About half-past two, he heard a noise at the front door, followed by
a knocking. Throwing open the window, he exclaimed, "Who's there?"
"A friend," was the answer.
"What friend?" asked the baker, suspiciously. Friends are not very
apt to come at this time of night."
"Don't you know me, Uncle Abel?" asked a cheery voice.
"Why, it's Jack, I verily believe," said Abel Crump, joyfully, as he
hurried down stairs to admit his late visitor.
"Where in the name of wonder have you been, Jack?" he asked,
surveying his nephew by the light of the candle.
"I've been shut up, uncle,--boarded and lodged for nothing,--by some
people who liked my company better than I liked theirs. But to-night
I made out to escape, and hero I am. I'll tell you all about it in
the morning. Just now I'm confoundedly hungry, and if there's
anything in the pantry, I'll ask permission to go in there a few
minutes."
"I guess you'll find something, Jack. Take the candle with you.
Thank God, you're back alive. We've been very anxious about you."
CHAPTER XXII.
MR. JOHN SOMERVILLE.
PEG had been thinking.
This was the substance of her reflections. Ida, whom she had
kidnapped for certain purposes of her own, was likely to prove an
(sic) incumbrance rather than a source of profit. The child, her
suspicions awakened in regard to the character of the money she had
been employed to pass off, was no longer available for that purpose.
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