The Argosy — page 108: what you’re looking at

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

eS — The Village Blacksmith. 93 consent to the marriage if he could persuade his wife to allow him to do so. He saw Vera’s home life was by no means a happy one, and his conscience told him she was not to blame. Perhaps, too, now that the Archdeaconry had been offered him he saw less need for opposing the marriage ; it would not retard his promotion since that had already come. So the storm ended in what was really an armed peace, for Mrs. Ryot-Tempest, though bent on mischief, was in her sweet@st mood when they next met; and Vera, gathering from one or two remarks of her father’s that he meant to relent, was prepared to bear with her stepmother’s moods for the short time she was to remain at home. It seemed, however, that she would not have much to put up with, for Mrs. Ryot-Tempest was most amiable. She refrained from reproaching Vera for riding alone when she heard of her adventure, and only regretted she had not given the man in charge lest he should turn out to bea burglar; she agreed with her husband that his new revolver was certainly an acquisition and must be kept loaded in his dressing-room, where her jewel-case always stood ; and she made even more fuss over Lion than Vera herself did. Vera was now allowed to ride, with Lion as her sole but efficient protector, without any opposition; and, a few days after the storm in the study, she paid Reuben a visit at the forge on her way home from one of her rides. It was the Saturday before Easter. Mrs. Ryot-Tempest was engaged in superintending the decoration of the church, and her husband was gone to lunch with his bishop and sign the deeds and go through the formalities which constituted him Archdeacon, in which character he was to appear for the first time on Easter-day. Everyone was busy except Vera, the blacksmith included; but he left his anvil to come out and talk to his beautiful visitor, of whom he had become very fond since Janet left him childless. He felt that the fact that he had saved her life bridged the social gulf between them more firmly than the fact that Janet had married Rex. Reuben was looking almost himself again ; a shade greyer, a shade graver, a shade older than before his illness ; but still a fine, hand- some giant of a man, strong as a tower, hardly past the prime of life —a goodly sight, with his bare, brawny, sinewy arms, his tawny beard and blue eyes. Lion rubbed his great head against the blacksmith’s knees in token of friendship, and Vera looked admiringly at both. ‘I think you and Lion are alike, Reuben; you are both giants, and you are both strong, and you have both saved my life. At least, you saved my life, and Lion saved my watch the other day,” said Vera. ‘Indeed, Miss Vera; how did he do that?” Vera told the story of her adventure, the blacksmith listening eagerly. “What was the fellow like, Miss Vera?” he said when Vera finished. GomilGoaooks (SO) im