Kidnapped is set in Scotland just after the Jacobite rebellions and is narrated by the teenager David Balfour. The recently orphaned David leaves rural Essendean to seek his fortune with his relatives, the Balfours of the House of Shaws. He meets his uncle Ebenezer and immediately suspects the shifty and miserly man of trying to avoid giving David his due inheritance. His suspicions are confirmed when his uncle sends him up a ruined stair-tower in the dark, intending David to plunge to his death.