Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 2).djvu/52

 When the day-light advanced I descended to the kitchens, there I found bread, butter and cheese, with a cold fowl; a wine cellar well stored, and a yard full of poultry; plenty of wood, and an outhouse full of old hay and stray, that was musty from age. I opened the windows to give it air; and going from thence to the gardens, saw one part was well cultivated with vegetables, and another with flowers and fruits.—"It will not be difficult to live here," I exclaimed, and from that moment determined on my plan, and from which I have never varied in the treatment of my prisoners: Every day to carry to them a certain portion of bread and water; once a week a half pint of wine, and once a month clean straw to rest upon. I resolved to preserve their lives that I might prolong their sufferings, and the gratification of my revenge was a much superior pleasure to any that I could promise myself from society, or an acquaintance with a world I had long since been disgusted with; for altho'