“Punch has got an uncle down Uxbridge way who works at some brick fields at West Drayton. Six or eight hundred of them—Mr. Hearn’s lot, they is. That’s where we went, and the police daren’t follow us there. They don’t allow no ‘coppers’ on the premises thereabouts, Mr. Power. That’s the place to hide.” “No doubt,” thought Mr. Power; “and Howard’s gone there now.” Within an hour he had obtained the governor’s permission to go in pursuit, with a brace of pistols in his pocket, and unlimited credit. At the inn of West Drayton he bought from the ostler a suit of navvy’s clothes, and went thus disguised with a spade over his shoulder towards the brickworks. The field was full and busy. There was an alehouse close by, and it was early morning, no one about but a sort of serving wench, a middle-aged woman, one-eyed, and bearing on her face the marks of a life of dissipation and rough usage. “Morrow, mistress. Any work going?” said Power. “Ah! work enough,” replied the woman, fixing him with her one eye, which was as good as four or five in any other head. “But you don’t want no work.” “No?” “No; I know you. You’re not what you seem. That spade and them duds ain’t no sort of good. You’re after work, but not that sort of work.” Doubtful whether she meant to help or thwart him, Power could only trust himself to order a pot of ale. “Have a drain, missus.” “And I’ll help you too—no, not with the ale, but to cop young Punch.” “Punch?” “Aye—Punch Howard. That’s the work you’re after; and you shall get it too, or my name’s not Martha Jonas. This three-and-twenty years I’ve lived with his uncle, Dan Cockett, man and wife, though no parson blessed us. Three-and-twenty I slaved and bore with the mean white-faced hound, and now he leaves me for a younger woman, and I am brought to this. Help you!—by the great powers, I’d put a knife in Dan Cockett too.” “And how am I to take him?” “Not by daylight. Bless you, if you went into that field they’d never let you out alive. Why, no bobby durst go there, nor yet a dozen together.” “Is Punch Howard in the field with them?” “There; look yonder. D’ye see that lad in the striped shirt and blue belcher tie, blue and big white spots? Can’t you tell him a mile off?” Sure enough it was Punch Howard, standing by a brick “table,” at which a number of others were at work, smoothing and finishing the bricks, or coming and going with the bearing-off barrows. “Come to-night, master. They sleep mostly out there, on top of the brick stacks—and heavy sleep, for the beer in this house isn’t water. Come with a bobby or two, and look them all over. Punch’ll be among them, and you’ll be able to steal him away before the rest awake.”