Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1896 — A LOYAL LOVE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A LOYAL LOVE

J. BERWICK HARWOOD

CHAPTER XXXV. “Wish to sec his lordship?" exclaimed she footman who. at Herrick Hall, answered the doorbell, and who stood aghast at the audacity of the proposition. “I do desire to see Earl Wyvern.” replied Obadiah, who was the applicant for admission. "1 am little used to trouble the mighty of the earth to listen to my words for my sake; but 1 come on business, to attend to which, unless 1 judge wrongly, my lord the earl would gladly rise, even from a king's feast.” “What name, please?” “I am Obadiah .ledson —Captain Jedaon they call me.” answered the jet hunter, impressively. “Tell the Earl that I can throTv light upon what happened here in Horseshoe Bay seventeen long years ago. Sir William llerrick, your master, can hardly fail to have heard of Captain Obadiah .ledson. the jet seeker.’ The footman capitulated, and went in to do Obadiah's errand. In a few minutes —in fewer minutes than the gaunt old chief of the Jet hunters' company had reckoned on—the footman came back. “Sir William did know of you, Captain,” he said more respectfully than lie had spoken before, “and so did her ladyship, l’lease step this way. My lord will see you in the dining-room.” Thither Lord Wyvern quickly came, somewhat of a frown upon his brow. “Mr. —or Captain .ledson,” he said, “you have evoked very painful recollections —1 trust not on frivolous grounds. If you have anything to tell which is worth the telling, I am prepared to listen to you.” “Lord earl,” replied Obadiah, confronting the peer with a grave dignity that challenged respect, “I forgot neither what is due to a nobleman's rank nor to a father's heart, when I ask your lordship to hearken to a rough man like me. 1 am a jet hunter—a captain of jet hunters. It seems to me but yesterday that our camp was pitched as it is tu-dny, in Horseshoe Bay, hard by. It was seventeen long years ago. It was summer weather. It was the day of a sharp and sudden storm.” “Hell!” said the Earl, as his lips quivered, and the lines that furrowed his broad white brow seemed to deepen. “My lord.” Obadiah resumed, "1 am not one of those who believe in luck —lieatlienly so called. But there is a guidance, if we eould see it aright. On that day of sudden storm on the sands, close to the leaping waves, on the inner side of the black rocky headland that juts out into the sea, and cuts off the bay from Slirapton and the coast line, we saw. as if it had dropped from the sky, the figure us a child.” “Alive?” asked Lord Wyvern, hoarsely. “Alive," Obadiah hastened to say, “ami well and fearless. A beautiful boy, with silken curls and great dark eyes, richly clad, dainty to look upon—like a little prince torn from a palace, and set there on the desolate sea beach, almost within reach of the furious sea." “Of what age was the boy?” asked the Earl, quickly. “An hour or two ago, lord earl, I knew not of your loss,” answered the jet hunter. “The overhearing of a chance conversation—if there he such a thing us chance, for I hold that what is written that shall be—has brought home to me. after all these years, that our foundling, and my own foster-son, the little fellow whom we adopted among us, was no other than your sou, my lord.” The tears that started to Earl Wyvorn's haughty eyes and the dep sob that shook his frame were answer enough. “Is he —my boy—yet living?” asked the Earl, and it was wtitli almost an imploring gaze that he fixed his eyes on Obadiab’s rugged face. “He Is—he is, my lord,” the jot hunter made haste to say. “Roughly as we reared him, and poor as we were, he grew' up to be as handsome and ns noble a youth as ever gladdeued n father’s eyes. He still goes by she name of Don —Mr. Don they call him, for all believed him to be a gentleman’s child from the first—and a braver lad. or a gentler, never won the praise of high and low along the coast here.”

