The Argosy — page 368: what you’re looking at

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

Verena Fontaine’s Rebellion. 349 her own course, he said. So poor Bazalgette went back as he came—wifeless, It was a pity.” = Why ?” ‘Because this George Bazalgette was a nice fellow,” replied Colonel Letsom. ‘‘An open-hearted, fine-looking, generous man, and desperately in love with her. Miss Verena will not readily find his compeer in a summer day’s march.” ‘As old as Adam, I suppose, Colonel,” interjected Tod. ‘“ Ves—if you choose to put Adam’s age down at three or four and thirty,” laughed the Colonel, as he took his leave. To wait many hours, once she was at Crabb, without laying in a stock of those delectable ‘‘family pills,” invented by the late Thomas Rymer, would have been quite beyond the philosophy of Mrs. Tod- hetley. That first morning, not ten minutes after Colonel Letsom left us, taking the Squire with him, she despatched me to Timberdale for a big box of them. ‘Tod would not come: said he had his flies to see to. Dashing through the ravine and out on the field beyond it, I came upon Jack Tanerton. Good old Jack! The Squire had said Sir Dace was changed: I saw that Jack was. He looked taller and thinner, and the once beaming face had care upon it. ‘Where are you bound for, Jack ?” ‘Not for any place in particular. Just sauntering about.” ‘Walk my way, then. Iam going to Rymer’s.” ‘‘Tt is such nonsense,” cried Jack, speaking of his brother, after we had plunged a bit into affairs. ‘‘ Calling it derogatory, and all the rest of it! JI could be just as much of a gentleman as Ashton’s bailiffas 1am now. Everybody knows me. He gives a good salary, and there’s a pretty house; and I have also my own small income. Alice and I and the little ones should be as happy as the day’s long. If I give in to Herbert and don’t take it, I don’t see what I am to turn to.” ‘But, Jack, why do you give up the seaP” TI asked. And Jack told me what he had told others: he should never take command again until he was a free man. ‘Don’t you think you are letting that past matter hold too great an influence over you?” I presently said. ‘‘ You must be conscious of your own innocence—and yet you seem as sad and subdued as though you were guilty !” ‘IT am subdued because other people think me guilty!” he answered. ‘‘Changed? Iam. It is that which has changed me; not the calamity itself.” “Tack, were I you, I should stand up in the face and eyes of all the world, and say to them, ‘Before God, I did not kill Pym.’ _ People would believe you then. But you don’t do it.” ‘“T have my reasons for not doing it, Johnny Ludlow. God knows what they are; He knows all things. I daresay I may be set right with the world in time: though I don’t see how it is to be done.” COMICOOOKS.C®