Page 57 - A Jacobite Exile

The doubt was soon changed into a certainty. When, a few hundred yards
up the hill, he met his friend, both were almost breathless. Harry was the

first to gasp out:

"Has my father arrived?"

"Not yet."

Harry threw himself down on the short grass, with an exclamation of

thankfulness.

"I have run nearly every foot of the way," he said, as soon as he got his

breath a little. "I had awful difficulty in getting out. One of the constables
kept in the same room with me, and followed me wherever I went. They

evidently thought I might hear from my father, or try to send him a
message. At last, I got desperate, and ran upstairs to that room next mine,
and closed and locked the door after me. You know the ivy grows high up

the wall there, and directly I got in, I threw open the casement and climbed
down by it. It gave way two or three times, and I thought I was gone, but I

stuck to it, and managed each time to get a fresh hold. The moment I was
down, I ran along by the foot of the wall until I got round behind, made a
dash into that clump of fir trees, crawled along in a ditch till I thought I was

safe, and then made a run for it. I was so afraid of being followed that I
have been at least three miles round, but I don't mind, now that my father

hasn't arrived. I was in such a fright that he might come and go before I got
here."