Page 272 - david-copperfield

CHAPTER 13

THE SEQUEL OF MY

RESOLUTION

or anything I know, I may have had some wild idea of
Frunning all the way to Dover, when I gave up the pur-
suit of the young man with the donkey-cart, and started for
Greenwich. My scattered senses were soon collected as to
that point, if I had; for I came to a stop in the Kent Road, at
a terrace with a piece of water before it, and a great foolish
image in the middle, blowing a dry shell. Here I sat down on
a doorstep, quite spent and exhausted with the efforts I had
already made, and with hardly breath enough to cry for the
loss of my box and half-guinea.
It was by this time dark; I heard the clocks strike ten, as I
sat resting. But it was a summer night, fortunately, and fine
weather. When I had recovered my breath, and had got rid
of a stifling sensation in my throat, I rose up and went on.
In the midst of my distress, I had no notion of going back.
I doubt if I should have had any, though there had been a
Swiss snow-drift in the Kent Road.
But my standing possessed of only three-halfpence in

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