Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1896 — A LOYAL LOVE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A LOYAL LOVE

BY J BERWICK HARWOOD

CHAPTER Mr. Marsh positively gasped, as it the Volubility of the accusation had taken his breath away. He glanced at the accuser. She looked, with her flaming eyes and ■resolute face, very much in earnest; but still he felt that he must not be borne down by mere glibness of assertion. “It is a good old principle of our English law, mademoiselle, that a man is to be considered innocent until he has been proved guilty. Now, all I have seen of Sir Richard, and all I have heard of him, except from yourself, is very much to bis credit. If you want me to change my opinion you must give me proofs.” “You shall have them,” said Glitka. “You are, as I brieve that you admitted in conversation with Superintendent Swann,” said the London merchant, “thp writer of the anonymous letter which I received in town. You are also a bitter enemy of Sir Richard's?” “Yes, because I loved him,” interrupted she Hungarian girl, with her dark eyes blazing out like those of a hurt wild beast that turns on the hunter- “I was Lis promised bride—we were betrothed—and he threw me off. Yes, I hate the man! Now hear me.” And in rapid, burning words Lady Thorsdale's maid related how she had. in the room habitually occupied by Sir Richard Mortmain at Thorsdale Hall, discovered in a drawer the compromising letter signed “Rufus Crouch,” which had lirst caused her to send her own anonymous communication to Mr. Marsh himt«elf in London.. “Here it is!” she said, as she thrust it into the dry-salter’s hand. He read it. not without many an inward twinge of mortification and annoyance. “The base hypocrite!” he exclaimed; “the rascally dissembler! Why, his scoundrel of a confederate had apprised him of the exact amount of my ward’s fortune weeks before he came to make a boast of his disinterested intentions to me! May I keep this letter, mademoiselle? You will be rewarded, I need not say, for your help in unmasking an imposter.” “Reward me —give me money—your sovereigns and your banknotes, perhaps,” retorted Glitka, with a hard fierce laugh. “Yes. that would be well for one of your English maids, but I have only one reward to seek! Now, sir, listen. The letter I have placed in your hands will, I hope, prove the ruin of the designs of him to whom it was sent. But I have a new weapon wherewith to strike at that hard, pitiless heart.” And then, rapidly and volubly as before, she narrated how she had chanced to overhear, in that portion of the shrubbery at Thorsdale which bordered on the park, through which there was a public right of way, a conversation between Sir Richard Mortmain and an ill-looking ruffian, whom she easily identified with the writer of the threatening letter. She had no hesitation in avowing that she played the spy on her employer’s brother whenever her duties rendered it possible, prompted by jealousy and resentment, and on this occasion she had overheard, herself unperceived, a portion of what was said. • “He, Crouch, menaced Sir Richard always. He could, he said, send him to the gyves and the prison, as he could the commonest forger, and the commonest thief. And the great, proud gentleman spoke the ruffian fair, and gave gold, and promised much. He had won over Mr. Marsh, Miss Mowbray's guardian, so he said, and should have his Influence on his side. And Crouch was to have his share of the young lady’s fortune; I did not hear much, but they bargained.” Mr. Marsh drove back to Woodburn Parsonage with very different feelings from those which he had previously entertained toward the titled suitor for Violet ■Mowbray’s hand.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