“Don! Yes. it was a name Ihe Italian servants gave him at Naples, where they called hint Don Lionello —Lionel Arthur Wyvern was his real name—and I, too, called him nothing else,” said the Earl, thoughtfully. “1 saw a young man, and a singularly handsome one, at AVoodbutu Parsonage, who—” “Why, that must have been our Don—pardon me for interrupting your lordship —since Mr. Langtou taught him, and liked him well, until that business came up about Miss Mowbray.” And in a few words Obadiah recounted how Don had become a clerk in Lord Lhorsdale's land office, how he had won Violet’s love, but, at her guardian’s bidding. had been banished front the house. “We may remedy that,” said the Earl, smiling. “But I forgot. Have you preserved, Captain .Tedsou. any of the elothes which the child wore.” “I have carried them with me, under lock and key. in all my wandering career,” answered Obadiah. as he undid the bundle, and laid it on the table before him. "Here, my lord, are the boy’s clothes. This fine green velvet tunic, as you Bee, frayed and whitened now, but with the silver buttons yet bright, for I have burnished them at timeS; and here are the rest of the things—cap, shoes and all, and the belt, with its clasp of silver—that is bright, too—and a coral thiug that hung by a thin gold chain.” “That,” said the Earl, “is a Neapolitan charm against the Evil Eye—a mere toy. But the belt—did you not wonder at wbat you found within the clasp?” “Indeed, no. I doubt if I understand you, my lord.” said Obodiah, wondering in bis turn.. “I will see,” said the Earl, “if I have forgotten;” aud after one or two attempts he pressed a secret spring, when instantly a silver plate flew open, revealing within a cavity that contained two tiuy locks of hair and certain graven letters. "Those are his mother's initials and mine. That is his mother's hair and my own. 1 doubt no more,” said Lord Wyvent. “Aud now. Captain Jedson, how can T ever repay the debt?” When suddenly Obadiah struck his forehead. exclaiming, “Dolt! dullard that I aw! My lord, I greatly fear that tne good news -couies too late. They have driven «ur Don half desperate by separating him from the girl he loves, and to-mor-row, early to-jnormiv, the brave boy Ktarta so seek his fortune beyond the seas t-ataru for Mexico.”

“This must lie stopped!” said Lord W yvero. And then Sir William Herrick was taken into council, and & mounted messenger was dispatched to Hlirajitoa lo bespeak a train to be in readiness in the morning to set off at an hour sufficiently early to render it possible to intercept Don at an important junction, at which he must necessarily stop during his journey toward Southampton and the steam packet, West India bound, that was to waft him across the Atlantic toward Vera Cruz.

CHAPTER XXXVI. The fly which was to convey Don and his scanty luggage to the Daneborough • station arrived* very early at the old steward's house tit Thorsdale Park, and Don's young fellow clerk was still asleep as his office companion started. “Switchaiu Junction. Change!'* said the guard, going quickly along the line of ca triages. Don. with the other passengers, got tint and waited. Suddenly there was a little bustle on the platform. “See all clear there! special coming, as telegraphed from the north!” bawled a deputy inspector, and there was a moment of activity. "M,v lord!" said a strange voice, in a tone of deferential eagerness, so close to Don's car that the young man could but start and turn his head. “1 beg your lordship's pardon!” said the man. raising his glossy hat. Don stared at him in very natural surprise. “This is some mistake,” he said, tolerantly. "Xo mistake at all. asking your lordship's pardon for the liberty,” said the stranger. “We have followed your lordship from the north by special train, and—l am speaking. 1 hope, to Mr. Don?” added the man servant, rapidly, and with some anxiety. “For whom do you take me?” 'I or Lord Ludlow*, my lord. T ant here by orders of your lordship's father, my lord, and ” So far had the valet proceeded in his speech, when a deeper voice struck in; "Don. my dear boy, the man tells the truth, strange, and passing strange, as it may sound in those young ears of thine.” And Don saw at his elbow the towering form and striking face of the aged captain of (he jet hunters. "M.v boy, my foster child!” began Obadiah, “when first you came —a wee thing —to break our bread and warm your little limbs beside out* camp fire, 1 knew* from the first that you belonged to gentle-folks. You were like a tiny eaglet that had dropped dvivn from tlie eyrie aloft, and had but the barbed feather and the dauntless eyes to tell of what race you came. At last the truth is known. Your futher. who grows impatient as he waits yonder to press you to his heart, is a grand nobleman, a belted earl, my lad." "His name?” Don naked, ns bis breath went and came more quickly than usual. “Hjs name is Earl Wyvern. You are yourself, it seems, Don, a lord, and your true name is Lionel Arthur, Lord Ludlow.” The end of the colloquy was that, as fast as the special train could hurry him along. Dan sped over the iron road to Shrapton.

