A day later it snowed heavily, and the guards around the house were more out of humor than ever. They were not allowed to smoke, but did so on the sly, and one man drank liberally of some rum which one of the detail brought in from somewhere.
Henry was watching his chance as a hawk watches young chickens, and late that afternoon noticed that the guard seemed unusually drowsy. The man sat on a bench in a front room of the improvised prison, and if he did not sleep he was certainly far from being wide awake.
There was a window in Henry’s room. It had been nailed up, but one window pane was broken, letting in cold air that nearly froze him to death during the night time. Outside several slats of wood had been placed across the window, which happened to be without the heavy wooden shutters so common at that period.
Through the broken window pane Henry had worked at two of the slats and now had them much loosened. As night came on he noticed that the guard still dozed. The man’s cap had fallen on the floor, and his heavy coat had slipped beside it.
“If I could only get that cap and coat,” thought the young prisoner. The door to the next room was unlocked,—indeed, it had never had a lock on it,—and it was an easy matter to step up to the guard. In a moment more Henry had the articles he desired. Then he turned back, for he knew that another guard was in the street, near the door leading to the thoroughfare.
“Hullo! How cold it is!” Henry heard the guard mutter. He waited to hear no more, but as the man stretched himself he ran to the window, smashed out what remained of the glass, pushed aside the loosened bars, and leaped out into the snow of the yard.
There was now an alarm, and the youth knew that in another moment three or four guards would be after him, each with a musket, ready to shoot him on sight. He leaped for the shelter of a nearby woodshed, donned the cap and military overcoat, and then continued to the back of the yard, where he hopped over a fence, and darted into an alleyway leading to another street.
As Henry gained the alleyway the report of a musket rang out on the early night air, and soon the commotion in and around the prison increased.
“What’s the rumpus?” demanded the officer of the guard, running up.
“Morris has escaped!”