“Wot!” said the young man, seizing me by my jacket collar, with a frightful grin. “This is a pollis case, is it? You’re a-going to bolt, are you? Come to the pollis, you young warmin, come to the pollis!”
“You give me my money back, if you please,” said I, very much frightened; “and leave me alone.”
“Come to the pollis!” said the young man. “You shall prove it yourn to the pollis.”
“Give me my box and money, will you,” I cried, bursting into tears.
The young man still replied: “Come to the pollis!” and was dragging me against the donkey in a violent manner, as if there were any affinity between that animal and a magistrate, when he changed his mind, jumped into the cart, sat upon my box, and, exclaiming that he would drive to the pollis straight, rattled away harder than ever.
I ran after him as fast as I could, but I had no breath to call out with, and should not have dared to call out, now, if I had. I narrowly escaped being run over, twenty times at least, in half a mile. Now I lost him, now I saw him, now I lost him, now I was cut at with a whip, now shouted at, now down in the mud, now up again, now running into somebody’s arms, now running headlong at a post. At length, confused by fright and heat, and doubting whether half London might not by this time be turning out for my apprehension, I left the young man to go where he would with my box and money; and, panting and crying, but never stopping, faced about for Greenwich, which I had understood was on the Dover Road: taking very little more out of the world, towards the retreat of my aunt, Miss Betsey, than I had brought into it, on the night when my arrival gave her so much umbrage.