The Argosy — page 300: what you’re looking at

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

An Incident on Fubilee Night. 279 Joe took things very quietly ; but at about half-past eight o’clock he lighted his pipe and strolled up to the common. | Then Marjory was quite alone with her boy. She went up into the nursery and looked at him as he lay asleep in his cradle, with both tiny arms thrown up over his head, an invariable sign with him that he was sound asleep. ‘‘ Moosie” lay on the hearthrug and was sound asleep too, and Marjory left them both without dis- turbing them, carefully leaving the door open that she might hear the faintest cry. It was dark by this time, and when she peeped out of the drawing- room windows before lighting the lamp, she could see a glow in the sky. The Hutch stood on a steep hill, and by going up just to the other end of the garden, not twenty yards away, Marjory would be able to see the bonfire burning on the common. She did not forget her boy, but she knew that no harm could possibly come to him during the few moments she would be away; and so she ran out of the front door, leaving it open behind her. As she hurried up the path a sudden gust of wind came, and she heard aloud slam. It surely could not be the front door? In- stantly turning back again, she reached the door, to find that during her momentary absence it had indeed blown-to, and that now no efforts of hers could possibly avail to open it. Her feelings baffle description. Her boy was alone within, and she was alone without, unable by any means whatsoever, and however great his need of her, to reach him until her husband returned with the latch-key ; for well she remembered that before he started out he had gone round to all the doors and windows in the house, like the careful fellow he was, and seen that they were securely fastened. Marjory sat down on the doorstep and fairly cried in her distress. Then she went round to the back of the house, and stood beneath the nursery windows. They were tightly closed, and the drawn blinds seemed to shut her off more completely than ever from her darling. The village clock struck nine. She could scarcely at the earliest expect her husband’s return in less than an hour, and if ever time can overstep its natural limits and spread itself out indefinitely, surely that hour was abnormally prolonged to Marjory. She thought once of going down to the village and seeing if she could find a workman who would force the door for her, but it was unlikely that anyone would be at home on that particular night ; and, moreover, she could not make up her mind, powerless as she was, to leave the house. She had no wrap of any sort, and she was very cold indeed without being conscious of it, as she stood wearily beneath the nursery window, straining her ears to catch the sound of acry within. But all was silent. At length, borne over the common by the night breezes, a faint echo of the strains of the National Anthem reached her, and then conniclooolkks (C(O)