The condition in which I was now placed was totally different from that which had preceded this attempt. I was chained all day in my dungeon, my manual labors were at an end, my cell was searched every night, and every kind of tool carefully kept from me.
Nevertheless, an active mind, which has once been forced into any particular train, can scarcely give it up as hopeless. One day I chanced to observe a nail trodden into the mud floor at no great distance from me. I seized upon this new treasure, and found that I could unlock with it the padlock that fastened me to the staple in the floor. By this means I had the pitiful consolation of being able to range, without constraint, the miserable coop in which I was confined. It became my constant practice to liberate myself at night; but security breeds negligence. One morning I overslept myself, and the turnkey, to his surprise, found me disengaged.
Again my apartment was changed. I was now put in the strong-room, an underground dungeon, and handcuffs were added to my fetters.
It was at this time that Thomas, Mr. Falkland's footman, and an old acquaintance of mine, visited me. He was of the better order of servants, and my condition shocked him. He returned again in the afternoon.
"Well, Master Williams," he said, "you have been very wicked, to be sure, and I thought it would have done me good to see you hanged. I know I am doing wrong; but if they hang me, too, I cannot help it. For Christ's sake, get out of this place; I cannot bear the thought of it."
With that, he slipped into my hand a chisel, a file, and a saw. I received the implements with great joy, and thrust them into my bosom.
I waited for bright moonlight; it was necessary that I should work in the night, and between nine and seven.
It was ten o'clock when I first took off my handcuffs. I then filed through my fetters, and next performed the same service to the three iron bars that secured my window. All this was the work of more than two hours. But, even with the bars removed, the space was by no means wide enough to admit the passing of my body. Therefore, I had to loosen the brickwork, and this I did partly with the chisel, and partly with one of the iron bars. When the space was sufficient for my purpose, I crept through the opening and stepped upon a shed outside.
The prison wall, which now had to be scaled, was of considerable height, and there was no resource for me but that of making a breach in its lower part. For six hours I worked at this with incredible labour, and at last I had made a passage. But the day was breaking, and in ten minutes' time the keepers would probably enter my apartment and see the devastation I had left.
I decided to avoid the town as much as possible, and depended upon the open country for protection; and so I passed along the lane beyond the wall.