He now sat him down on the coil to wait patiently for the hour when he might think it safe to make his bold attempt.
Judging at length that the night was sufficiently far advanced for his purpose, he offered up a prayer for divine aid and protection, and tying the blanket of the bed around him in case of need, laid hold of the rope and hoisted himself up by his arms, until he had reached the window. Having lodged himself fairly in its aperture, he discovered that the wall was at least six or eight feet thick. He now laid himself on his side, with his feet hanging inwards, and by slow degrees pulled up the rope, until he got the whole coil deposited safely within the small area of the window. The space was barely sufficient to admit of his creeping easily through. Altering his position, therefore, and advancing his feet, he wormed himself forward, when, just as he expected to thrust them into the open air, he felt them suddenly arrested by a vertical bar of iron. His heart was chilled by its touch. He tried the width of the vacancies on either side of it, but neither afforded space enough to admit of the passage of his body.
Much disheartened by this unexpected obstruction, he withdrew himself, and with great difficulty again changed his position, and advanced head foremost until he brought his hands near enough the bar to feel it all over. It was much decayed by rust, but yet by far too strong to be broken by the mere force of his [[155]]arm. After a little consideration, he drew his dagger, and making use of its point, worked away the lead and the stone where the lower end of the stanchion was inserted; and after labouring unceasingly for a considerable time, he found he had weakened the stone and removed the lead so much that he had some hopes of assailing it successfully with his feet. He was now, therefore, obliged to retreat again and change his position, so that he again projected his feet till they came in contact with the bar. Having fixed himself firmly in the place by means of his arms, that he might bring all his force to bear against it, he was about to strike violently at it with the soles of his feet when he remembered that the sound might be heard below. His situation made him fertile in expedients. He slipped forward a part of the blanket, and, adjusting two or three folds of it over the bar, he began to drive his feet furiously against it. It gradually gave way before them, and then it suddenly yielded entirely. He ceased working for an instant, and, to his no small alarm, heard a piece of the stone he had driven off fall in the court-yard below. He listened anxiously for a time, but no alarm seemed to have been excited. He again felt at the bar with his feet, and recommencing his attack upon it, after a succession of hard blows, he bent it so far outwards as to leave no doubt that he could pass himself through the aperture.
Commending himself to God, then, he slipped himself forward, and, committing his weight gently to the rope, he began his descent by shifting his hands alternately and slowly one below the other, always pulling out more and more of the coil of rope as he wanted it, until, the end of it being unwound, it fell perpendicularly below him. Still he went on descending till, to his no small dismay, he found that he had reached the last foot of his length. For an instant he hung in awful doubt. He cast his eyes below, but the night was so dark that the ground beneath was invisible, and he could not possibly calculate the height that yet remained. He thought for a few moments; and finally, resigning himself to the care of Providence, he loosened his grasp of the rope and fell. His fall was dreadful, and his death would have been certain had not his descent been interrupted by a fortunate circumstance. The blanket he had wrapped round him caught in the branches of a yew tree growing close to the wall, and although it did not keep its hold, yet the force of the fall was so much broken that he escaped comparatively uninjured.
He lay stunned for some moments under the tree; and then, recovering himself, he was about to rise, when, reflecting that [[156]]he must proceed with caution, he crept silently forth from his covert, and listened to hear if there was any one stirring. All was quiet. He then moved forward, and dark as the night was, he could yet perceive the outer walls and towers of the building rising against the pale glimmer of the sky. His first step was to steal around the base of the keep, that he might reconnoitre it in all directions; and, as he did so, he passed by its entrance, which he found open. Wishing to examine farther, he went on listening, but all was silent around. At length, as he moved onwards to another side of the building, he descried a light breaking from a loop-hole window near the foundation of the keep, and heard the sound of human voices, with now and then a peal of boisterous laughter. He approached with extreme caution and silence, until he was near enough to see and hear all that passed within.
The place he looked down into appeared to be a sort of cellar, being surrounded with huge barrels placed against the walls, near one of which, on an inverted tub, sat the old jailor, Daniel Throckle, with a great wooden stoup of ale on his knee, and with no small quantity of the fumes of the same fluid in his brain, as was evident from the manner in which his eyes ogled in his head. Almost close by him stood a good-looking wench in conversation with him; and the group was lighted by a clumsy iron lamp placed on the top of one of the largest of the tuns.
“Coum, coum, Daeniel Throckle,” said the girl, “thee hast had enow o’ that strong stuff; that stoup but accloyeth thee. Blessed Mary! but thine eyes do look most fearsome askaunce already.”
“Nay, nay, my bellebone,” replied Throckle, “I mun ha’ a wee drop more yet. Coum, now, do sit thee down, and be buxom a bit—a—a—. Thee knawest—a—that I loves thee dearly—he! he! he! Sit thee down, I say—a—a; sit thee down, my soft, my soote virginal!—By St. Cuthbert, there be not a he that yalt the gate through sun and weet—a—a—that—a—a—he! he! he!—that loveth thee more than I do.—Sit thee down, I say—a—a—and troll a roundel with me. Here ye, now, do but—a—a—do but join thy sweet voice with mine.—Nay then, an thou wont, I mun e’en—a—a—sing by mysell—a—a—
O I am the man
That can empty a can,