“Well met, Sir R.,” said a hoarse, deep voice, at the sound of which the baronet winced impatiently; “I was on my way 40 Holston, to look you up, but perhaps out on the high-road we can chat more conveniently.” The baronet turned to confront Rufus Crouch. There was an unholy look of sullen ferocity in the fellow’s bloodshot eyes, which told of gin lately imbibed. In his hand was a heavy blackthorn stick, gnarled and fresh-cut. “What do you want with me, you fool?” demanded the baronet. Rufus glared at him. “I want a precious lot, Sir R.,” responded the ex-gold-digger, after a pause, during which it seemed as though he were meditating •whether or not to spring, like some savage dog, at the throat of his aristocratic accomplice. "I want to be rid of this currish life, and out of this rotten country, and back in old Australia, but as a master this time, mind ye!. not a man. But, to set up, I require my share of the swag.” “Of what swag, my talkative friend, do you want your share?” asked the baronet, with much asperity. “Why, of the heiress’ seventy thousand pounds—what else?” gruffly rejoined the ex-gold digger; “and mind, Sir R., not one rap less than twenty-five thousand—not twenty—will satisfy yours truly, and ” “You dolt!” broke in Sir Richard, “you may keep your higgling back till the market is open. That Will-’o-the-wisp of the big sum of ready money that lured me down here, is as very a Jaek-o'-lan-tern as ever led a silly swain into a quagmire. Even if the girl has a right to this money ” “True as death and taxes she has, Sir R.,” protested Crouch, looking serious. “Even then, we don’t live in a country where young ladies can bp married against their will,” retorted the baronet. “Your heiress, I tell you, turns out to be of less malleable stuff than we supposed, and her money is as much out of my reach as if it were fifty fathoms deep beneath the sea. She insults me—won’t see me will have none of me—even though I have duped that old dotard of a dry salter, the guardian, into bucklering up my cause. I’m sure there’s some young lover.” “And i can give a shrewd guess, Sir R., as to who the young chap is,” interrupted Crouch. “I’ll stake anything it’s that beggarly upstart, Don. I heard he had been caught spooning and mooning with Miss Violet. I heard he had been forbid the house, down at the parson’s. He’s what the girls call handsome, and ” “I know he is,” said Sir Richard, with an accent of conviction, and with a bitter •laugh, “and I wish him—dead!” “Now, hark to me, Sir R.,” exclaimed ICruuch drawing near, and speaking ear-

uestly, but in a voice that he instinctively. lowered, “come in to my terms—the five and twenty thousand, out of the new Lady Montmain's tin—and he. this beg-* garly gentleman foundling, shall be dead. I’ll engage, for the sake of old grudges, and for my share of the plunder, to put him out of the way. D'ye bear?" “I don’t much like being mixed up in ’hat sort of thing." said the baronet, hes- , itatingly; “I wish the youngster were j well out of the way. but ” “One push, between the shoulders." | chuckled Crouch, thrusting out his great 1 ; hands and counterfeiting the action so as to suit the words, "and over goes my . ' young lordling to the crabs and the sand eels in the rock-pools below. And as for I Miss Violet, while the tear is in the eye. which is always a soft time with women, my advice is, cut in. Sir IL. and win. But,” said Rufus roughly, as he glared at his titled friend, “you mind how you break faith with me. Sir Richard Mortmain. baronet, once I've risked scragging for your sake. Try and cheat me out of a sixpenny of my due. and keep me in this miserable country for above three months more, and see if you don't go to jail as a forger, and give the newspapers the fun of printing leading articles about the disgrace of a fellow like you. with a handle to his. name, and ” Sir Richard had an almost fiendish temper, kept in check usually by habit and self-discipline, but he had had much to annoy him that day. and now the pent-up volcano blazed up into flame. “You cur!” he exclaimed; “you lowIsirn hound! you dare, dare you, to threaten a gentleman?” And. with his gold-mounted riding whip, he dealt Rufus two sharp cuts across the lace. CHAPTER XXIX. The immediate effect upon Crouch of the stinging blows he had received was to make the ex-gold digger and possible bush-ranger stand as still as if he had l-een some hideous effigy of a man carved 'n stone. But then his native ferocity awoke, and it was With a yell like that of a wild beast that the ruffian sprang forward, clutched the bridle of Sir Richard's gallant horse, and forced him back upon his haunches. The terrified horse snorted and reared arrow-straight, and fell back with a crash upon his rider. Stunned by the shock, the baronet lay helpless. “I’i! pay you. Sir R.!” growled Crouch, whirling up his club, and dealing a furious stroke at Sir Richard’s prostrate head.

