There, while he ruminated on his
next step, which would have been to the Marshalsea, and saw the
night come on, attended with hunger and cold, the wind began to blow,
and the tiles of the house rattled with the storm. His imagination
was immediately struck with the idea of escaping unperceived,
amidst the darkness and noise of the tempest, by creeping out of
the window of his apartment, and making his way over the tops of
the adjoining houses. Glowing with this prospect, he examined the
passage, which, to his infinite mortification, he found grated with
iron bars on the outside; but even this difficulty did not divert
him from his purpose. Conscious of his own strength, he believed
himself able to make a hole through the roof, which seemed to be
slender and crazy; and, on this supposition, he barricaded the door
with the whole furniture of the room; then setting himself to work
with a poker, he in a few minutes effected a passage for his hand,
with which he gradually stripped off the boards and tiling, so as
to open a sallyport for his whole body, through which he fairly
set himself free, groping his way towards the next tenement.
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