wished it; and he ended at last by falling on me from a height of several yards, so that we both rolled together on the ground.  As soon as he could breathe he cursed me beyond belief, wept over his finger, which he had broken, and cursed me again.  I bade him be still and think shame of himself to be so great a cry-baby.  Did he not hear the round going by above?  I asked; and who could tell but what the noise of his fall was already remarked, and the sentinels at the very moment leaning upon the battlements to listen?

The round, however, went by, and nothing was discovered; the third man came to the ground quite easily; the fourth was, of course, child’s play; and before there were ten of us collected, it seemed to me that, without the least injustice to my comrades, I might proceed to take care of myself.

I knew their plan:  they had a map and an almanack, and designed for Grangemouth, where they were to steal a ship.  Suppose them to do so, I had no idea they were qualified to manage it after it was stolen.  Their whole escape, indeed, was the most haphazard thing imaginable; only the impatience of captives and the ignorance of private soldiers would have entertained so misbegotten a device; and though I played the good comrade and worked with them upon the tunnel, but for the lawyer’s message I should have let them go without me.  Well, now they were beyond my help, as they had always been beyond my counselling; and, without word said or leave taken, I stole out of the little crowd.  It is true I would rather have waited to shake hands with Laclas, but in the last man who had descended I thought I recognised Clausel, and since the scene in the shed my distrust of Clausel was perfect.  I believed the man to be capable of any infamy, and events have since shown that I was right.

CHAPTER VII—­SWANSTON COTTAGE

I had two views.  The first was, naturally, to get clear of Edinburgh Castle and the town, to say nothing of my fellow-prisoners; the second to work to the southward so long as it was night, and be near Swanston Cottage by morning.  What I should do there and then, I had no guess, and did not greatly care, being a devotee of a couple of divinities called Chance and Circumstance.  Prepare, if possible; where it is impossible, work straight forward, and keep your eyes open and your tongue oiled.  Wit and a good exterior—­there is all life in a nutshell.

I had at first a rather chequered journey:  got involved in gardens, butted into houses, and had even once the misfortune to awake a sleeping family, the father of which, as I suppose, menaced me from the window with a blunderbuss.  Altogether, though I had been some time gone from my companions, I was still at no great distance, when a miserable accident put a period to the escape.  Of a sudden the night was divided by a scream.  This was followed by the sound of something falling, and that again