The trampers were worse than ever that day, and inspired me with a dread that is yet quite fresh in my mind. Some of them were most ferocious looking ruffians, who stared at me as I went by; and stopped, perhaps, and called after me to come back and speak to them; and when I took to my heels, stoned me. I recollect one young fellow--a tinker, I suppose, from his wallet and brazier--who had a woman with him, and who faced about and stared at me thus; and then roared at me in such a tremendous voice to come back, that I halted and looked round. “Come here, when you’re called,” said the tinker, “or I’ll rip your young body open.” I thought it best to go back. As I drew nearer to them, trying to propitiate the tinker by my looks, I observed that the woman had a black eye. “Where are you going?” said the tinker, gripping the bosom of my shirt with his blackened hand. “I’m going to Dover,” I said. “Where do you come from?” asked the tinker, giving his hand another turn in my shirt to hold me more securely. “I come from London,” I said. “What lay are you upon?” asked the tinker. “Are you a prig?” “N--no,” I said. “Ain’t you! If you make a brag of your honesty to me,” said the tinker, “I’ll knock your brains out.” With his disengaged hand he made a menace of striking me, and then looked at me from head to foot. “Have you got the price of a pint of beer about you?” said the tinker. “If you have, out with it, afore I take it away.” I should certainly have produced it, but that I met the woman’s look, and saw her very slightly shake her head, and form “No” with her lips. “I am very poor,” I said, attempting to smile, “and have got no money.” “Why, what do you mean?” said the tinker, looking so sternly at me, that I almost feared he saw the money in my pocket. “Sir!” I stammered. “What do you mean,” said the tinker, “by wearing my brother’s silk handkerchief? Give it over here!” And he had mine off my neck in a moment, and tossed it to the woman. The woman burst into a fit of laughter, as if she thought this a joke, and tossing it back to me, nodded once, as slightly as before, and made the word “Go!” with her lips. It was on the sixth day of my flight that I came to my aunt’s house. My shoes were by this time in a woeful condition. My hat was crushed and bent. My shirt and trousers were stained with peat, dew, grass, and the Kentish soil on which I had slept. My hair had known no comb or brush since I left London. From head to foot I was powdered with chalk as if I had come out of a lime kiln. There came out of the house a lady with a handkerchief tied over her cap, a pair of gardening gloves on her hands, and carrying a great knife. I knew her, immediately, to be my Aunt Betsy. “Go away!” said Miss Betsy, shaking her head. “Go along! No boys here!” “If you please, ma’am,” I began. She started and looked up. “If you please, aunt.” “Eh!” exclaimed Miss Betsy in a tone of amazement I have never heard approached.