“Hold there! stop!” cried a ringing, clear young voice, as the sound of hurrying feet was heard; and the would-be murderer, club in hand, wheeled ronud, to find himself face to face with the man whom, of all men, he hated and feared the most—the youth whose skill and courage had saved him from the Soldier’s Slough—Don. “Don’t interfere with me, youngster, if you care to keep a whole skin and bones unbroken!” said Crouch, brandishing his cudgel. “I am interfering, comrade,” replied I>on resolutely, but with no sign of illtemper, “to save you from yourself.” “Try the lieft of it!” answered Crouch, savagely, as he lifted the club, and struck st Don with all his force. But Don, whose eyes were quick and his movements agile, eluded the blow, sprang forward, and bad closed with the gold digger in a moment. “Now I’ve got you, my Jemmy Jessamy fine gentleman!” muttered Rufus, as the grapple began, for in all his many meditations concerning Don he had always felt assured that at close quarters lie was by far the stronger of the two. ThenCrouch never afterward could realize how—the brawny' man felt that he was snatched up from the ground like a tree suddenly uprooted, and next he fell with a crash upon the earth. “Your wisest plan, mate, is to take yourself off,” spoke Don, "and, if you have any conscience left, to be thankful that j ou have been saved from a great crime, end the hangman’s noose as its penalty. I am sorry to be harsh with a jet-hunter, tut I am more sorry to find, that one of our company could deserve it. Now go!” Don proceeded to assist Sir Richard Mortmain, who was now stirring uneasily as he lay, trying to rise. The baronet staggered as he regained his feet, and would have fallen but for Don’s support. “Are you much hurt?” asked the young man, compassionately.

< “It’s all right—it’s all right!” muttered Sir Richard, leaning heavily on his preserver. “Yes, it’s all right. I was a trifle dizzy at the first, but I’m quite right now.” “Perhaps, sir, you could walk if I held you up. Helston Hall is within half an hour from here,” suggested Don; and Sir Richard murmuring a weak assent, the young man struck into the lane hard by, leading the black horse and bearing upon his strong arm the tottering form of his rescued rival. There was not much conversation, naturally, on the slow walk, along the lone that led to Helston Hall. Once the baronet plucked up spirit enough to say what he thought of the late aggressor. “The brute—the .coward—the savage—that Crouch, I mean, a son of my father’s bailiff, a dog who was always glad to come sneaking up to me at Mortmain, end carry my second gun or run my errands—the beast!” ejaculated Sir Richard. “But if there’s law or justice in England, I’ll ” He stopped short here, confusedly. Perhaps he had remembered that Crouch, too, might have ugly revelations to make in a court of justice. “The man, I believe,” said Don, tolerantly, “is but partly responsible for his actions. He is mad drunk sometimes. He was so to-day, till the fall I gave him sobered him. I hope this may serve as a lesson to the fellow. But he is a bad sort of man, and we jet-hunters will be well rid of him. I suppose, Sir Richard, that he did not attack you for the mere purpose of robbery?” “He—l—yes; but I feel rather faint, somehow,” murmured the baronet; and he said no more until he reached his own home. “I may leave you now?” said Don with his bright smile. “If you please; I should like to shake hands with you,” said Sir Richard, hesitatingly, and he held Don’s hand for a moment. “You have saved my life, and, whatever I may be, I shall not forget what I owe you.” The next day when Sir Richard called at his sister’s home, he found a stir and a bustle at Thorsdale Hall. A Triton was to come among the minnows there. Wyvern, Earl Wyvern—or more correctly, as the “peerage” puts it, the Right Honorable Alfred Henry Talbot Wyvern, Earl Wyvern, Viscount Ludlow, Baron

Downton and Grecford—wa« what o«r French neighbors describe u a peraonaga, quite as great a man. so far as wealth and pedigree went, as Lord Thorsdale, w,th whom ha was somehow remotely connected by ties of kindred. The Earl was a childless widower. He uas still of middle age. He was clever enough, bad he preferred it, to have made a figure in our home politics, and rich enough, bad he so pleased, to have been noted in London society. As it was, much of his life had been spent officially or unofficially on the continent. "Will you join the grouse shooters. Wyvern. to-morrow?” his brother earl had asked, when first the visitor arrived. "I have not fired a ggu for years—except a rifle nt some battue in Austria,” I»rd Wyvern had smilingly replied; “but if there is to be an exi»edition. 1 will accompany the lookers-on willingly enough.” (To be continued.)