Moreover, as Crispin looked out, he realized that a more effective barrier lay in the height of the window itself.
The house overlooked the river on that side; it was built upon an embankment some thirty feet high; around this, at the base of the edifice, and some forty feet below the window, ran a narrow pathway protected by an iron railing.

But so narrow was it, that had a man sprung from the casement of Crispin's prison, it was odds he would have fallen into the river some seventy feet below.

Crispin turned away with a sigh.

He had approached the window almost in hope; he quitted it in absolute despair.
"Ah, well," said he, "we will hang, and there's the end of it." Kenneth had resumed his seat in the corner, and, wrapped in his cloak, he sat steeped in meditation, his comely young face seared with lines of pain.

As Crispin looked upon him then, his heart softened and went out to the lad--went out as it had done on the night when first he had beheld him in the courtyard of Perth Castle.
He recalled the details of that meeting; he remembered the sympathy that had drawn him to the boy, and how Kenneth had at first appeared to reciprocate that feeling, until he came to know him for the rakehelly, godless ruffler that he was.