I had now to set about and devise some other mode of egress. The place I next fixed on for this purpose was my own window. Should I succeed, detection would be almost impossible, every suspicion being lulled, in consequence of the apparent difficulties for such an attempt. In addition to the bars, there was a wire grating in front of the window, which, moreover, was at the top of the house; but, then, the two windows beneath it had been economically bricked up, in order to avoid an accumulation of the window-tax. By knotching a breakfast-knife very finely, I managed to pass it beneath the fat piece of iron in which the bar terminated, and then to saw in two one of the nails which fixed it. I then took out the head of the nail, and the bar turning round the remaining nail, as on a pivot, left a sufficient space for my body to pass between it and the window-frame. I had but to twist the bar back again, stick in the head of the nail, and everything was, apparently, in its former state. By wrenching, in a slight degree, the tenter-hooks, I could now disengage the lower part of the grating in a moment, sufficiently to pass beneath, and having constructed a sliding board in the floor, under which I deposited my rope-ladder, I felt entirely secure from detection, and I was not mistaken. It was indeed a joyous moment when I made my first experiment, and felt my foot on the dewy grass, for I deemed that "Then the world it was mine oyster, Which I with knife might open." Among these nightly rambles, there is one that will ever be, I should think, deeply impressed upon me. Everybody in the house had been in bed for hours. As I was far too restless to doze on the occasion, I had been stationary at the open window, counting the hours as they slowly passed, and it was now getting towards two o'clock, when I was to descend the ladder, already placed and hanging from the window. In those days I was rarely troubled by low spirits, but at the present moment, I must own, that they partook considerably of the gloominess of the hour, and the scenery around. The night was very dark, but I could just see the ghost-like masses of the gigantic elms, as they stood motionless against the gloomy sky, and could even hear the quiet rippling sound of the river as it glided along in the distance, the night was so very still. But all this now horribly contrasted with a scene I had witnessed but a few hours ago on the banks of that river now so deserted. A school-fellow and friend had there been drowned, and I had heard his piercing shriek as he fell from his boat. His body had not yet been recovered. This morning we had been playing at fives together. How were he and I occupied now! I dared hardly think, and then I pictured to myself his listless and lifeless body rolling under the stream into some dark depth:--