I remember that all my fear of the troops was gone. I felt so sure that all would be well in the morning. So, putting my parcel under my head as a pillow, I snuggled down into the hay, and very soon fell asleep. I was awakened in the morning by the entrance of an old cart-horse, who came to smell at the hay. It was light enough to see where I was going, so I opened my knapsack and made a rough breakfast before setting out. Overnight I had planned to go back to the inn. In the cool of the morning that plan did not seem so very wise as I had thought it. I was almost afraid to put it into practice. However, I went back along the lane. With some trouble, I got over the tall brick wall down which I had dropped the night before. Then I climbed up to the pigeon-house, down the loft-ladder, into the inn-yard, to the broken back door of the tavern. The door hung from one hinge, with its lower panels kicked in just as the soldiers had left it. The inn was open to anybody who cared to enter. I entered cautiously, half expecting to find a few soldiers billeted there. But the place was empty. I went from room to room, finding no one; Mrs. Dick seemed to have disappeared. One of the rooms was in disorder. A few broken glasses were on the floor; a chair lay on its side under the table. I went upstairs. I tapped at the outside of the drawing-room. No answer there; all was still there. I listened attentively for some sound of breathing; none came. No one was inside. I went all over the house. No one was there. I was alone in the "Blue Boar," the only person in the house. I could only guess that Mr and Mrs Dick had been arrested. To be sure, they might have run away together during the night. I did not quite know what to think. In my wanderings, I came to the bar, which I found in great disorder; the bench was upset, jugs and glasses were scattered on the floor, and the blinds had not been pulled up. Although I had some fear of being seen from outside, I pulled up the blinds to let in a little light, so that I might look at the coaching-map which hung at one end of the bar. When I passed behind the bar to trace out for myself the road to London, I saw an open book lying on a shelf among the bottles. It was a copy of Captain Johnson's _Lives of the Highwaymen and Pirates_, lying open at the life of Captain Roberts, the famous pirate Whydah. Some one must have been reading it when the soldiers entered. I looked at it curiously, for it was open at the portrait of Roberts. Underneath the portrait were a few words written in pencil in a clumsy scrawl. I read them over, expecting some of the ordinary schoolboy nonsense.