Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1896 — A LOYAL LOVE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A LOYAL LOVE

CHAPTER XX. “Halloo, there —hoy! Look alive there, mates I Up she goes!” And the gigantic crane, and the strong iron chain, and the huge hook began to do their work again, in the great loft of a many-storied building. one of those giant warehouses of which Londoners are excessively proud. There was bustle in the crowded nnd cumbered yard, always a busy spot, above which were inscribed the words, “Crump, Marsh & Caston, Importers.” Mr. Marsh moved about the encumbered yard, giving orders personally now and then, but not as a rule interfering in the general management of the place. “A letter, sir,” said one of the messengers, coming up to his employer with a note in his band. “Heydey!” exclaimed Mr. Marsh, arching his eyebrows. “What's this?" There must have been something unusual in the aspect of this particular letter to have elicited a start and an exclamation of surprise from so experienced a man of business as Mr. Ephraim Marsh. This pink envelope, highly scented, was directed, in an unmistakably feminine hand, to "Ephraim Marsh. Esquire, “Creek Lane. City of London.” He opened it with visible reluctance, glanced at its contents, and exclaimed: “Heydey!” again and more emphatically than before. To all appearance he was not satisfied with this cursory inspection of the missive, for be made haste to enter a compartment of the glazed counting house sacred to himself, and pulling out his gold-rimmed spectacles, proceeded in a leisurely way to read the epistle. Heedfully he put away the letter and its envelope in an inner pocket of his coat. When he emerged from his own glazed den Mr. Marsh was a changed man. His brougham stood waiting in the lane without, the coachman, like a doctor's coachman, on the alert. “Home, James: and drive fast, will you?” said the merchant, shortly. And the carriage dashed off quickly in the direction of Dagger Court, E. C. The houses in Dagger Court are all old. All are solidly built, good seasoned oaken timbers mingling with such brickwork as now moves the regretful envy of conscientious contractors. The rooms which Mr. Marsh inhabited—a first-floor set of apartments—were approached by a staircase, up which, according to the old saying, a eoaeh-and-six might have been driven, so broad and easy were the shallow steps in blackened oak. while the balusters were heavy with grapes and apples and rose-clusters, carved by forgotten chisels of those who must have loved their handiwork long ago in the dim past. As soon as he reached the big low drawing room, with its ceiling emblazoned with mythology, like an after-taste of the Renaissance. Mr. Marsh once more inspected the pink letter that had reached him at his place of business. The letter ran thus: “Sir—l do not know whether you are aware that your ward. Miss Violet Mowbray. is the lawful possessor of seventy thousand pounds sterling, of which she is deprived by fraud. Also. I have to tell you that an unprincipled man. who knows of this circumstance, is trying to win her to become his wife, to possess himself of the money. “A TRUE FRIEND.”

