The Argosy — page 326: what you’re looking at

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

A Rare Case. 309 lengthening the narrative he sought to calm her, and yet knew it would all end as it had ended many times before. ‘It was a summer afternoon and everything was very still and peaceful, and when it came to good-bye between us, he just wrung my hand, and said, ‘ Take care of my wife, Drew, till I come back.’ ” “Till he comes back! Oh, listen to the waves upon the shore!” she cried. ‘* Till he comes back!” and with that fell to bitter weeping. Her distress, which he had seen growing, and which he knew of old would overcome her at the repetition of the words he would have spared her if he could, but which she forced from his lips each time they spoke together, had an odd effect upon Drew. ‘The respectful tone in which he had hitherto addressed her changed at once to one more familiar; he leant down from the cart and patted her upon the shoulder. ‘“* Mattie ! why, Mattie! this will never do. I’ve told you before that it looks as though you did not trust him after all.” ‘*T do trust him,” she sobbed. “Of course you do; who should if we did not, you and I, who know him for a good man?” ‘““That’s what I say!” she exclaimed ; ‘‘ but I like to hear you say it too. I called you in to-day to hear it, Mr. Drew.” ‘“‘ Come over to the farm and hear it there,” he replied. But she stepped back from the cart hurriedly, crying that others did not think as he thought, that he knew as well as she did what others said, and what tale she would hear from them if she went to the farm. Drew, ruefully conscious that “others” meant in this case his sister Eliza, looked somewhat crestfallen for a moment, then cheered up again, and bid the young girl take heart and remember that she had one friend to stand by her still. “You do me good always,” she said at last, with an effort recovering the manner in which she had first addressed him: thereby seeming, as it were, to motion him back again to the greater distance that had appeared to separate them then. ‘“‘ Living alone, I grow faint-hearted at times—never doubting him, you understand; never for one instant doubting him; only fearing he may be dead. What else could keep him from me? Andif it is death, why that is the will of God, and I shall be reconciled to it in time—only, it is weary waiting.” “Wait and trust a while longer, ma’am,” said the farmer; ‘‘we shall know the rights of it all some day. I’ve said so again and again, and I repeat it now. This fog hides the sky, maybe, but the sky’s there all the same. Don’t you get down-hearted, but wait and trust awhile longer.” | He gathered up the reins as he spoke, and with one more cheerful “good-bye ” disappeared along the track leading straight upwards to the crest of the Downs, in which direction his land lay, and the COMICOOO© SS (CO)