CHAPTER XXXVII. Sir William Herrick, who was the soul of hospitality, had thoughtfully provided that Don, on his arrival at the Ilall, should be ushered at once into the presence of his father. In the librnry, a large room where well-stored book shelves alternated with the branching antlers of stags slain long ago, and with armor kept bright by Ihe care of sundry generations of servants, the Earl received the longlost son whom he had so long sorrowed for as dead. All Lord Wyvern’s pride, ail the habitual coldness of his manner gave way at once, uml he did not even try to hide the unwonted tears that dimmed his eyes, as, opening his arms, he pressed the young man to his breast. “M.v boy!” lie'exclaimed, pushing Don from him a little way, with a hand upon each shoulder, so us to see him better, “you cannot tell what this meeting is to me! To find again, as if the very grave had, through heaven's mercy, yielded him up to me. the little child—all that my Marian left me —and to find in him a man grown, and a son of whom any father would be proud indeed.” Mir Richard, finding himself a detected forger, suddenly disappeared. lie was reported to have closed his London house as summarily as he had put down his establishment in Yorkshire, and to have sailed for Demeraru, where rumor alleged him to possess a small estate, inherited from his father The grim old captain of the jet hunters, to whom 1 iotli the Kail and Don felt they owed a deep debt of gratitude, refused tiie liberal offers of money which Ltfrd Wyvern pressed upon him. But Don's knowledge of the old man's peculiarities prevailed, and Obadiah accepted the gift of a small farm which Earl Wyvern had purchased for him in Beckdale, the place of -his birth, and of some such freehold as that which the veteran jet hunter—descendant of a race of yeomen that had sunk into poverty—confessed himself to have been all liis life ambitious to lie the possessor. So the famous old company of jet seekers was broken up. most of its members turning their attention to more prosaic forms of bread-winning. Glitka, the baronet once gone, found her further sojourn in England uueudurable, and much regretted by her partial mistress, Lady Thorsdale, returned to her native Hungary. The wedding bells rang gayly. and flowers and lace and jewels sparkled and rustled and bloomed their best, when, with the fullest and freest consent of all concerned, Violet and Don—Miss Mowbray and Lord Ludlow, in newspaper purlance and drawing-room and dub-room gossip, but to each other Don and Violet eternally—were married in the spring. It was a grand wedding, as became a bride and bridegroom so favored by nature, and a house such as that noble one of Wyvern, aud royalty in some of its junior branches graced the nuptials of the former foundling of the wild seabeach. I There is not much more to tell, save that Don and Violet, loving and beloved, keep up a friendly intercourse with good Air. afid Mrs. Langtou at Woodhurn. and that they continue to live with Earl Wyvern, whose heart was greatly softened by the sudden joy that repaid him for yean* of lonely suffering, and who cannot bear again to be separated from the soil of whom he is so proudly fond. Obadiah, though bent and feeble, yet survives; and frequently the future Earl and Countess

of Wyvern—let them be Don and Violet to us still—talk with affection and gratitude «>f the good old man. and marvel at the talisman of hidden happiness for them that lay Within the Clasp. THE END.

CHAPTER I. A spoiled beauty—spoiled by a devotion and love such as fall to the lot of few women—Lady Kooden did not know the meaning of the word “care.” She was only seventeen when Sir Charles Rooden woed and won her; and from that time be had surrounded her with such loving eare that her lot among women was quite exceptional. Few* knew such unalloyed happiness as she enjoyed. At times a fleeting regret that she had no son to succeed her husband would come over her; but even that regret was softened when she remembered how deeply he loved their little daughter. The Roodens of Rood Abbey had been for many generations owners of that fair and fertile domain. The estate, which was situated in one of the most beautiful of the Midland Counties, was singularly favored by nature, and not the least of its charms was the bright flashing river Leir, smooth and peaceful in places, spanned here and there by rustic bridges and widening in its course until it developed into the broad, deep reach in front of the Abbey itself. Sir Charles Rooden, the ideal of an English landlord—handsome, brave, generous, and a true lover of all out-door and manly sports—was still young when he fell in love with one of the most beautiful girls of her day, Laura Milroy, the only daughter of the Earl of Milroy. In his blind idolatry he never perceived that she was vain or selfish, that she was shallow at heart; he discerned in her only the attributes of a good and noble woman, and he loved her implicitly. His wife was the center of his hopes and plans, the one object of his care and worship; and next to her in his affection came his little daughter, whom, because of her beautiful face and sweet serious eyes—eyes in which dwelt a sweet brooding seriousness—they named Angela. Angela had reached her twelfth year when her first great sorrow fell upon her. A sweeter, fairer maiden it would hardly have been possible to find. To those who knew how frail and uncertain human love is, there was something almost pitiful in the devotion of the child to her father. The blow, when it did fall, was therefore all the more terrible to her. For there came a day, bright and sunny, full of perfume and sweetness and song, when Sir Charles Rooden left home in the morning with laughing, jesting words on his lips and was carried back in the evening dead. The evening was as fair as the morning. The wind stirred the lilacs and the long laburnum-tresses gently in the garden below; nature seemed to he reposing in the peaceful calm that had settled over ail.

