Anthony Tidkins walked about the yard, affecting a moody and sullen air of indifference, but in reality catching with rapid glance every point of the buildings around him—every object within the range of his vision; so that he committed to memory a complete map of that division of the prison where he was now taking exercise.
Having walked an hour, he was re-conducted to his room where a bowl of pease-soup with a slice of bread was given to him for his dinner. In the evening he was supplied with a basin of gruel and another piece of bread, and was then locked in for the night.
CHAPTER CCXXVIII.
A DESPERATE ACHIEVEMENT.
It was, as the readers must remember, in the middle of the month of March when these events occurred. At that season of the year the sun sets at about six o'clock; and it is consequently dark at seven.
The Resurrection Man was no sooner left undisturbed for the night, when he commenced the arduous and almost desperate attempt of an escape from the prison.
Taking off his coat, he tore open the lining of the collar, and drew forth two files scarcely larger than watch-springs, and made of steel of an equally fine temper.
"Thanks to my precaution in never moving away from home without such tools as these about me!" he exclaimed, as he bent the files almost double to try their elasticity, and then drew them over one of his nails to test the keenness of their teeth.
It is not an uncommon circumstance for the police-magistrates at the offices not within the City of London to remand prisoners accused of heinous crimes to Coldbath Fields' gaol; and as such persons cannot, according to the law, be deemed guilty until they be declared so by a jury, they are not lodged in the common dark cells allotted to misdemeanants or criminals sentenced to imprisonment within those walls. There is a room specially appropriated to the use of untried individuals who are sent to Coldbath Fields. That chamber is capable of holding four or five beds, and has two windows looking upon the prison-grounds.
Those windows are, however, secured by strong iron bars outside the casements, which are made to open for the purpose of airing the room in the day-time.
Tidkins had already carefully examined these bars, and had calculated to a nicety the exact time which it would occupy him to remove two of them by means of his files.