The Argosy — page 26: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

16 Edina. for the birds above them, there were no listeners: no rover was likely to be near that solitary spot. Her voice was sweet, but not loud ; every ‘syllable was spoken distinctly. To sit there for ever, and not be dis- turbed, would be Eden. “‘ And my false lover stole my rose, But ah! he left the thorn wi’ me.” Scarcely had the echoing melody of the last words died away, when the sound of unexpected footsteps was heard approaching, and there advanced into view a woman well known to Alice; one Sarah Croft, the wife of a man who was employed on the estate.. They lived in one of those miserable dwellings on the common, but were civil and quiet; somewhat independent in manners, but never joining in the semi- rebellion that reigned. She looked miserably poor. Her blue cotton gown, though clean, was in rags, her old shawl would hardly hang together, the black bonnet on her head might have been used to frighten the crows. She dropped a courtesy and was passing onwards, when Alice inquired after her sick children. “They be no better, Miss Raynor, thank ye,” she answered, halting in front of the bench and standing to face those onit. “ The little one, she be took sick now, as well as the two boys. I’ve gota fine time on’t.” ‘¢ Why don’t you have a doctor to them ?” said Alice. “‘More nor a week agone I went up to the parish and telled ’em I must have a doctor to my children ; but he never come till yesterday.” ‘* What did he say?” “Tl tell ye what he said, Miss Raynor, if ye like. He said doctors and doctors’ stuff was 0’ no good, so long as the houses remained what they was—pes-ti-fe-rus. That was the word, pes-ti-fe-rus. I should not have remembered it, though, but for Jetty’s lodger repeating of the very self-same word to me a minute or two agone. I've just passed him. He’s a sitting down yonder under the beeches.” Alice, as well as William Stane, instantly recalled the man in grey they had seen sitting there. ‘ Jetty’s lodger!” repeated Alice. ‘“‘ What lodger ?” “Some stranger what’s a-staying in the place, Miss Raynor. He come into it one morning, a’ week agone, and took Jetty’s rooms. They was to let.” “What is he staying here for?” “To pry into folks’ business, I think,” replied the woman. “He's always about, here, there, and everywhere; one can’t stir out many yards but one meets him. Saturday last, he walks right into our place without as much as knocking ; and there he turns hisself round and about, looking at the rotten floor and the dripping walls, and snifting at the bad smell that’s always there, just as if he had as much right inside comicbooks.com