The prisoners now anxiously lay down to take some repose upon their beds, the sheets of which had been purposely broken up, and formed into ropes, to facilitate their descent from the gaol window, and permit their exeunt to liberty."
On the following morning the prisoners were called up at a very early hour by this kind-hearted gaoler, when they found themselves duly invigorated and refreshed by a night's sound repose. And now they hastened to put on the disguises in which they were to pursue their journey, in the adjustment of which no great time was lost. They then proceeded to dismantle the bars of the prison window, while the door and outer door, upon the retirement of the gaoler, were to remain doubly locked.
"Come, pray come, my gentle masters;" said Phelim O'Neale, "is all ready?"
Being answered in the affirmative, he said: "Well then, any how, small blame to me, I must give precedence to the church, then shall the sword support the cross, and the servant attend on his master. Come, Riverend Sir, we must now despatch—so we now proceed to business; thus before you can patter two Credos or an Ave I will have you dangling at the rope's end. Och, then, may be, any how, that wont be turning the tables upon your Riverence!—ha, ha, ha! But sure, any how, nothing can be more true nor one good turn desarves another."
Mr. Phelim O'Neale now proceeded to lower the Reverend Chaplain by means of the rope. Having duly adjusted all, he observed, "I say, your Riverence, I am now paying you off in kind."
"Marry, Phelim, a truce now to your joke-cracking, for which, by my halidam, I have neither will nor leisure at present to mind. So I say, prithee, a truce to the explosion of thy witticisms, which are, methinks, immeasurably ill-timed and chosen; so I pray reserve them for some meeter occasion of merriment."
"Your Riverence, in troth, only speaks in razon; but you know, your Riverence, that Pat can no more forego his joke at all, at all, let bide what may, than can Justice Jokum his pun, which he cracks while the rope is fairly cracking the neck of the victim to the laws."
"Well, well, Mr. Phelim, having cracked your joke, pray spare my neck from the same, and likewise my ribs from carte and tierce, for at this present moment I see before me, with terror in my mind's eye, the retrospect of the Nieuport-gate of Ostend, and all that you have told me thereof. So have pity upon our nerves and necks while pending in air, and depending upon you!"
The Reverend Doctor was now safely landed upon terra firma, and he in a subdued tone gave his hearty thanks and farewell to Mr. Phelim O'Neale, who prayed that the blessings of the poor and distressed might ever be showered upon, and protect the Reverend Chaplain.