outed Thomas, as he threw up the window
at which he had been standing for some ten minutes listening to this
interesting conversation.

"Where have you been, Thomas?" exclaimed the delighted mother.

"Open the door, Jack, and let me in, and I will tell you all about it,"
replied the absentee.

"Come in; the door isn't locked," said John.

He came in; and what he had to tell will interest the reader as well as
his mother and his brother.




CHAPTER VII.

A MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE.


Tom Somers was an enterprising young man, as our readers have already
discovered; and when the door of the finished room in the attic of Squire
Pemberton's house was fastened upon him, he was not at all disposed to
submit to the fate which appeared to be in store for him. The idea of
becoming a victim to the squire'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 c