“I wonder what it is, Angel?” said Lady Booden. “A crowd seems to be moving and coming in this direction. They are carrying something. What can it be?” “1 do not see papa,” said the child, whom nothing else interested; and they grew silent as the tall trees and the winding of the river hid the crowd from their view. “I wish papa would come!” cried the child, presently; and then, after a few minutes, there was a sound of tramping footsteps, of hurried, hushed voices, and the old butler came hastily on to the terrace. “My lady, my lady, come in quickly!” be cried. “Do not look toward the river! Come in!” Lady Rooden turned to him in wonder. “What?” she gasped, her face growing white and rigid. “My master was found in the river, my lady!” .larvis replied, wringing his hands. “In the river? Found in the river, do yon say? Then he is dead!” “He is dead,' my lady, and they are bringing him home!” answered the man. With a wild cry Lady Itooden flew from the house down to the avenue, where she met the men bearing the lifeless body of her husband. When she saw his dead face, she fell, with a low anguished cry, to the ground, and was carried back home senseless. It was not until the first shock was over that any one thought of the child. They found her lying near the window of the room, in an agony of grief which no words of comfort could abate. The mystery surrounding Sir Charles Rooden's death was never solved. Whether he had attempted to cross the river where it was shallowest, and had been carried away by the force of the current, or whether his horse had become restive and dashed into the water, no one ever knew. No one had seen the baronet: no one came forward to say that they had met him on that day. That it was an accident every one agreed, but how it occurred there was no living witness to tell. How deeply the genial, generous master of Uood was mourned was shown by the assemblage of rich and poor who came to pay a last tribute of respect to a neighbor and friend. In his will Sir Charles had not forgotten any of his faithful old servants or any of the charities he had supported. Yet to those who listened to the reading of the document there seemed to be something strange in it. It was strange that no income had been settled on the daughter for whom he had always such unbounded affection; strange that no dowry had been left to her; strange that not one farthing of what must ultimately be a large fortune should reach her until her mother’s death; strange that so vast a fortune skoiild be left to the absolute disposal of a •..'autiful young widow. No restriction was placed upon her; there was no forfeiture of money if she married again. The only thing she could not do was to part with property belonging in way to bouse or estate. She could not sell a picture or a tree; everything was to descend to Angela just as she had received it. “A strange will!” the listeners agreed, but it only showed the implicit trust Sir Charles hud in his wife. Lady Roodert was a little surprised herself. She had. not expected such unre-. served generosity, and she had certainly thought that provision would have been made for Atigdla. She caught the child In her arms, and kissed the fair young fao> In a passion of tears.

“You shall not suffer, my darling,” she declared, “for papa’s generosity to me. I will more than make up to you for it.” But Angela did not understand. She only clasped her arms more tightly around her mother's neck. After Sir Charles’ death, Lady Rooden did not care to remain at Rood Abbey. Her- one desire was to go abroad, to seek in change some relief from her present sorrow. She was married so young—when only seventeen —and the whole of her happy married life had been so completely engrossed by her love for her husband and a ceaseless round of pleasures, that she had given little thought to foreign travel. Now a great desire came over her to see all the famous countries and cities of which she had read; and Angela was delighted with her plan. She secured the services of a clever and accomplished gentlewoman,"’ Miss Aveland; and a few months after Sir Charles’ death Lady Rooden and her daughter started for a tour which was to last four years, while Rood Abbey was left in the hands of faithful old servants, who were to hold it in readiness for their return.

