The Argosy — page 117: what you’re looking at

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

102 The Village Blacksmith. fetch the Archdeacon and tell him she was faint: a message which promptly brought the hen-pecked little man to her side. And not till they were safely off the premises did she tell him the real reason for their early departure. Mark Brown had been told not to expect them home before two o’clock, so he calculated if he could get the other servants to bed early he would have plenty of time to commit the robbery before they returned. He spent almost as restless and nervous an evening as Vera, for the blacksmith’s visit to her disconcerted him, and Reuben’s subsequent conversation with him as he passed through the stable-yard was not calculated to quiet any qualms of conscience or calm any fears of discovery. Reuben took the opportunity of meeting him to warn him that he had been seen several times in the society of a notorious thief, and he accompanied this warning with a sermon on the torments of that place, to which, in his opinion—an opinion he did not scruple to advance—Mark was travelling as fast as possible. He concluded with the comfortable assurance that Mark’s sin would undoubtedly find him out, if not in this world in the next, where the consequences would be as many times worse than if discovered here, as that place to which Mark was travelling was hotter than his furnace. When Reuben, having at last exhausted his eloquence, left, Mark turned his attention to Lion, whom he, with much difficulty, enticed into the stable, where he locked him up: the only result of the blacksmith’s sermon being to make him take extra precautions against discovery. His next anxiety was to get the servants to bed early. But this was a delicate task, since he was obliged to conceal his wishes lest he should rouse any suspicion. Moreover, the servants took advantage of the absence of their master and mistress to have a hot supper ; for mice can afford to toast their cheese when the cat is out; and Mark, though by no means averse to the pleasures of the table, particularly when tripe and onions form an item in the feast as on this occasion, nevertheless thought supper would never end. Vera he knew went to bed early, and at last he had the pleasure of seeing the cook, who was always the last of the servants to retire, take her candle and go yawning up to bed about half-past eleven. Then he smoked a pipe over the kitchen fire, but he was as nervous as a child, and started at every sound. Still he never flinched from his purpose ; he would earn his fifty pounds and spend it on going to Manitoba to see Janet. As the kitchen clock struck twelve he took off his boots and crept up the back stairs in his socks to listen at the doors of the servants’ rooms. All was as quiet as he could desire; not a sound disturbed the silence of the attics. Satisfied that the servants were all sound asleep, he then crept down to Vera’s room and listened at her door. Here all was perfectly quiet, not a sound was audible. But it was rather too early to perform the work he was engaged in, Freeman might not be punctual; Mark would CORNIELOOOL KS 5(eCo)