The Argosy — page 16: what you’re looking at

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

4 The Village Blacksmith. to measure the soul of the living and the body of the dead ; a coffin would have furnished him with many a text; as a carpenter, scarcely one of his tools would have failed to point his discourse. But for his particular style of preaching no trade could have been so fruitful in providing him with metaphor as his own. Jn the awakening pro- cess which he deemed so necessary to the salvation of a soul, his flaming, fiery furnace was infinitely more valuable than scales or coffins, measuring tapes or carpenter's tools. On the present occasion he certainly succeeded in opening the eyes and mouth of his young customer; but whether or no he reached the soul is another matter. At any rate he shod the donkey, and then vouchsafed to pay the same attention to the Rector’s pony. He had just finished this operation when he was accosted in these terms : ‘¢Hfulloa, Reuben! So you have my fathers pony down here! Where has he gone, do you know?” The speaker was a young man, rather under the average height, slight in figure, rather handsome in face, dark in complexion. His eyes were large and dark and dreamy; his hair, though closely cropped after the fashion of the day, waved and curled in spite of the scissors; his moustache was also curled at the ends; and the French blood that mingled with the pure Saxon of the Ryot Tempests manifested itself in a certain easy grace which just escaped the re- proach of languor. ‘‘ As it happens, I do know, sir. He has gone to take the chair at a School Board meeting. My sister, Mrs, Canter, has been sum- moned again for not sending her children to school,” said Reuben. ‘¢T wish I had known sooner! I would give ten shillings to have been present. Norah Canter and my father together are as good as a play ; she is the only person I ever met who can manage him. I'll back Norah to win, but I am sorry I missed the battle.” “Ttll be almost the last she'll fight with Mr. Tempest, for she is leaving at Midsummer.” | ‘So she tells me; I have promised to go and see her in her new home before I sail. But I must be off. Good evening, Reuben.” As he spoke, a bell from a cloth mill about half a mile off an- nounced that it was half-past five, and that consequently the female hands employed there were at liberty to go. The bell interested Reuben, for his daughter worked there; but he little guessed it interested Mr. Reginald Tempest still more. ‘The Rector is late; I count Norah has been too much for him,” he muttered, as he resumed his hammer. A few minutes later, a lanky, red-haired man of about five-and- thirty, who looked like a groom, but was, in point of fact, groom, gardener and coachman all in one, appeared, touched his hat respect- fully to the father of the blacksmith’s daughter, and said he had come to fetch his master’s pony. COMIC OOOKS.CO