This was a sad disappointment, for she had made up her mind to escape that very night. Could she be suspected? Had anybody betrayed her? No, it was impossible. As the turnkey passed the palings she cried out to him, "You have not put out the horses for us to-night?" "No, Margaret," he replied, "we have all been too busy cleaning the cells and yards; but they shall be put out the first thing in the morning." The reply was both satisfactory and unsatisfactory. It convinced her she was not suspected; but declared that she must expect no help from the linen-horses. She was glad, however, to see that the lines were on the posts for the coarse linen, and the crotches, or props, in their proper places. She looked around for something to help her. The gaol wall was nearly twenty-two feet high, and the _chevaux de frise_ three feet from the point of one revolving spike to its extreme point. What could she get to assist her? At one time she thought of pulling up a portion of the paling for a ladder. She tried her strength at it, but it was too much for her. She then turned her eye upon a large frame, which was used for the flower-beds. It covered a long bed, and the awning usually placed upon it to keep the sun off the flowers in the summer was not there. She tried her strength at this, and lifted the legs upon which it stood about a foot upwards. This she resolved to make her ladder. She looked up at the narrow spot where the iron spike had been broken, and which was close to the shoulder or prop of the _chevaux de frise_. Hope beamed brightly upon her as she thought of her liberty. Margaret resolved to make the attempt at midnight. At half-past eight the convicts all went in to supper, and afterwards retired to their cells. But Margaret, the moment she reached hers, contrived to slip out of it again, with the things she had made for her disguise, into the adjoining one, which stood open; and she crept under the bed of the felon who was gone to Bury for trial. She had, as usual, closed her own door, and lay anxiously waiting in her hiding place the turnkey's approach. She heard him coming along, and asking the several prisoners, as he came, if they were in their cells. They answered his summons, and then she heard them locked up; and now came the challenge to her own door. "Margaret, are you there?"