Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 | Page 9

silver voice, that breathed through lips made only to smile.
Let me own, that I was greatly struck by so remarkable a combination
of rare endowments; and this, I think, the sharp-eyed rector must have

perceived, or he might not perhaps have been so immediately
communicative with respect to the near prospects of his idolised
grandchild, as he was the moment the young lady, after presiding at the
breakfast-table, had withdrawn.
'We shall have gay doings, Mr Tyrrel, at the rectory shortly,' he said.
'Next Monday three weeks will, with the blessing of God, be Agnes
Townley's wedding-day.'
'Wedding-day!'
'Yes,' rejoined the rector, turning towards and examining some flowers
which Miss Townley had brought in and placed on the table. 'Yes, it
has been for some time settled that Agnes shall on that day be united in
holy wedlock to Mr Arbuthnot.'
'Mr Arbuthnot of Elm Park?'
'A great match, is it not, in a worldly point of view?' replied Mr
Townley, with a pleasant smile at the tone of my exclamation. 'And
much better than that: Robert Arbuthnot is a young man of a high and
noble nature, as well as devotedly attached to Agnes. He will, I doubt
not, prove in every respect a husband deserving and worthy of her; and
that from the lips of a doting old grandpapa must be esteemed high
praise. You will see him presently.'
I did see him often, and quite agreed in the rector's estimate of his
future grandson-in-law. I have not frequently seen a finer-looking
young man--his age was twenty-six; and certainly one of a more
honourable and kindly spirit, of a more genial temper than he, has
never come within my observation. He had drawn a great prize in the
matrimonial lottery, and, I felt, deserved his high fortune.
They were married at the time agreed upon, and the day was kept not
only at Elm Park, and in its neighbourhood, but throughout 'our' parish,
as a general holiday. And, strangely enough--at least I have never met
with another instance of the kind--it was held by our entire female
community, high as well as low, that the match was a perfectly equal

one, notwithstanding that wealth and high worldly position were
entirely on the bridegroom's side. In fact, that nobody less in the social
scale than the representative of an old territorial family ought, in the
nature of things, to have aspired to the hand of Agnes Townley,
appeared to have been a foregone conclusion with everybody. This will
give the reader a truer and more vivid impression of the bride, than any
words or colours I might use.
The days, weeks, months of wedded life flew over Mr and Mrs
Arbuthnot without a cloud, save a few dark but transitory ones which I
saw now and then flit over the husband's countenance as the time when
he should become a father drew near, and came to be more and more
spoken of. 'I should not survive her,' said Mr Arbuthnot, one day in
reply to a chance observation of the rector's, 'nor indeed desire to do
so.' The gray-headed man seized and warmly pressed the husband's
hand, and tears of sympathy filled his eyes; yet did he, nevertheless, as
in duty bound, utter grave words on the sinfulness of despair under any
circumstances, and the duty, in all trials, however heavy, of patient
submission to the will of God. But the venerable gentleman spoke in a
hoarse and broken voice, and it was easy to see he felt with Mr
Arbuthnot that the reality of an event, the bare possibility of which
shook them so terribly, were a cross too heavy for human strength to
bear and live.
It was of course decided that the expected heir or heiress should be
intrusted to a wet-nurse, and a Mrs Danby, the wife of a miller living
not very far from the rectory, was engaged for that purpose. I had
frequently seen the woman; and her name, as the rector and I were one
evening gossipping over our tea, on some subject or other that I forget,
came up.
'A likely person,' I remarked; 'healthy, very good-looking, and one
might make oath, a true-hearted creature. But there is withal a timidity,
a frightenedness in her manner at times which, if I may hazard a
perhaps uncharitable conjecture, speaks ill for that smart husband of
hers.'
'You have hit the mark precisely, my dear sir. Danby is a sorry fellow,

and a domestic tyrant to boot. His wife, who is really a good, but
meek-hearted person, lived with us once. How old do you suppose her
to be?'
'Five-and-twenty perhaps.'
'Six years more than that. She has a son of the name of Harper by a
former marriage, who is in his tenth year.