She was greatly disappointed to find that all the linen-horses stood on the stone area, between the debtors’ and felons’ yards. She had hoped that they would have been carried by the turnkey to the drying ground in the garden, as usual, ready for the linen in the morning. Owing to some cause or other, they were not there that night.
This was a sad disappointment, for she had made up her mind to escape that very night. Could she be suspected? Had anybody betrayed her? No, it was impossible. As the turnkey passed the palings she cried out to him, “You have not put out the horses for us to-night?”
“No, Margaret,” he replied, “we have all been too busy cleaning the cells and yards; but they shall be put out the first thing in the morning.”
The reply was both satisfactory and unsatisfactory. It convinced her she was not suspected; but declared that she must expect no help from the linen-horses. She was glad, however, to see that the lines were on the posts for the coarse linen, and the crotches, or props, in their proper places.
She looked around for something to help her. The gaol wall was nearly twenty-two feet high, and the chevaux de frise three feet from the point of one revolving spike to its extreme point. What could she get to assist her? At one time she thought of pulling up a portion of the paling for a ladder. She tried her strength at it, but it was too much for her. She then turned her eye upon a large frame, which was used for the flower-beds. It covered a long bed, and the awning usually placed upon it to keep the sun off the flowers in the summer was not there. She tried her strength at this, and lifted the legs upon which it stood about a foot upwards. This she resolved to make her ladder. She looked up at the narrow spot where the iron spike had been broken, and which was close to the shoulder or prop of the chevaux de frise. Hope beamed brightly upon her as she thought of her liberty. Margaret resolved to make the attempt at midnight. At half-past eight the convicts all went in to supper, and afterwards retired to their cells. But Margaret, the moment she reached hers, contrived to slip out of it again, with the things she had made for her disguise, into the adjoining one, which stood open; and she crept under the bed of the felon who was gone to Bury for trial. She had, as usual, closed her own door, and lay anxiously waiting in her hiding place the turnkey’s approach. She heard him coming along, and asking the several prisoners, as he came, if they were in their cells. They answered his summons, and then she heard them locked up; and now came the challenge to her own door.
“Margaret, are you there?”
She put her lips to the wall of the cell where she was, and answered, "Yes.” It sounded exactly as if she was in bed in her own cell; and to her great joy she heard the key turn in the iron lock, and the bolt shoot into its place. She breathed for a moment freely, but the next moment she experienced such a sudden revulsion as few could have borne without detection. To her confusion and dismay, the turnkey entered the very cell where she lay concealed under the bed. He walked up to the iron-grated window, and, as usual, the casement stood open for the benefit of air through the passage, and, in a soliloquizing manner, said, “Ah! poor Sarah! you will never sleep upon this bed again!”
In breathless agony did Margaret dread two things equally fatal to her project. One was, that he should hear her breath in the stillness of the night, and discover her; the other, that he should lock the door upon her. She knew that it was not usual to lock the doors of those cells which contained no prisoners, but she dreaded lest the same absence of mind which made him saunter into Sarah Lloyd’s cell should make him look the door. What a state of suspense! How did her blood course through her frame! she could hear her heart beat! She was presently relieved from her suspense, for the turnkey, having completed his duty in locking up all his prisoners, quietly departed out of the cell, and left the door, as usual, standing wide open. Never was relief more opportune or welcome than this to her overcharged heart. The clock struck the hours of nine, ten, and eleven, and Margaret had not stirred. She now rose, took her shoes in her hand, and her bundle under her arm; she then managed to tie it up with an apron-string over her shoulders, and, with the slightest tread, stole along the stone passage. A mouse would scarcely have been disturbed by her as she descended the front of steps that led to the felons’ yard.
To her great comfort she found the door unbolted; for the turnkey, having locked every one up, saw no necessity for bolting the yard door. Silently she opened it; it creaked so little, that the wind prevented any sound reaching beyond the precincts of the door. She made her way to the flower-stand in the governor’s garden, lifted the frame out of the ground and set it up endways directly under the broken spike. It reached a little more than half way up the wall, being about thirteen feet long. She then went and took the linen line off the posts, and made a running noose at one end of it. She then took the longest clothes-prop she could find, and passed the noose over the horn of it. She mounted the frame by the help of the prop, and standing upon it she lifted the line up and passed the noose over the shoulder of the chevaux de frise, then, pulling it tight and close to the wall, it slipped down the iron and became fixed.
Now came the greatest difficulty she had ever overcome in her life. She drew herself up by the line to the top of the wall, and laying her body directly upon the roller where the spike was broken, with the help of one hand grasping the shoulder of iron, she balanced herself until she had pulled up all the line and let it fall down the other side of the wall; then, taking hold of the rope with both hands, she bent her body forward, and the whole body of spikes revolved, turning her literally heels over head on the outer side of the gaol wall. Was there ever such a desperate act performed by any woman before? Had not the fact been proved beyond all doubt, the statement might be deemed incredible. But Margaret Catchpole did exactly as here described; and after the oscillation of her body was over from the jerk, she quietly let herself down in perfect safety on the other side.