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.