The Argosy — page 391: what you’re looking at

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

The Village Blacksmtth. 373 go on; and unless her strength revived she must knock up someone at Ashchurch and ask for shelter for her baby’s sake. Suddenly she remembered the bread and butter she had in her pocket, and sitting down on a felled tree she ate it slowly, and felt, after a long rest, able to resume her walk. She struggled on for another mile, when again the faint, exhausted feeling seized her, and she was obliged to stop again and rest. She sat down on the carpet bag this time and tried to remember how far she was from the nearest house, As well as she could calculate, she was a mile or rather more from Mrs. Jamieson’s lodge-gate, and she determined, if she could get so far, to take shelter there, as she knew the lodge- keeper to be a kind-hearted woman and a friend of her father’s. Hitherto she had loyally determined to suffer anything rather than disobey her husband, but that her child would be in any danger by her reticence had not occurred to her. Reuben’s conduct, however, had shown her she had been running a great risk, and as she pursued her lonely walk that night she had resolved that though she would keep her husband’s name a secret, she would no longer conceal the fact of her marriage. So as she sat by the road-side she took her wedding-ring, which she wore suspended by a cord round her neck, and put it on her finger. Then she rose and set off again wearily. But the bag was heavy, and she did not know how to carry it as well as the baby. She kept stopping every few minutes and putting it down to rest her aching arm, till at last she put it inside a field and determined to leave it there. If it were stolen she could not help it. All she could hope to do was to reach the Grange Lodge with her baby in safety. She had still half a mile to walk, and the faint feeling came so often that she was obliged constantly to stop and sit down on the bank by the road- side, and each rest was longer than the last. It was now broad daylight, and she expected soon to meet some of the mill hands on the way to their work. If only she could reach the lodge first! They were a rough set, and if they recognised her might be very troublesome. A turn of the road brought her in sight of the lodge, and the sight gave her strength to struggle on till she reached the door. She knocked as loudly as her failing strength would let her, and then sank down on the door-step her baby on her knee, while she exerted every power she possessed to retain con- sciousness, Fortunately the baby woke and cried, and its crying did what Janet’s feeble knock had failed to do: it awoke Mrs. Tanner, the lodge-keeper, who hastened down to see who her early visitors could be. As she opened the door, Janet, knowing the effort she was making was no longer so necessary, fainted, and would have fallen back- wards as the door was opened, but the good woman caught her, and placing her flat on the floor took the baby and put it safely into an easy-chair, while she restored the mother to consciousness. LDOOKS CO = COMM @