch we were in, my mind became suddenly clear as a
perspective glass, and I saw there was no choice of methods. I had
not one doit of coin, but in my pocket-book I had still my letter
on the Leyden merchant; and there was now but the one way to get to
Leyden, and that was to walk on our two feet.
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