I would not give this officer’s name if I could remember it, but he was a fine fellow, and was exceedingly impressible.  For instance, on our arrival at Keene, he allowed me to go to the hotel and pack my trunk to be forwarded to Meredith Bridge by express.  He then handed me over to the authorities, and I was immediately taken before the magistrate from whom I had previously escaped, the Concord officer accompanying the Keene officer who had charge of me.

The examination was short; I was bound over in the sum of one thousand dollars to take my trial for bigamy.  On my way to jail I persuaded the Concord officer-with a hundred dollar bill which I slipped into his hand-to induce the other officer to go with me to the hotel under pretense of looking after my things, and getting what would be necessary for my comfort in jail.  My Concord friend kept the other officer down stairs—­in the bar-room, I presume—­while I went to my room.  I put a single shirt in my pocket; the distance from my window to the ground was not more than twelve or fifteen feet, and I let myself down from the window sill and then dropped.

I was out of the yard, into the street, and out of town in less than no time.  It was already evening, and everything favored my escape.  I had no idea of spending months in jail at Keene, and months more, perhaps years, in the New Hampshire State Prison.  All my past bitter experiences of wretched prison life urged me to flight.

And fly I did.  No stopping at the friendly farmer’s, my former refuge, this time; that would be too great a risk.  No showing of myself in any town or villege where the telegraph might have conveyed a description of my person.  I traveled night and day on foot, and more at night than during the day, taking by-roads, lying by in the woods, sleeping in barns, and getting my meals in out-of-the-way farm houses.

I had plenty of money; but this kind of travelling is inexpensive, and, paying twenty-five cents for one or two meals a day, as I dared to get them, and sleeping in barns or under haystacks for nothing, my purse did not materially diminish.  I was a good walker, and in the course of a week from the night when I left Keene, I found myself in Biddeford, Maine.

There was some sense of security in being in another State, and here I ventured to take the cars for Portland, where I staid two days, sending in the meantime for my trunk from Meredith Bridge, and getting it by express.  Of course it went to a fictitious address at Meredith, and it came to me under the same name which I had registered in my hotel at Portland.

I did not mean to stay there long.  My departure was hastened by the advice of a man who knew me, and told he also knew my New Hampshire scrape, and that I had better leave Portland as soon as possible.  Half an hour after this good advice I was on my way by cars to Canada.  In Canada I stayed in different small towns near the border, and “kept moving,” till I thought the New Hampshire matter had blown over a little, or at least till they had given me up as a “gone case,” and I then reappeared in Troy.