I said little more, but finished my meal, wrote down my numbers, and gave him the bottle: but warned him, if he were questioned, by no means to tell an untruth. The boy looked at me again, in a manner that spoke highly in his favour, put the bottle in his pocket, and, as soon as his master returned to the door, removed the things and departed.
He brought the ink with my supper. One of the men had taken his sixpence, but refused to return him any change; and the ink he had emptied out of the keeper's bottle. Such are the habits of vice. The boy related it with indignation, but said he dared not complain. I had nothing else to give, I therefore rewarded the generous boy with a couple of quills, and four sheets of paper for his own use; cautioning him to keep them to write to his mother.
While I wanted the means, I imagined it would have been a great relief to have had the power of writing down my thoughts; but I found they were much too busy, and disturbed, by the recollection of Anna St. Ives and her danger, and by the incessant desire of finding some means of escape, notwithstanding a thousand repeated convictions of its impossibility, to suffer me to write either with effect or connection. I did nothing but make memorandums; some of thoughts that occurred, and others of circumstances that were present. I concealed my papers in the wainscot behind the picture, where I mean to leave this narrative.
The indulgence of my morning walk was continued; and on the sixth day of my confinement an incident happened, by which I almost effected my release.
Confiding in the strait waistcoat and in the strength of his locks and bars, and become less apprehensive from this persuasion, the keeper had left me under the care of only one of his men; himself and the other were employed on something which he wanted done in the house.
While they were absent, the garden-bell rang. The voice of Mac Fane was heard, demanding entrance, by the man who was set to watch me, and fetching the key he opened the gate without hesitation.
My hopes were instantly excited. I made a short turn and crossed him, as if continuing my walk, a few yards distant from the gate. He eyed me however, and I went on; but, the moment he was busied in unlocking and unbolting it, I turned round, sprang forward, and as it opened rushed past.
The violence of my motion overset Mac Fane. The master, whose suspicions had taken the alarm, was entering the garden and saw me. He and his man and Mac Fane instantly joined in the pursuit.
Though I was in the strait waistcoat, yet I happened to be swifter than any of them. The keeper was soon the first in the chase: it was up a narrow lane, with a high-banked hedge on each side. A man was coming down it, and the keeper called to him to stop me. The man seeing my arms confined, and hearing the shouts of my pursuers, endeavoured to do as he was desired. He placed himself directly in my way, and I ran full against him.
We both fell; but the man by the aid of his hands was up rather the soonest. He laid hold of me, and a sudden thought struck me. They were bawling behind—'A madman! A madman!'—and I assumed that grinning contortion of countenance which might easiest terrify, uttered an uncouth noise, and began to bite at the man. Terror seized him, and I again got away, the very moment the keeper was coming up.