not feel it), lest he should suddenly reach the ground with a dull thud.  He accomplished this in safety, and once more paused, his back pushed hard to the prison wall, while the warder passed, whose form he could now even make out, it was so immediately above him; then he crossed the yard with a swift but anxious step to its north corner, and peered about in the gloom for the promised rope; the spout was there, smooth and ineffectual enough as a means of exit, but no rope.

His heart died within him, and his hands trembled with anxiety and trepidation as they felt in vain for it along the smooth and lofty wall.  Richard’s brain began to reel.  He leaned his trembling brow against the cold iron of the spout, and endeavored to think the matter out.  He was sure of Balfour; he felt certain that nothing but sudden and dangerous illness would have prevented him from keeping his word.  But perhaps he had not been able to obtain a rope; such things were watchfully looked after in the neighborhood of Lingmoor Prison, and might even not be procurable.  Yet had such been the case, Balfour would not have volunteered that form of assistance.  He was of opinion that the rope was there, then, and if so, it must have been thrown over by means of a stone, or weight of some kind.  In that case, if the stone had rolled after reaching the ground, the rope might not be hanging like a plumb-line from the wall, but at an angle from it, and at some distance.  He began to move, then, in a parallel line from the wall, still feeling right and left; and on the third trial he caught in his stretched-out hand a string—­a string-line such as a boy uses for his kite; and for an instant, the sense of the inefficacy of such means to effect his purpose froze him with despair.  But presently pulling on the string, he found it gather in his hand, and pulling softly on, more string, and then an end of thin but wire-strong rope, and then more rope.  What was best of all was, that this rope was knotted at intervals of every foot, so as to afford a strong, firm hold.

After many yards of this had been hauled in he found resistance; the end of it was evidently fast on the other side.  Richard passed the rope round the bottom of the iron spout, and beneath an iron clasp, that prevented its slipping upward, and then made it taut.  It was a perilous bridge even then, and supposing the watcher with his musket had not been, as he was, within easy gunshot of him; but it led from prison walls to liberty, and Richard did not hesitate for a moment to commit himself to it.  Hand over hand, foot after foot, he dragged himself with infinite effort slowly upward; but it was not now in his power to watch the patrol, and secure the most favorable moment for crossing the wall top, as he had done in the case of the roof.  As ill luck would have it, just as the sentry came to the northward portion of his beat, Richard’s form was vaguely visible against the sky, upon the very summit of the