“The walls about that yard are sixty feet high, lad.”

“There is a spout in the north corner which will help me up; and if I reach the top without a broken neck, I make fast my rope, and slide on to the moor.  From thence, no matter how dark it is—­and it will be pitch-dark, I reckon—­I can make Bergen Wood.  No power on earth shall stop me.  If you told the warder yonder of my plan this moment, I should still escape—­in another and more certain fashion.”  To look at him and read the resolute despair in his white face was to have no doubt of that.

“What must be must be,” sighed the old man.  “But for my sake, lad—­for mine, who love you as a father loves his own son—­be patient till to-morrow.  This is my last day at Lingmoor.  To-morrow I shall be free.  I’ll come at night to the wall of the west yard, and throw a rope over the north corner, close by the spout you mention.  It shall be made fast on my side, and if you do but lay hold of it, the rest is easy.  Your scheme, as it now stands, is hopeless.  No squirrel could climb that spout, far less a man reduced as you are;” and he glanced significantly at Richard’s shrunken limbs.

“You are the best of friends, Balfour—­indeed, the only man that ever was my friend.”  He stopped, as if overcome by an emotion that was so strange to him.  “At midnight, then, to-morrow, I shall begin my work; and in an hour from that time, if all goes well, I shall be at the spot appointed.  If I fail, you will remember Wheal Danes?”

“Yes, yes; but you will not fail.  Keep a good heart,” whispered the old man, as he hurried away at an approaching footstep.

But, in reality, Balfour had no hope.  His experience of such attempts, and his knowledge of the difficulties to be surmounted in the present instance, forbade any expectation of Richard’s success, even in the matter of getting outside the prison walls; and, supposing that was done, and the wood reached, what was to be looked for further but slow starvation or death from the sharp-tipped arrows of the wintry wind?  Still, Balfour’s help was promised, and would be given; the old cracksman had many faults and vices, but he was not one to desert a friend at a pinch, and Richard Yorke was really dear to him.

As for Richard, notwithstanding the seasonableness of the other’s offer, and although he was himself almost convinced that without such aid he could never effect his object, no sooner was he left alone than he regretted that he had passed his word to put off the attempt another day.  Suppose he should transgress some prison regulation between this and then, or be reported by his hostile attendant without having committed a transgression!  There were thirty-six hours of such perilous delay before him, and his impatience was already at fever-heat.  By standing on his metal wash-stand, and peering through his bars, he could see that the coil of rope still lay in its accustomed place that afternoon, but would it remain there till