When I look back at this period of my life, though it must be with a feeling of disapprobation—and when I coldly say disapprobation, I insinuate remorse—let me confess that I still do so with an undeniable leaven of envy; envy at the lawless liberty I enjoyed, not only with regard to my actions, but to my conscience; revelling in a deficiency of forethought and blindness of consequences, as truly delightful for the present, as overwhelming and deplorable for the future.
I was not aware that "coming events cast their shadows before;" and, alas! that past ones, leave them.
But there was one thing of which I was aware, and of which persons rarely are, at the time,—I knew that I was happy; yet I deemed that this ought not to be, so long as I remained subject to any trace of palpable, or, as I then thought, irrational restraint.
In truth, like a good many other foolish fellows of that age, I began to entertain no small opinion of myself. I now felt that it was degrading to be shut in each night, like sheep within a fold, or to peep through the grated windows like a felon, and that I would not rest until I had freed myself from such restraints.
The impediments and risks opposed to my design were great, but my fortune, or misfortune, carried me through them all.
On examining the different windows of the house with this intention, I at last found one which I judged to offer greater facilities than any other; but as it was in the room of two other boys, it became necessary that I should intrust them with the matter. As, of course, they were also to be participators in the benefits arising from the success of our attempt, they were happy to join me.
It occupied but little time to make our preparations for the sortie. The bars of this window were placed so widely apart, that by taking off our coats and waistcoats, we could each squeeze through. We had, then, only to subscribe the ropes of our trunks, and saw off the legs of our chairs, and in a few minutes we possessed a lengthy rope-ladder. We now went to bed, appointing three-o'clock in the morning for the hour of our first sally. Notwithstanding the height from the ground, and our suspicions of the weakness of our ropes, so eager was each to be the first to descend, that we drew lots for the precedence. This fell to Bush, who instantly commenced his descent, and the next moment, the silence of night was dispersed by the awful crashing and jingling of apparently a hundred panes of glass! Both legs and half of his body had passed directly through the window below. We had conjectured that there had been no window, but here was that of the unlucky laundry. The instant he had reascended, I coiled up the ladder, and retreating with it to my room, threw it under my bureau and jumped into bed, instantly expecting the whole house to be in an uproar, though, as it turned out, no one was awoke by the clatter. The following morning, the effects were merely attributed to the attempts of some villains to break into the house, instead of out of it.
I had now to set about and devise some other mode of egress. The place I next fixed on for this purpose was my own window. Should I succeed, detection would be almost impossible, every suspicion being lulled, in consequence of the apparent difficulties for such an attempt. In addition to the bars, there was a wire grating in front of the window, which, moreover, was at the top of the house; but, then, the two windows beneath it had been economically bricked up, in order to avoid an accumulation of the window-tax. By knotching a breakfast-knife very finely, I managed to pass it beneath the fat piece of iron in which the bar terminated, and then to saw in two one of the nails which fixed it. I then took out the head of the nail, and the bar turning round the remaining nail, as on a pivot, left a sufficient space for my body to pass between it and the window-frame. I had but to twist the bar back again, stick in the head of the nail, and everything was, apparently, in its former state. By wrenching, in a slight degree, the tenter-hooks, I could now disengage the lower part of the grating in a moment, sufficiently to pass beneath, and having constructed a sliding board in the floor, under which I deposited my rope-ladder, I felt entirely secure from detection, and I was not mistaken.
It was indeed a joyous moment when I made my first experiment, and felt my foot on the dewy grass, for I deemed that
"Then the world it was mine oyster,
Which I with knife might open."