The Argosy — page 384: what you’re looking at

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

366 The Village Blacksmsth. ‘Janet Tempest! your son’s wife, sir; as good a gul as ever breathed. He insisted on keeping his marmiage a secret for fear you should not let him have the rest of the money you have promised him ; and Janet, silly thing ! agreed to be silent, though I told her she was wrong. I expect Reuben has seen the baby, and that has made him worse; for I believe Janet is that silly she’d rather die herself, or see her father die, than disobey her husband. Something has happened. That magpie didn’t cross my path for nothing this morning as I went to the station. Put on your coat, Mr. Tempest, and come with me to the hospital. Perhaps we shall hear something there.” “ Vil—T]'ll follow you,” said Mr. Tempest, who was trembling with suppressed emotion. And he looked so miserable and so incapable of action just at present that Mrs. Canter pitied him, and had the grace to leave him alone. It was a terrible blow to him to learn that his only son—a Ryot Tempest—had made such a mésalliance. Pride of birth was the Rector’s greatest weakness ; he was wounded in his most vulnerable spot. A Ryot Tempest had stooped from the eminence on which a beneficent Providence had placed both Ryots and Tempests, and had picked up a wife from the gutter. It was wicked ; it was cruel ; it was almost unbearable ! And Mrs. Jamieson? What would shesay? He must tell her, of course, and he was by no means sure that she would not break off her marriage ; she would, in his opinion, be quite justified in doing so. Perhaps in his heart of hearts he half hoped she would, for he had some secret qualms as to the widow of his choice. The cassock worried him, and he pulled it off and put on his coat ; but the trouble Mrs. Canter had brought him was not so easily laid aside. Not even | by his first wife’s death-bed had he felt more miserable than he now did on the eve of his second marriage. He thought of Vera, and his conscience told him he was not treating her as her mother would have liked it. Was this low marriage of Rex’s a judgment on him for refusing to accept Captain Raleigh as a son-in-law ? Should he relent and send for Captain Raleigh? Would the equilibrium of the Ryot Tempest family be restored if, now that Rex had dragged down the male side of the house, Captain Raleigh were put into the other scale ? Mr. Ryot Tempest could not decide this knotty question. He felt utterly miserable. His wife dead; his son married to a daughter of the people—for so he phrased his trouble; his own daughter's life made unhappy by his act; his own future happiness doubtful ; he almost wished he were lying by the side of the wife of his youth, the love of his life, at Avranches. He sank into a chair, and bending his chin on his chest, covered his eyes with one of his hands, and sat there for half-an-hour. When at last he got up, his eyes were red with weeping, though it was neither Rex nor Vera he had been ECOMicbooolkxs.com @