indulgences, that he scarcely viewed it as a hardship: having once been
an officer of the prison, and having thus formed connections with the
whole official establishment, and done services to many of them, and
being of so convivial a turn, he was, even as a prisoner, treated with
distinction, and considered as a privileged son of the house.]

It was just striking twelve o'clock as we entered the lane where the
carriage was drawn up. Rain, about the profoundest I had ever
witnessed, was falling. Though near to midsummer, the night had been
unusually dark to begin with, and from the increasing rain had become
much more so. We could see nothing; and at first we feared that some
mistake had occurred as to the station of the carriage--in which case
we might have sought for it vainly through the intricate labyrinth of
the streets in that quarter. I first descried it by the light of a
torch, reflected powerfully from the large eyes of the leaders. All was
ready. Horse-keepers were at the horses' heads. The postilions were
mounted; each door had the steps let down: Agnes was lifted in: Hannah
and I followed: Pierpoint mounted his horse; and at the word--Oh! how
strange a word!--'_All's right_,' the horses sprang off like leopards,
a manner ill-suited to the slippery pavement of a narrow street. At
that moment, but we valued it little indeed, we heard the prison-bell
ringing out loud and clear. Thrice within the first three minutes we
had to pull up suddenly, on the brink of formidable accidents, from the
dangerous speed we maintained, and which, nevertheless, the driver had
orders to maintain, as essential to our plan. All the stoppages and
hinderances of every kind along the road had been anticipated
previously, and met by contrivance, of one kind or other; and Pierpoint
was constantly a little ahead of us to attend to anything that had been
neglected. The consequence of these arrangements was--that no person
along the road could possibly have assisted to trace us by any thing in