Chapter 5

I BREAK JAIL THROUGH NO EFFORTS OF MY OWN.

I was handed over to the custody of a little man, with big, staring eyes, and a magnified head of hair that made him look like a gun-swab. This was Mr. Janks, the jailor.

He stood looking at me for some moments, swinging a bunch of keys on his finger, and then said, mournfully, "So, you've come, have you?" which made me think that he must have dreamed of my coming.

Then he took up a small lamp, and, after examining me from head to foot as if I were some strange animal, he gave vent to a dismal groan, and asked me if I was hungry.

Receiving a negative answer, he groaned again, and beckoned me to follow him.

He led the way along a damp and chilly stone corridor, lined with little iron doors, which I needed no one to tell me belonged to cells, and I followed him very readily. My previous notions of prison treatment included the immediate ironing of the culprit to the extent of several hundredweight, and, finding myself mistaken, my spirits rose accordingly.

He stopped before one of the little doors near the end of the corridor, and, opening it with a large key, ushered me into an apartment about eight feet square.

This was my cell. The walls and ceiling were whitewashed, and the only furniture was an iron bedstead, covered with two coarse, gray blankets.

Mr. Janks waved his keys around as if to welcome me to this abode, and then, instead of going out and leaving me to my reflections, he leaned up against the door and groaned once more.

"The wickedness of these boys!" he said, passing his hand through his hair, and apparently addressing the ceiling. "Why do they ever come here? Why did you come here?"

I hastened to explain that I did not come of my own accord, and so far from wishing to be in jail, if he would only have the kindness to open the door, I would promise him to make my exit, and never return.

"And so young!" continued Mr. Janks, without paying any attention to my remarks, and still apostrophizing the ceiling. "But it's allus the way! The younger they are, the worse they are!"

Then he launched forth into a description of the number of bad boys who had passed through his hands, and endeavored to draw a parallel between their case and mine, but, I think, with poor success.

He kept up this monologue for at least ten minutes, while I sat on the couch and listened with anything but pleasurable emotions.

At the end of that time he came to a sudden stop, and went out slowly, groaning dismally.

When the sound of his footsteps had died away down the corridor, I surrendered myself to my thoughts. And how I did think!

What had been all my trouble compared to this? _In prison!_ The thought was horrifying!

I felt now that I would not dare return home--for who would not shrink from me as a malefactor?

Besides, I was extremely dubious as to my impending fate. I was not afraid of being convicted of larceny, unless Mary Jane Robinson perjured herself; but I was desperately afraid of Mr. Barron.

I knew he took the Lancaster Examiner, and should he see my name in it, I felt certain he would pounce down on me, and then--well, something terrible would certainly happen.

The sky looked very dark and cloudy just then, and you may easily imagine how bitterly I regretted my foolishness in running away.

I lay awake for an hour or more thinking in this fashion, and then I fell into a fitful slumber.

How long I slept, I don't know; but when I awoke it was with a strange feeling that I was not alone--that some one was in the cell with me.

I was wide awake in an instant, and my heart beat so loudly that I fancied I could hear it.

I listened intently, and presently heard a light "pitapat," as if some one was walking across the floor; and while I was trying to muster up courage to call out, there was a sharp click, a flood of light illumined the cell, and I saw that the intruder was a man.

He was standing near the opposite wall, and in his hand he held a lighted wax taper, with the aid of which he was taking a survey of the room.

As he turned slowly around, I saw that he was young, rather good-looking, and well-dressed, and at the same time he saw me.

He started, and with an exclamation of alarm, dropped the taper.

In an instant, however, he recovered the taper and himself, and advanced toward me.

"Who are you?" he demanded. "And how did you get here?"

I related, in a few words, who I was and how I came to be incarcerated.

He laughed lightly when I had finished, and said:

"I suppose you wonder how _I_ came here. Look!"

I looked, and saw an aperture in the wall about two feet square.

"I came through that," he said, laughing softly at my evident astonishment. "My cell is on the other side. Now, I am going to escape from this jail, and I want you to go with me."

I know now that his reason was to prevent my giving an alarm; but I thought then that it was because he took pity on me.

And I joyfully accepted his offer, although I couldn't imagine how he was to manage it, and I made a remark to that effect.

"Easy enough," he said. "You have only a lock on your door, while there's a dozen bolts on mine. That's why I dug through, expecting to find the cell empty. However, it is all right. Take off your shoes."

I did so, and then my companion put out the lights, having first opened the door with what looked like a piece of wire.

Then he whispered to me to keep hold of his sleeve, step cautiously and not let my shoes fall, and then we moved out into the corridor, now black as Egypt.

My guide also seemed to be in his stocking feet; but where his shoes were I couldn't imagine.

We moved along slowly, but steadily, my guide seeming to know the way, and presently he opened a door with only a slight creak, and then whispered in my ear:

"We are in the lodge. Don't breathe."

Again we moved on and again stopped, and from one or two sharp clicks I judged him to be trying to open another door.

Suddenly he drew me forward. I felt a rush of cold air, and the next instant I was out of jail.

"Wait!" said my companion.

And he closed the wicket gate, and locked it noiselessly.

"If they find the gate open, they'll smell a rat," he remarked. "Now then, my boy, come on."