“The thing is only an anonymous letter!” contemptuously remarked Mr. Marsh, parsing np his lips and knitting his brows; “and yet old Gen. Yorke, it was thought, would hare made his niece his heiress—and Violet was her only child; yet I hare seen bis will with no mention of the name of Mowbray in it, and bequeathing what he had to lease to more distant kinsfolk. He was reputed rich, but report plays strange tricks with the sum total of the savings of these old Indian generals. His will was duly proved. But there may have been a codicil; or there may have been a trust deed.” Again Mr. Marsh looked frowningly at the pink paper, and again he shook his head. He was a conscientious man. His guardianship of Violet Mowbray was one of his most sacred duties in his eyes. He looked at his watch. Then he rang the bell. The oddest little man servant —a year or two older than his master—came presently into the room in answer to the ring. “Juniper,” said Mr. Marsh, in a tone of assumed indifference, "1 shall not sleep here to-night. 1 am going out of town, and I want you to pack my portmanteau, since I have just time to catch the 1:40 express.” And in a few minutes more he was in his cab, bound for the terminus. CHAPTER - XXI. “We are sorry to lose you, dear Miss Mowbray,” the countess had said, with her sweetest smile and in her most dulcet accents, when her young guest left Thorsdale to return to Woodburn Parsonage. “One comfort is that we shall be near neighbors still.” Much to Violet’s relief, Sir Richard had not been present at Thorsdale on the occasion of her departure. Don she had not seen since the memorable day of their betrothal. The carriage from Thorsdale Park, with its coroneted panels and high-step-ping grays, which had brought Miss Mowbray back to the Parsonage, had but just driven off, when another and humbler vehicle drew up at the garden gate, and Don, springing from the dog cart, briskly ascended the well-known road with some books under his arm. “Is Mr. Langton at home?” asked the young man of the housemaid, who came, all smiles, to open the door. “Sure, yes, Mr. Don,” answered the band maiden. Don came in, bright and frank as ever. He could scarcely repress a start and an exclamation of surprise as he caught sight of Violet, whom he believed to be still at Thorsdale Park. “I have brought the books, Mr. Langton, which you were kind enough to lend me,” said Don, after a few words had been exchanged. A clang-clanging of the door bell, violently pulled, here interrupted. “Mr. Marsh!” announced the flurried housemaid, and in, with almost alarming suddenness, bolted the bachelor uncle of the clergyman’s wife. “Uncle—Uncle Marsh—so very glad to see you,” exclaimed Mrs. Langton, coming forward with both hands outstretched. “Very glad, Charlotte, I’m sure. How d’ye do, Langton? Not forgotten me. Miss Violet? Bless me! how you’ve crown, and how the time does ran. I’ve

BY. J. BERWICK HARWOOD.

I run down from London,” Mr. Marsh said, "just to spend a day or two with yon I here, Langton, in your Yorkshire home — I if you can put me up. Niece Charlotte — I and to renew my acquaintance with my I ward. Miss Violet here.” “We are only too delighted, my dear sir,” said the rector, with his best smile of welcome. Mr. Marsh was staring at Don, who had been for the time being forgotten both by the rector and his wife, and who had taken the opportunity of exchanging a few words in a low voice with Miss Mowbray. Mr. Marsh was a little too far from the two young people to allow anything of what either said to reach his ears. All he knew was that a very handsome young man was talking to a lovely girl. Following the direction of Mr. Marsh's eyes, the rector saw on whom his gaze was fixed, and at once proceeded to introduce "Mr. Don, his young friend.” The merchanLxnade a stiff bow. Then Mrs. Langton slipped away to busy herself in household cares, and Don about the same time took his leave. "Who is that young gentleman?” asked the merchant, abruptly, when Violet had quitted the conservatory. “I scarcely know,” answered the rector, smiling, “whether the verdict of the world would accord to Don, my young friend, and pet pupil, the rank of gentleman. And yet hereabouts you would not find a living soul who does not hold as a canon of faith that Don is of gentle birth. And yet, a few weeks ago the lad was a jet hunter.” “A what?” asked Mr. Marsh, in a tone of amazement. “A fine set of fellows, some of them, are our Yorkshire jet seekers of the coast,” explained the rector; “bold men and, for that matter, courageous boys and women, who earn a tolerable livelihood by much toil and some peril. It is a romantic Industry, with its certain risks and its possible prizes, the like of which hardly exists in the prosaic England of to-uay. It was by a band under the command of a remarkable man, old Captain Obadiah Jedson, that Don was found, years ago, a richly dressed and beautiful child, lost or deserted on the sea beach. Among them he grew up, a young hero, and I found it a pleasure to teach a i>oy who outstripped the best and brightest of my former pupils. Don has lately become a clerk in our grand neighbor, Lord Thorsdale’s, land office.” Mr. Marsh pursed up his lips again sourly. “Ah, well,” he remarked, “you know best, I dare say, Langton, about this protege of yours. As for me, it will do me good to let me ramble about as I like while I stay here, in my own independent way, as becomes a crusty old bachelor uncle like myself. I supposa I can find a fly when I want one at the neat little village inn I noticed down below?” CHAPTER XXII. “Can you tell me, sir, whereabouts is the police station?” Mr. Marsh it was who propounded this startling interrogation. and its subject was a burly, elderly man of farmer-like appearance. “It be up yon lane, and then to the right turn, and keep on till ye get to the Circus, or what used to be the Circus, and then turn sharp to the left till ye see Salem Chapel, and beyond it the station,” was the direction vouchsafed. A very big Yorkshire man was the superintendent. “Wished to see me, sir?” said Superintendent Swann, waving his fleshy hand toward a spare rush-bottomed chair. “Not exactly,” Mr. Marsh began, with some embarrassment. “The truth is. I have a duty to discharge, and what I wished was to engage, with the permission of his superiors, the services of a detective, to be properly remunerated, of course, for his trouble. Here is my card. —it bears my Loudon address, as you see. I am just now on a visit to my nephew, or rather my niece’s husband, at Woodburn —Mr. Langton, the rector, whose name you probably know.” “Permission is always given,” said the chief policeman, blandly, "for private inquiries for proper objects, and by parties of known respectability. For the moment we have no detective, I am sorry to say. But I was myself a member of the London detective foree, and came here direct from Scotland Yard.” Mr. Marsh resolved to put his trust in Superintendent Swann. He therefore mentioned his position, as guardian to the daughter of the late Major Mowbray, and went on to speak of the anonymous letter which he had received.

