As soon as she heard the servants moving about the house she rose, pale and weary, and putting on her outdoor things, stole down-stairs with her bag in her hand.  The servants were busy in the kitchen, and she unfastened the hall door and left the house without attracting any attention.  The fresh, morning air, while it roused her to a sense of her position, revived and encouraged her.  After all, she was young and strong and—­she looked up at the house of bondage which she was leaving—­she was free!  Oh, blessed freedom!  How often she had read of it and heard it extolled; but she had never known until this moment how great, how sweet a thing it was.

She waited at the mean little station until a workmen’s train came up, and, hustled by the crowd of sleepy and weary toilers, got into it.  When she left the terminus, she walked with a portion of the throng which turned up Bishopsgate Street, though any other direction would have suited her as well—­or as little; for she had no idea where to go, or what to do, beyond seeking some inexpensive lodging.  She knew well enough that she could not afford to go to a hotel; that she would have to be content with a small room, perhaps an attic, and the plainest of food, while she sought for work.  It was soon evident to her that she was not likely to find what she was looking for in the broad thoroughfare of shops and offices, and, beginning to feel bewildered by the crowd, which, early as it was, streamed along the pavements, she turned off into one of the narrower streets.

The long arm of Coincidence which thrusts itself into all our affairs, led her to the Minories, and to the very quay which Stafford had reached in his aimless wanderings; and, mechanically she paused and looked on dreamily at the bustle and confusion which reigned there.  Perhaps the presence of the sheep and cattle attracted her:  she felt drawn to them by sympathy with their hustled and hurried condition, which so nearly resembled her own.

With one hand resting on a rail, and a bag in the other, she watched the men as they drove the cattle up the gangways or lowered huge casks and bales into the hold.  A big, fat man, with a slouch hat on the back of his head and a pipe in the corner of his mouth—­which did not prevent him shouting and bawling at the men and the animals—­lurched here and there like one of the casks, and in the midst of his shouting and bawling, he every now and then glanced at a watch of the frying-pan order.

It was evident even to the inexperienced Ida, that the vessel was about to start; the sailors were rushing about on deck in the haste and excitement of ordered disorder, chains were clanking, and ropes and pulleys were shrieking; and a steam whistle shrieked at intervals and added to the multitudinous noises.

“Poor sheep, poor bulls!” murmured Ida, as the last of the beasts were driven up the gangway and disappeared.  “Perhaps you have come from another Herondale!  Do you remember, do you look back, as I do?”