The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-08-02

ing at which he wished to rise He needed to
victimize no servant, who must rise still earlier
to call him, nor did he require to have his cour-
age stimulated by cup of hot tea. He went to
his bedroom directly the detective had retired
to the servants quarters, and he told himself,
as he lay down to rest, that he would be astir at
40 o'clock next morning, not with any IDEA OF
cub hunting, but with the serious intention OF
getting an interview with Mrs. Jaker before de-
tective or search warrant could reach her cot
tage. Before bidding Miss Darnel goodnight
he had contrived to ascertain from that lady the
exact situation of the cottage. 1t lay within
a mile of the park gates, in particularly lonely
district given over 10 agriculture Half a
dozen small farms had been rolled into one, and
the homesteads belonging to them had
been pulled down or turned into laborers'
cottages. The Takers domicile was situated
at the end of a long lane, just where the
uttermost limit of cultivated land met the edge
of wild stretch of common. 1. had been a
house in the time of the Stuarts, and it had a
picturesque air even now, in the lowest stage of
neglect and decay, the rotten and ragged thatch
half hidden under a goodly growth of weeds and
grasses, the good old loaded lattices with hardly
n whole pane among them. Tho Takers were
squatters rather than tenants, and would have
been turned out neck and crop years ago had it
not been for an easy-going landlord and the
little pecuiarlties of Mrs. Jaker, who always
had baby at hand at the hour of any financial
crisis. 1t was sometimes baby that moment
born-anon q baby that very morning dead.
Living or dead, the baby was always ready for
the emergency. 1t was Mrs. Jaker's ace of
trumps.
Having tod himself that he should be astir at
half-pa four, the Colonel woke a few minutes
before the hour He had scarcely sounded his
repeater when the eight-day clock in the corridor
ehimed in with its four musical notes. and then
its four sonorous strokes upon the big bell. The
Colonel was up and in his bath within five min
utes. Not man he to yawn, and loiter, and
think twice about leaving his pillow when there
was business to be done.
1t was pitch dark AS yeti would hardly be
light by the time he should arrive at Mrs.
Takers cottage, but he calculated that person
of her condition would be an early riser, and he
felt no co1npunction about knocking her up
should she prove slug a-bed He was bent
upon seeing her before the detective arrived
with his earch-warrant; so that in the event of
her husband having obtained his plumber from
Victor de Camillac the woman's mouth might be
sealed as to the existence and whereabouts of
that obnoxious Frenchman
my friend Penwern ignores those foot-marks
on the flower beds, now that he has started on
another track" the Colonel thought as he walked
hriskly along the avenue under the cold October
sky. Not very logical. That narrow sole and
pointed heel could never have belonged to the
boot of rustic poacher; and yet those foot marks
have to be accounted for somehow and I am not
at all clear that Graces admirer is safe out of
the business"
Before going down stairs the Colonel had
tapped softly at his friends door, and had ques-
Gioned the night nurse. Her reply was more
favorable than usual. The patient had spent
quietor night, the fever was little less in
tense, the delirium less violent. All this was
hopeful.
There were patches of gray in the eastern sky
by the time the Colonel came to the end of the
long muddy lane, and entered Mrs. Takers neg
lected garden. The gate hung loose upon broken
hinges, and several of its rails had been ruth
lessly plucked off to serve for frewood. The
palings were in the same condition, and afforded
free access to vagabond swine. When Mrs. Jaker
was asked why she did not keep her garden tidy,
she replied that tidiness was impossible while the
pigs came in and uprooted every thing; but when
she was asked why she and her husband did not
patch up the palings and keep the pigs out Mrs.
Jaker became desperate and asked if pales
%ba oly
showered nails and hammers into poor peoples
laps. For her part she had neither wood nor
nails, nor hammer; and as for the landlord, he
would see them all dead before he would do any
thing for them This could scarcely be consid-
cred strange, inasmuch as they did nothing for
him in the shape of rent.
Albeit the sky was gray in the east, and a
faint admixture Of silvery light gorified the un-
dulating lines of hill and woodland, Mrs. Jaker
had not yet left her pillow when the Colonel
knocked with his stout oak stick at the cottage
door. She put her head out of an upstar win
dow, presently, however, and on hearing that he
had particular business with her, promised to be
down in ten minutes. So the Colonel strolled
mp and down the dreary little garden, with its
Stagnant puddles in depressed corners and its
ragged regiment OF barren cabbage stalks and
seeing at least half an acre of ground given owe,
to desolation he wondered how it was that the
country poor made so little of their opportuni
ties.
The cottage uoor opened while he stood at
gaze above the cabbage stalks, and no was ad
mitted to the Jaker abode. Mrs. Jaker's toilet
was OF the briefest and the Colonel could no,
help suspecting that she had slept in her gown.
A swarm of healthy, handsome children, all in
the last stage of rags and dirt, were
squatting and scrambling about the wide
hearth, which had evidently belonged
to the farmhouse kitchen. The few
sticks of furniture were all in a ruinous condi
ton, and it was not without careful selection
that Mrs Jaker found chair which she could
venture to offer to her guest. When he had
seated himself she knet on the earth and lighted
n Go &c at;oI>s od t,,rf which poa6a nhaarfu