This was how it happened.  One evening I had been kicked by Ned Barton, who was the bully of the school; and this injury coming on the top of all my other grievances, caused my little cup to overflow.  I vowed that night, as I buried my tear-stained face beneath the blankets, that the next morning would either find me at West Inch or well on the way to it.  Our dormitory was on the second floor, but I was a famous climber, and had a fine head for heights.  I used to think little, young as I was, of swinging myself with a rope round my thigh off the West Inch gable, and that stood three-and-fifty feet above the ground.  There was not much fear then but that I could make my way out of Birtwhistle’s dormitory.  I waited a weary while until the coughing and tossing had died away, and there was no sound of wakefulness from the long line of wooden cots; then I very softly rose, slipped on my clothes, took my shoes in my hand, and walked tiptoe to the window.  I opened the casement and looked out.  Underneath me lay the garden, and close by my hand was the stout branch of a pear tree.  An active lad could ask no better ladder.  Once in the garden I had but a five-foot wall to get over, and then there was nothing but distance between me and home.  I took a firm grip of a branch with one hand, placed my knee upon another one, and was about to swing myself out of the window, when in a moment I was as silent and as still as though I had been turned to stone.

There was a face looking at me from over the coping of the wall.  A chill of fear struck to my heart at its whiteness and its stillness.  The moon shimmered upon it, and the eyeballs moved slowly from side to side, though I was hid from them behind the screen of the pear tree.  Then in a jerky fashion this white face ascended, until the neck, shoulders, waist, and knees of a man became visible.  He sat himself down on the top of the wall, and with a great heave he pulled up after him a boy about my own size, who caught his breath from time to time as though to choke down a sob.  The man gave him a shake, with a few rough whispered words, and then the two dropped together down into the garden.  I was still standing balanced with one foot upon the bough and one upon the casement, not daring to budge for fear of attracting their attention, for I could hear them moving stealthily about in the long shadow of the house.  Suddenly, from immediately beneath my feet, I heard a low grating noise and the sharp tinkle of falling glass.

“That’s done it,” said the man’s eager whisper.  “There is room for you.”

“But the edge is all jagged!” cried the other in a weak quaver.

The fellow burst out into an oath that made my skin pringle.

“In with you, you cub,” he snarled, “or—­”

I could not see what he did, but there was a short, quick gasp of pain.

“I’ll go!  I’ll go!” cried the little lad.