rd, and could
even exchange a word or two with him alone. This happened upon the
afternoon of the day when the public flogging had taken place.

"Balfour," said Richard, earnestly, "will you do me a favor?"

"Yes, lad, any thing," replied the old man, softly. The word "lad"
seemed so inapplicable to that gray-headed, care-lined face, which he
had known so young and comely, that the misuse of it touched the
speaker. "You know I will."

"Even though you should run a risk," said Richard, "within a day or two
of your freedom?"

"Ay; for your sake, I would do that and more."

"God bless you, if there be a God!" answered those haggard lips. "Ask
leave to go to the village to-morrow, and get me a file."

"Hush!--the warder."

The conversation thus interrupted was resumed next day.

"Here is the file," said Balfour; "hide it in your mattress. But, lad,
you will be mad to use it. I pray you be patient. It is only a
twelvemonth now."

Richard shook his head, with a ghastly smile. "I must try," said he.

"Nay, nay; you will be retaken and flogged, lad; think of that."

"I shall never be retaken, Balfour, at least alive."

It was easy enough to read in Richard's face the corroboration of his
words.

"Have you any plan?" asked the old man, disconsolately.

"I have. From my window here I see an open shed, with a coil of rope in
it. I shall file my bars, and get that rope to-night; climb back again
here, and over the roof. I have calculated the distance from outside. I
feel sure I can reach the parapet with my finger-tips as I stand upon
the window-ledge, then let myself down into the exercising-yard upon the
west side."

"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 ya