ng held by this
loyalist family as a hostage. It was silly of me; but although in many
ways I was a skilled man of affairs, I had only the brain of a child, I
could not see the absurdity of what I came to believe. It worried me so
much that at the end of my imprisonment I became very feverish; really
ill from anxiety, as prisoners often are. I refused food for the latter
part of one day, hoping to frighten my captors. They did not notice it,
so I had my pains for nothing.

I went to bed very early; but I could not sleep. I fidgeted about till
I was unusually wakeful. Then I got out of bed to try if there was a
way of escape by the old-fashioned chimney, barred across as it was,
at intervals, by strong old iron bars. I had never thought the chimney
possible, having examined it before, when I first came to that house;
but my fever made me think all things possible; so up I got, hoping that
I should have light enough to work by.

CHAPTER XXII. THE PRIEST'S HOLE

It was too dark to do much that night, but I spent an hour in picking
mortar from the bricks into which the lowest iron bar had been let.
After a brief sleep I woke in the first of the light (at about one
o'clock) ready to go at it again. My fever was hot upon me. I don't
think that I was quite sane that day; but all my reason seemed to burn
up into one bright point, escape, escape at all costs, then, at the
instant. I must tell you that the chimney, like most old chimneys, was
big enough for a big boy to scramble up, in order to sweep it. For some
reason, the owners of the house had barred the chimney across so that
this could not be done. They swept it, probably, in the effective
old-fashioned way by shooting a blank charge of powder from a
blunderbuss straight up the opening. The first two iron bars were so
placed that it was only necessary to remove one to make room for my
body. Further up there were others, more close together. The fire had
not been lighted for many years; there was no soot in the passage. There
was a jackdaw's nest high up. I could see the old jackdaw looking down
at me. Up above her head was a little square of sky. I did not doubt
that when I got to the top I should be able to scramble out of that
square on to the leads, then down by a water-spout, evading the
sentries, over the garden wall to freedom. After half an hour of mortar
picking I got one end of the lowest iron bar out of its socket. Then I
picked out the mortar from the oth