Peeping stealthily from his lattice he saw the old servant’s candle glimmering redly through the window on the juniper that stood near the wall in the shadow; and soon that light also disappeared, and he knew that the old woman had gone into her room. It was half-past ten. She would be asleep in a quarter of an hour, and in another fifteen minutes his critical adventure would have commenced.
Stealthily, breathlessly, he dressed. His window looked toward the ozier trees, where Tom was to await him. It opened, lattice fashion, with a hinge.
Happily the night was still, and the process of preparing to descend perfectly noiseless. The piece of old rope that lay in the corner he had early fixed on as his instrument of escape. He made it fast to the bed-post, and began to let himself down the wall. The rope was too short, and he dangled in air from the end of it for a second or two, and then dropped to the ground. The distance of the fall, though not much, was enough to throw him from his feet, and the dog in the lock-up yard at the other side of the house began to bark angrily. For a minute the boy gave himself up.
He lay, however, perfectly still, and the barking subsided. There was no other alarm, and he stole very softly away under cover of the trees, and then faster down the slope toward the appointed oziers.
There indeed was Tom Orange in that faint light, more solemn than he ever remembered to have seen him before. Tom was thinking that the stealing away this boy might possibly turn out the most serious enterprise he had yet engaged in.
He had no notion, however, of receding, and merely telling the boy to follow him, he got into a swinging trot that tried the little fellow’s endurance rather severely. I think they ran full three miles before Tom came to a halt.
Then, more like himself, he inquired how he was, and whether he thought he could go on fifteen miles more that night.
“Oh, yes, he could do anything that night. Quite well.”
“Well, walk a bit that you may get breath, and then we’ll run again,” said Tom, and so they set forward once more.
They had now accomplished about four miles more. The little fellow was not so fresh as at starting. A drizzling rain, too, had commenced, with a cold change of wind, and altogether the mere adventure of running away was not quite so pleasant, nor even Tom’s society quite so agreeable on the occasion, as he had fancied.