The prospect was not encouraging, for there was only one window in the chamber, and the distance to the ground was suggestive of broken limbs, if not of a broken neck. Tom had read the Life of Baron Trenck, and of Stephen Burroughs, but the experience of neither of these worthies seemed to be available on the present occasion.
As the family had not yet retired, it would not be safe to commence operations for some hours. The stale, commonplace method of tying the sheets and blankets together, and thus forming a rope by which he could descend to the ground, occurred to him; but he had not much confidence in the project. He lay quietly on the bed till he heard the clocks on the churches at the Harbor strike twelve. It was time then, if ever, for the family to be asleep, and he decided to attempt an escape by another means which had been suggested to him. If it failed, he could then resort to the old-fashioned way of going down on the rope made of sheets and blankets.
The apartment in which Tom was confined was not what people in the country call an “upright chamber.” The sides of the room were about four feet in height; and a section of the apartment would have formed one half of an irregular octagon. In each side of the chamber there was a small door, opening into the space near the eaves of the house, which was used to store old trunks, old boxes, the disused spinning-wheel, and other lumber of this description. Tom had been in the attic before, and he remembered these doors, through one of which he now proposed to make his escape.
When the clock struck twelve, he cautiously rose from the bed, and pulled off his boots, which a proper respect for his host or the bed had not prompted him to do before. The house was old, and the floors had a tendency to creak beneath his tread. With the utmost care, he crawled on his hands and knees to one of the doors of the lumber hole, which he succeeded in opening without much noise.
Making his way in among the old boxes, trunks, and spinning-wheels, he was fully embarked in his difficult venture. The dust which he stirred up in his progress produced an almost irresistible desire to sneeze, which Lord Dundreary might have been happy to indulge, but which might have been fatal to the execution of Tom Somers’s purpose. He rubbed his nose, and held his handkerchief over the intractable member, and succeeded in overcoming its dangerous tendency. His movements were necessarily very slow, for he was in constant dread lest some antiquated relic of the past should tumble over, and thus disturb the slumbers of the family who occupied the chambers below.
But in spite of the perils and difficulties that environed his path, there was something exciting and exhilarating in the undertaking. It was a real adventure, and, as such, Tom enjoyed it. As he worked his way through the labyrinth of antiquities, he could not but picture to himself the surprise and chagrin of Squire Pemberton, when he should come up to the attic chamber to wreak his vengeance upon him. He could see the magnate of Pinchbrook start, compress his lips and clinch his fists, when he found the bird had flown.
“Better not crow till I get out of the woods,” said he to himself, while his imagination was still busy upon the agreeable picture.
After a series of trials and difficulties which our space does not permit us to describe in full, Tom emerged from the repository of antiquities, and stood in the open space in front of the finished chamber. With one boot in each hand, he felt his way to the stairs, and descended to the entry over the front door. All obstacles now seemed to be overcome, for he had nothing to do but go down stairs and walk out.
It often happens, amid the uncertainties of this unstable world, that we encounter the greatest trials and difficulties precisely where we expect to find none. As Tom walked along the entry, with one hand on the rail that protected the staircase to guide him, he struck his foot against the pole upon which Fred Pemberton had suspended the flag out of the window. It was very careless of the squire, when he took the flag in, to leave the stick in that unsafe position, for one of his own family might have stumbled against it, and broken a leg or an arm, or possibly a neck; and if it might have been a “cause of offence” to one of the Pembertons, it certainly laid a grievous burden upon the shoulders of poor Tom Somers.
When the pole fell, it made a tremendous racket, as all poles will when they fall just at the moment when they ought to stand up, and be decent and orderly. This catastrophe had the effect to quicken the steps of the young man. He reached the stairs, and had commenced a rapid descent, when the door of the squire’s room, which was on the lower floor, opened, and Tom found himself flanked in that direction.
“Who’s there? What’s that?” demanded the squire, in hurried, nervous tones.
Tom was so impolite as to make no reply to these pressing interrogatories, but quickly retreated in the direction from which he had come.
“Wife, light the lamp, quick,” said the squire, in the hall below.
Just then a door opened on the other side of the entry where Tom stood, and he caught a faint glimpse of a figure robed in white. Though it was the solemn hour of midnight, and Tom, I am sorry to say, had read the Three Spaniards, and Mysteries of Udolpho, he rejected the suggestion that the “sheeted form” might be a ghost.
