out of
the lodge door, and getting a hackney coach went clear off before there
was the least notice of his escape, which, when it was known, very much
surprised the keepers, who never dreamt of an attempt of that kind
before.

As soon as John breathed the fresh air, he went again briskly to his old
employment, and the first thing he did was to find out one Page, a
butcher of his acquaintance in Clare Market, who dressed him up in one
of his frocks, and then went with him upon the business of raising
money. No sooner had they set out, but Shepherd remembering one Mr.
Martin, a watchmaker near the Castle Tavern in Fleet Street, he
prevailed upon his companion to go thither, and screwing a gimlet fast
into the post of the door, they then tied the knocker thereto with a
spring, and then boldly breaking the windows, they snatched three
watches before a boy that was in the shop could open the door, and so
marched clear off, Shepherd having the impudence, upon this occasion, to
pass underneath Newgate.

However, he did not long enjoy his liberty, for strolling about Finchley
Common, he was apprehended and committed to Newgate, and was put
immediately in the Stone Room, where they put him on a heavy pair of
irons, and then stapled him fast down to the floor. Being left there
alone in the sessions time (most of the people in the gaol then
attending at the Old Bailey) with a crooked nail he opened the lock, and
by that means got rid of his chain, and went directly to the chimney in
the room, where with incessant working he got out a couple of stones and
by that means climbed up into a room called the Red Room, where nobody
had been lodged for a considerable time. Here he threw down a door,
which one would have thought impossible to have been done by the
strength of man (though with ever so much noise); from hence with a
great deal to do, he forced his passage into the chapel. There he broke
a spike off the door, forcing open by its help four other doors. Getting
at last upon the leads, he from thence descended gently (by the help of
the blanket on which he lay, for which he went back through the whole
prison) upon the leads of Mr. Bird, a turner who lives next door to
Newgate; and looking in at the garret window, he saw the maid going to
bed. As soon as he thought she was asleep, he stepped downstairs, went
through the shop, opened the door, then into the street, leaving the
door open behind him.

In the morning, when the kee