Meanwhile, the commissary, not wholly relying on the astrologer, but resolving prudently to make use of the more earthly resources which were at his disposal, had sent information of Garret’s escape to the corporations of Dover, Rye, Winchester, Southampton, and Bristol, with descriptions of the person of the fugitive; and this step was taken with so much expedition, that before the end of the week no vessel was allowed to leave either of those harbours without being strictly searched.

The natural method proved more effectual than the supernatural, though again with the assistance of a singular accident.  Garret had not gone to London; unfortunately for himself, he had not gone to Wales as he had intended.  He left Oxford, as we saw, the evening of Saturday, February 21st.  That night he reached a village called Corkthrop,[523] where he lay concealed till Wednesday; and then, not in the astrologer’s orange-tawny dress, but in “a courtier’s coat and buttoned cap,” which he had by some means contrived to procure, he set out again on his forlorn journey, making for the nearest sea-port, Bristol, where the police were looking out to receive him.  His choice of Bristol was peculiarly unlucky.  The “chapman” of the town was the step-father of Cole, the Oxford proctor:  to this person, whose name was Master Wilkyns, the proctor had written a special letter, in addition to the commissary’s circular; and the family connection acting as a spur to his natural activity, a coast guard had been set before Garret’s arrival, to watch for him down the Avon banks, and along the Channel shore for fifteen miles.  All the Friday night “the mayor, with the aldermen, and twenty of the council, had kept privy watch,” and searched suspicious houses at Master Wilkyns’s instance; the whole population were on the alert, and when the next afternoon, a week after his escape, the poor heretic, footsore and weary, dragged himself into the town, he found that he had walked into the lion’s mouth.[524] He quickly learnt this danger to which he was exposed, and hurried off again with the best speed which he could command; but it was too late.  The chapman, alert and indefatigable, had heard that a stranger had been seen in the street; the police were set upon his track, and he was taken at Bedminster, a suburb on the opposite bank of the Avon, and hurried before a magistrate, where he at once acknowledged his identity.

With such happy success were the good chapman’s efforts rewarded.  Yet in this world there is no light without shadow; no pleasure without its alloy.  In imagination, Master Wilkyns had thought of himself conducting the prisoner in triumph into the streets of Oxford, the hero of the hour.  The sour formality of the law condemned him to ill-merited disappointment.  Garret had been taken beyond the liberties of the city; it was necessary, therefore, to commit him to the county gaol, and he was sent to Ilchester.  “Master Wilkyns offered himself to be bound to the said justice