The Argosy — page 296: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

eS) p * 7 ~ \ 5 ad 6% b al yA , ¥, h — : . 4 . : *s) ‘ ” - > . iw -, yp 7 AM ; ey Sandstone Torr. 275 To oppose our entrance was not to be thoughtof. Wehad entered and could not be thrust back again. Eunice took to her heels up the passage, and confronted us at the parlour door with a pair of tongs. Duffham and Tod disarmed her. She then flew to the kitchen, sat down, and went into hysterics. Old Jones read out the authority for the search, but she only screamed the louder. They left her to get out of the screaming at her leisure, and went up aloft, seeking the entrance to the tower. It was found without much difficulty : Tod was the one to see it first. A small door (only discovered by Stephen Radcliffe since his father’s death, as we heard later) led from a dark and unused lumber-room to the narrow stairs of the tower. In its uppermost compartment, a little, round den, sat Frank Radcliffe, chained to the wall. Not at once could we take in the features of the scene ; for, all the light came in through the one long narrow opening, a framed slit without glass, that was set in the deep round wall of the tower. A mattress was spread on the floor, with a pillow and blankets; one chair stood close to a box that served for a table, on which he no doubt eat his meals, for there were plates and food on it; another box, its lid open, was in a corner, and on the other chair sat Frank. That was every earthly article the place contained. It was through that opening—you could not call it a window—that Frank’s cries for help had gone forth to the air. There he sat, the chain round his waist, turning his amazed eyes upon us. And raving mad, you ask? No. He was all skin and bone, and his fair hair hung down like that of a wild man of the woods, but he was as sane as youorl. He rose up, the chain clanking, and then we saw that it was long enough to admit of his moving about to any part of the den. | “Oh, God bless you, Frank !—we have come to release you,” burst forth the Squire, impetuously seizing both his hands. ‘‘ God help you, my poorlad!” And Frank, what with surprise and the not being over stout, burst into joyous tears. The ingenious scheme of taking possession of Frank, and represent- ing him as dead, that he might enjoy all the money, had occurred to Stephen Radcliffe when he found Frank was recovering under Dr. Dale’s treatment. During the visits Stephen paid to London at that time, he and Pitt, Dr. Dale’s head man, became very intimate: and when Pitt was discharged from Dr. Dale’s they grew more so. Stephen Radcliffe would not perhaps have done any harm to Frank in the shape of poison or a dagger, being no more of a killer or slayer of men than were his neighbours ; but to keep him concealed in the Torr, so as to reap the benefit himself of all the money, he looked upon as a very venial crime indeed—quite justifiable, so to say. Especially, if he CORnnNICLOOKS (S©) im