I asked him how soon he thought it'd be, and he looked at me very long, and then, just as somebody called, "Henry, where are you? Come and take the canoe out," he leaned down and whispered in my ear, "To-night, be ready."
Well, I could hardly eat my supper for thinking of it, and I went to bed so quickly and quietly that Mrs. Turner called me "pigeon" and patted my head, because the little girls didn't want to go and were a little noisy.
After I got into bed and was just falling asleep, I did just for a minute think I should have asked Mrs. Turner if I could go, but honestly I never thought of that till then, because Aunty May wasn't there. I would have thought of telling her. Anyway Henry had told me not to tell, and I didn't know whether he meant just the children or not.
Well, I stayed awake a long time, and got up softly and dressed again, and then I stayed asleep it seemed to me just a teeny while, when a bit of grass and gravel hit me on the nose.
I woke up and more came flying through my open window, so I got up softly and kneeled on my bed, and there was Henry down on the ground, looking up at me.
When he saw me he put his finger to his lips, and sent a big piece of clothes-rope flying through the window on to the bed, all without a word.
Then he shaped with his mouth to use that and not the stairs, for the stairs were creaky.
So I put the noose at the end over my bed-post and held on tight, and slid down, without a bit of noise, to the ground, where Henry caught me.
I came down so fast it hurt my hands, but Henry washed them with water, at the well, and tied them up, all without speaking, and we went softly out of the yard, not toward the towpath, but up the long road over the hills.
It was very early morning, about three o'clock, and everything looked lovely.