line, as it was then doubled, his feet still dangled in the air, and, having mounted a gallery to be conducted into his cell, he was ignorant how far terra firma might be from them.

"If not my neck, I may break my legs," thought he, as he hung suspended by a firm hold, "and one would be about as bad as the other."

For a few seconds he maintained his doubtful position, and then, his determination. being taken, he let one of the ends of the line run through his fingers, and fell, somewhat heavily, on the paved court beneath, a distance of little less than eighteen feet. But triflingly bruised, however, by the fall, he jumped upon his feet, and hurried towards the outer wall, which presented a still more formidable barrier to his flight than the obstacles he had overcome. This boundary of the prison was between thirty and forty feet in height, and, slanting inwards, with

a smooth surface of brick, offered an apparently insurmountable obstruction to the prisoner's escape.

Without, however, an instant's reflection, Ned took his files from his girdle, where they had been fixed, and tied them in their centres to the end of his trusty cord, then receding some paces from the wall, he threw the line hummingly over the top, with the view of catching the coping of the wall with the files, so as to get a firm hold and strain upon the rope. Once, twice, and even thrice he cast them in vain; but the fourth time they caught the projecting ledge, and straining upon the line and finding that it would bear him, he drew himself up, hand over hand, and reached the top in safety, although a jerk now and then in his progress gave him the fearful information that his means of ascent were anything but firmly fixed. It was not the work of a second to secure the line so as to let himself down from the height, and

then, letting it run through his hands until they felt as if clutching livid iron, he dropped upon his feet like a light-limbed cat, and, turning one look to the top of the wall, as if in his triumph, he gave two or three bounds, like a stag before he starts at his utmost speed, and then away he went with his heart in his foot, to gain the longest distance in the shortest time within the power and stretch of his thews and sinews.

CHAPTER XV.

"The strongest oaths are straw

To the fire i' the blood."

MR FULTON had been pacing, long before the break of day, in, about, and round the spot appointed for the meeting with Ned Swiftfoot, for he never for a moment believed but that the proposed scheme for his escape would be accomplished, more particularly when he thought of the means he had furnished with so much care and circumspection. Still Ned came not. The flickering stars faded one by one before the broader light of day, and the sun's rays, darting from the east with a sudden burst, shut out at once the remaining struggling lights which alone can shine when earth's lamp is hidden.

"He certainly couldn't have failed," soliloquized the ratcatcher, striding onwards with his chin bent upon his breast. "Failed!" repeated he. "No-he would have burrowed through a dozen such ancient earths with those tools, or I mistake my man. Then why isn't he here? Humph!" Humph!" exclaimed Mr Fulton, "I might as well ask why the seeds. of the downed thistle whirl, twirl, twist, and twine before they reach the ground. They have their vagaries, and he has his. And yet who can tell the why or the wherefore ?"

Mr Fulton continued to walk up and down the lane, until the daylight became so positive that he began to dwell upon the prudence of retiring into the depths of a neighbouring ditch, or behind the crabbed trunk of a stunted pollard hard by, instead of exposing himself to the inquisitive eye of the glaring

sun.

"If anybody should see me here," thought he, "it will be a matter of question why I