But let bulls, and bears, and lions,
and tigers, and, what is worse, false, treacherous, deceitful men, stand
in my way, I cannot be in more danger than I am; and I depend nothing
upon his three weeks: for how do I know, now he is in such a passion, and
has already begun his vengeance on poor Mr. Williams, that he will not
change his mind, and come down to Lincolnshire before he goes to London?
My stratagem is this: I will endeavour to get Mrs. Jewkes to go to bed
without me, as she often does, while I sit locked up in my closet: and as
she sleeps very sound in her first sleep, of which she never fails to
give notice by snoring, if I can but then get out between the two bars of
the window, (for you know I am very slender, and I find I can get my head
through,) then I can drop upon the leads underneath, which are little
more than my height, and which leads are over a little summer-parlour,
that juts out towards the garden; and as I am light, I can easily drop
from them; for they are not high from the ground: then I shall be in the
garden; and then, as I have the key of the back-door, I will get out.
But I have another piece of cunning still: Good Heaven, succeed to me my
dangerous, but innocent devices!--I have read of a great captain, who,
being in danger, leaped overboard into the sea, and his enemies, as he
swam, shooting at him with bows and arrows, he unloosed his upper
garment, and took another course, while they stuck that full of their
darts and arrows; and so he escaped, and lived to triumph over them all.
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