CHAPTER IT. Five years had passed since Sir Charles Rooden was laid to rest. May had come round again, with its wealth of foliage and of flowers —a fair, bright May, such as poets love to portray. The London season was a brilliant one—there had not been a better for many years. The draw-ing-rooms had been well attended; a great many presentations bad been made, and, better than all, an unusual number of beautiful faces had appeared at court. One of the most commanding houses overlooking Hyde Park, one of a stately row called Palace Place, was especially noticeable this May morning for the lovely flowers that filled the light Italian balcony. A beautiful girl stood near the blooming hyacinths which occupied one of the windows—a girl with a sweet, passionate face, and eyes that, lovely as they were, could not be easily read. Near her stood a tall, handsome man, Captain Vance Wynyard. The girl's face revealed her love-story clearly. It paled and flushed as he spoke to her; the proud sensitive lip trembled, the eyes deepened and brightened, as his words o,f love fell upon her ears. The beautiful, passionate face and eloquent eyes were those of Gladys ltane, a niece of Lady Kinloch, a debutante of the season, whose beauty had made its mark. Lady Kinloch, the mistress of the mansion renowned for its famous flowers and known as -Locn House, was a rich and childless widow. She had adopted the only child of her dead sister, and had -broughbher up in the hope that the beauty of which her girlhood gave promise would develop to maturity, and that she would one day make a brilliant match; but whether Lady Kinloch would ever see her adopted daughter make the brilliant match she had hoped for was more than doubtful, for Gladys had fallen in love with handsome Captain Wynyard, who had already lost two fortunes, and was quite ready to lose a third, should it ever come within his reach. The bejeweled white fingers toyed with the flowers, which served also as an excuse for bending her face, lest he should read the love so plainly visible there. Suddenly she looked up at him, forgetting the hyacinths in the interest of her question: “Have you heard of the new arrivals, Vance?” “What new arrivals, Gladys?” he asked. “Mother and daughter—Lady Rooden and her daughter Angela. All London is talking about them. The daughter is seventeen, the mother thirty-five; but her ladyship looks —so I am told —quite ten years younger, and has been pronounced one of the most lovely women in Loudon, as well as one of the wealthiest.” Captain Vance's handsome eyes gleamed with interest. “Rich, is she? Some people are fortunate. To be rich and beautiful is to have an undue preponderance of this world's gifts. Tell me about them, Gladys.” “Lady Rooden is the widow of Sir Charles Rooden, of Rood Abbey. He died quite suddenly four or five years ago—he was drowned. I believe—and loft the whole of bis large fortune to her.” “She will be a prize, then,” continued the Captain. “And what fortune has the daughter?”

“Although he was so wealthy. Sir Charles left no separate fortune to his daughter; but at lier mother’s death everything goes to her —not before.” “What will happen if the mother marries again?” asked the Captain. “Nothing. Her husband wonld have the full use of her wealth while she lived; but it would go to her daughter at the ‘mother's death.” “And what,” he asked, looking up suddenly—“what if the daughter dies before the mother?” “Then the whole of (he property bceomes hers, to do with as she wills. AVhat cold-blooded questions you ask, Vance!” “I like to understand,” he returned. “It is rather a novel state of things, and I am getting quite interested.” “I wish to heaven that you had Rood Abbey and a large fortune.” “So do I,” sighed Gladys. “What a curse poverty is!” he continued. “Here are you and I— we love each other—we have not said much about it, but we love each other —and yet ” “I know,” she interrupted, raising her face, which was full of pain, to his —"I understand.” “If my career had been a little less mad!” he sighs, regretfully. “I have wasted two fortunes, and 1 doubt much whether I shall ever have a third. We are in the same position, Gladys—you will ltave to marry money, und I must do the same.” “I suppose it must be so,” she said, resignedly. But he noted the pain in her eyes, and the trembling of her lips. “I know no two people in the world who would be so happy together as you and I,” he added; “yet, because we neither of us have money, we must stifle our love and always live apart. I wish you had fortune, Gladys, or that people could do without money.” “So do I,” said Gladys Rane, with a bitter 'sigh. Yet neither of them for a moment

(framed of what want of money and the desire to obtain it would do for them in the future. On that bright May morning, among the hyacintha in the sunlight, no warning came to them of the shape the future was to take. Every one seemed to be talking of Lady Rooden and her daughter that evening. Captain Vance went to his club, the Royal, and found they were the topic of conversation there. Nothing so interesting, nothing so strange, had been discussed for some time—a mother beautiful and fair as her own most beautiful child; a child in grace and loveliness the rival of her own mother. The discussion was at its height when Wynyard entered the smoking-room. “I think all London has gone crazy about the new beauties.” he remarked. "Ashton,” he continued, turning to one of his most" intimate friends, “you were at the Embassy ball last evening. Did you see them ?” “Yes; they were both there—Lady Rooden and her daughter.” “Which is the belle?” asked Wynyard, “I could not tell you. I have never seen two women so perfect. The old comparison of a rose and a rosebud is weak. No one would believe them to be mother and daughter; they aro like younger and elder sister—the daughter so slim and graceful, the mother tall and stately. There is not such another pair in London.” “Should you think there was any prospect of the mother remarrying?” asked Wynyard. “Yes, I should think it is almost certain; and I think I can guess who the mau is who will marry her.” “Who is he?” asked the ex-Captain, anxiously. “The one who flatters her most,” laughed Mr. Ashton; “he will be the one to win her. That is her ladyship's weak side.” Neither billiards nor cards had any charm for Vance Wynyard that evening; he was unusually thoughtful and engrossed. If he sighed at times, it was because memory brought to him vividly the beautiful, sorrowful face of Gladys Rane.

(To be continued.)