The Argosy — page 291: what you’re looking at

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

The Key of the Church. 277 ‘“Mack leaves belongings of his in the barn occasionally,” said Tod to me, as we walked home together. ‘‘ We'll look to-morrow night.” It was our best hope. Failing that, there would be no possibility of getting 2 smock-frock anywhere ; and Fred would have to escape in his coat turned inside out, or something of that. His own trousers, hitched up, and plastered with mud at the feet, would do very well, and his own wide-awake hat, pulled low down on his face. SE OE EE ES Saturday. And Tod and I with our work before us. Gisby was sinking fast. Late in the afternoon I went to the Parsonage. Fortune favoured me—as it seemed to have fivoured us throughout. Edna Blake was alone in the schoolroom in her lilac print dress, looking over about a wheelbarrow-full of socks and stockings. Her large dark eyes looked as sad and big as the hole she was darning; and her voice had a hopeless ring in it. ‘Oh, Johnny, how you startled me! Have—have you come to tell me anything ? ” “Yes,” I said, dropping my voice. “I have brought you a mes- sage from Fred Westerbrook.” Down went the socks ina heap. “Oh, Johnny!” “Hush! No: he is not taken; he is in safe hiding. What’s more, Edna, he is no more guilty than I am. He met the poachers acci- dentally that night just before the affray, and he never had a gun in his hands at all.” A prolonged, sobbing sigh, as if she were going to choke, and then a glad light in her eyes. She took up her work again. I went over to the seat next her, and told her all. She was darning all the while. With such a heap of mending the fingers must keep on. ‘¢To America !” she repeated, in answer to what I said. ‘ What is he going to do for money to carry him thither ? ” *‘ He talks of working his passage over. He has enough money about him, he says, to take him to the coast. Unfortunately, neither Tod nor I can help him in that respect. We have brought empty pockets from school, and shall get no money before the time of going back again. Will you go in and see him, Edna?” “Yes,” she said, after a minute’s consideration. “TI will bring a roll of music in my hand, as you suggest, Johnny, for the satisfaction of Clerk Bumford’s curiosity. And I will be at the stile as near eight o'clock as I can, if you will come out there to meet me.” The dinner was later than usual that night; it struck half-past seven before we got out, having secured another bottle of beer. The moon was rising behind the trees as we went into the barn. Tod struck a match, and we looked about. Yes, Fortune was with us still, Hanging on the shaft of the cart, was Mack’s smock-frock. ecomniclooolkks _ (CO)