“Allow me to see the letter, sir?” said the chief of the Daneborough police, interrogatively. “Any idea of your own, sir, as to the identity of the writer? And you don t know of any sum—seventy thousand pounds—whew!—likely to have come from any quarter to the young lady in question?” was the next query. “I can scarcely say,” answered Mr. Marsh, hesitatingly. “Both the major and Mrs. Mowbray had wealthy relatives, the latter particularly. Her uncle, Gen. Yorke, who left her nothing by his will, may very possibly have bequeathed, or left in trust, a part of his considerable fortune for the benefit of his niece's only child.” “A woman wrote this, of course?” “A woman did write it, no doubt,” agreed Mr. Marsh. “A queer hand, too—disguised, I should say.” “To me,” ventured Mr. Marsh, “who am accustomed to correspondence from abroad, it appears like the penmanship of a foreigner, used to speak, but not to write the English language.” “It’s a disguised hand, or my name is not Robert Swann. But we may get a clew to the business, I’m thinking, through finding out w’ho it is who is making up to the young lady for the sake of her money.” A look of pain crossed Mr. Marsh’s face as a remembrance of Don, handsome and young, rose up before him. He somewhat constrainedly replied tnat he had not as yet been long enough at Woodburn to have been able to keep an eye on his ward and her supposed admirer, but should certainly do so, and call in the course of a day or two to consult the superintendent again. Then he put something which chinked golden in the policeman’s ready palm and went on his way. Left alone, Superintendent Swann contemplated with evident satisfaction the four golden sovereigns. Then he opened the door that led into the outer station and called out. “Send for Barnum; I want him;” and in less than a quarter of an hour Constable Barnum was in the inner office. Not a prepossessing man to look at was Constable Barnum. He was a lean little man, and he had a brown, hairy face, and restless, rat-like eyes of a shifty

color, that seemed brown la one light and black in another. That be had been a thief was known; that he was by birth an American was suspected. “I have sent for you. Barnum.” said the superintendent, condescendingly, “to talk to you over a new job—nix sworn information, but a mere private inquiry matter—to which I have not time, with all the borough business on my snouidere, to devote sufficient attention.” As the head policeman told his tale the shifty, rat-like eyes of Constable Barnum darkened and brightened alternately, changing color as swiftly as the chameleon of the poets. Holding the letter up between his eyes and the light, he sought to glean such intelligence as the water mark on the texture might furnish Him, then surveyed keenly the envelope, with its postmarks, and then meekly folded his thin brown hands and waited. "What do you say to that, Barnum?” the chief deigned to ask. “I should call it. sir, as your practical mind, I feel sure, has already done, a tough job,” modestly responded the rateyed policeman. (To be continued.)