“Who’s there?” called the squire again.
A romantic little scream from the figure in white assured Tom that Miss Susan was the enemy immediately on his front. Then he caught the glimmer of the light below, which Mrs. Pemberton had procured, and the race seemed to be up. Concealment was no longer practicable, and he seized upon the happy suggestion that the window opening upon the portico over the front door was available as a means of egress.
Springing to the window, he raised it with a prompt and vigorous hand, and before the squire could ascend the stairs, he was upon the roof of the portico. Throwing his boots down, he grasped the gutter, and “hung off.” He was now on terra firma, and all his trials appeared to have reached a happy termination; but here again he was doomed to disappointment.
“Bow, wow, wow-er, woo, row!” barked and growled the squire’s big bull dog, when he came to realize that some unusual occurrences were transpiring.
The animal was a savage brute, and was kept chained in the barn during the day, and turned loose when the squire made his last visit to the cattle about nine in the evening. Tom was thoroughly alarmed when this new enemy confronted him; but fortunately he had the self-possession to stand his ground, and not attempt to run away, otherwise the dog would probably have torn him in pieces.
“Come here, Tige! Poor fellow! Come here! He’s a good fellow! Don’t you know me, Tige?” said Tom, whose only hope seemed to be in conciliation and compromise.
If Tige knew him, he appeared to be very unwilling to acknowledge the acquaintance under the present suspicious circumstances, and at this unseemly hour. The brute barked, snarled, howled, and growled, and manifested as strong an indisposition to compromise as a South Carolina fire-eater. He placed himself in front of the hero of the night’s adventure, as resolute and as intractable as though he had known all the facts in the case, and intended to carry out to the letter the wishes of his master.
Tom slowly retreated towards the garden fence, the dog still following him up. He had tried coaxing and conciliation, and they had failed. As he cautiously backed from the house, his feet struck against a heavy cart stake, which seemed to suggest his next resort. He was well aware that any quick movement on his part would cause the dog to spring upon him. Placing his toe under the stake, he raised it with his foot, till he could reach it with his hand, keeping his gaze fixed upon the eyes of the dog, which glared like fiery orbs in the gloom of the hour.
Tige saw the stick, and he appeared to have a wholesome respect for it—a sentiment inspired by sundry beatings, intended to cure a love of mutton on the hoof, or beef on the shelf. The brute retreated a few paces; but at this moment Squire Pemberton appeared at the front door, with a lantern in his hand. He understood the “situation” at a glance.
“Take him, Tige! Stu’ boy!” shouted the squire.
The dog snarled an encouraging reply to this suggestion, and moved up towards the fugitive. Tom’s courage was equal to the occasion, and he levelled a blow at the head of the bull dog, which, if it had hit him fairly, must have smashed in his skull. As it was, the blow was a heavy one, and Tige retreated; but the shouts of the squire rallied him, and he rushed forward to the onslaught again.
Tom, as we have before had occasion to suggest, was a master of strategy, and instead of another stroke at the head of his savage foe, with only one chance in ten of hitting the mark he commenced swinging it vigorously to the right and left, as a mower does his scythe. His object was to hit the legs of the dog—a plan which was not entirely original with him, for he had seen it adopted with signal success by a fisherman at the Harbor. The consequence of this change of tactics was soon apparent, for Tige got a rap on the fore leg, which caused him to yelp with pain, and retire from the field. While the dog moved off in good order in one direction, Tom effected an equally admirable retreat in the other direction.
On reaching the road, he pulled on his boots, which he had picked up after the discomfiture of his canine antagonist. Squire Pemberton still stood at the door trying to bring Tige to a sense of his duty in the trying emergency; but the brute had more regard for his own shins than he had for the mandate of his master, and the victor was permitted to bear away his laurels without further opposition.
When he reached his father’s house, supposing the front door was locked, he went to the kitchen window, where he had heard the patriotic remarks of his mother. Tom told his story in substance as we have related it.
“Do you mean what you have said, mother?” inquired he, when he had finished his narrative.
Mrs. Somers bit her lip in silence for a moment.
“Certainly I do, Thomas,” said she, desperately.
It was half-past one when the boys retired, but it was another hour before Tom’s excited brain would permit him to sleep. His head was full of a big thought.
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