quire's malice was not to be entertained, and he
threw himself upon the bed to devise some means by which he might make his
escape.

The prospect was not encouraging, for there was only one window in the
chamber, and the distance to the ground was suggestive of broken limbs, if
not of a broken neck. Tom had read the Life of Baron Trenck, and of
Stephen Burroughs, but the experience of neither of these worthies seemed
to be available on the present occasion.

As the family had not yet retired, it would not be safe to commence
operations for some hours. The stale, commonplace method of tying the
sheets and blankets together, and thus forming a rope by which he could
descend to the ground, occurred to him; but he had not much confidence in
the project. He lay quietly on the bed till he heard the clocks on the
churches at the Harbor strike twelve. It was time then, if ever, for the
family to be asleep, and he decided to attempt an escape by another means
which had been suggested to him. If it failed, he could then resort to the
old-fashioned way of going down on the rope made of sheets and blankets.

The apartment in which Tom was confined was not what people in the country
call an "upright chamber." The sides of the room were about four feet in
height; and a section of the apartment would have formed one half of an
irregular octagon. In each side of the chamber there was a small door,
opening into the space near the eaves of the house, which was used to
store old trunks, old boxes, the disused spinning-wheel, and other lumber
of this description. Tom had been in the attic before, and he remembered
these doors, through one of which he now proposed to make his escape.

When the clock struck twelve, he cautiously rose from the bed, and pulled
off his boots, which a proper respect for his host or the bed had not
prompted him to do before. The house was old, and the floors had a
tendency to creak beneath his tread. With the utmost care, he crawled on
his hands and knees to one of the doors of the lumber hole, which he
succeeded in opening without much noise.

Making his way in among the old boxes, trunks, and spinning-wheels, he was
fully embarked in his difficult venture. The dust which he stirred up in
his progress produced an almost irresistible desire to sneeze, which Lord
Dundreary might have been happy to indulge, but which might have been
fatal to the execution of Tom Somers's purpose. He rubbed his nose, and
held hi