The Argosy — page 298: what you’re looking at

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

The Village Blacksmith. 279 he prided himself was so free from sin, had found admission, had done its work and left its sting behind for all the world to scoff at. Scarcely knowing what he did, Reuben rose from his bed, put on his clothes, and taking the lamp in his hand, crept upstairs with bare feet to Janet’s room. ‘The room was small and the roof so low that a giant like Reuben could not stand upright in it; and the blacksmith with head bent, feeling that if his fears were realised he would never again be able to raise his head in the presence of men, stole noise- lessly across the bare boards, shading the lamp with one hand, to the bed where Janet lay. Alas! it was true; it wasnot a dream. There lay the young mother sound asleep, her lips gently parted, her golden hair thrown up in a heap above her head, a slight flush on her cheeks; and there by her side, one of her fair white arms embracing it, lay the baby wrapped in flannel, one tiny hand grasping its mother’s night-dress. A fairer sight one would scarce wishto look upon; and yet Reuben, trembling in every limb, as he gazed with blanched cheeks upon At, felt he would ten thousand times rather have seen Janet in her ‘grave. And now, ye angels; who stand with folded wings beside that innocent mother and still more innocent child—shield them; for a sudden fierce anger rose in the heart of the unhappy father as he looked on what he thought to be his daughter’s shame; and he ‘raised that mighty fist of his, one blow of which would have slain ‘both mother and child, as though to smite them both. And then ‘he paused ; and after a few moments his raised hand fell harmlessly ito his side, and he turned and left the room. | He went downstairs into the kitchen, set the lamp on the table, and sank into his arm-chair in the chimney-corner, his elbows \propped up on his knees, his face buried in his hands. It was a favourite attitude of his, both in chapel and when praying in bis own yhouse ; but Reuben was not engaged in prayer now. It was the jdarkest hour of his life. Satan was considering him, and his grief was very great. ‘The words of Job, whose book he had been reading that evening, rang in his ears: ‘‘ Let the day perish wherein I was born. Let them curse it that curse the day, for I am as one mocked of.his neighbour. ‘The just, upright man is laughed to scorn.” _ Ah! There lay the sting. ‘ The just, upright man is laughed to scorn.” He, Reuben Foreman, just and upright in his own eyes, in |he eyes of his neighbours, in the eyes of his friends, aye, in the eyes pf his enemies, he was laughed to scorn. Henceforth the finger of scorn would be pointed at him. Numbers whom he scorned in his pride would cast stones at Janet, his beautiful Janet, the apple of jis eye, the pride of his life. No! never should that happen. The Devil, ever ready with }uggestions of evil, whispered a way to silence all gossiping tongues. \No one knew of Janet’s shame but himself, and he supposed, Norah, CORnnICLOO“KS (CO) 5}