Bohemian Days: Three American TalesTownsend, George Alfred
General
Bohemian Days: Three American Tales
Townsend, George Alfred
Fiction; Poetry
The inquest was held, and the jury pronounced the double crime murder by
persons unknown, but with strong suspicion resting on Andrew Zane and an
unknown laborer, who had left Pettit's or Treaty Island, at night, in an
open boat with William Zane and Sayler Rainey. A reward was offered for
Andrew Zane and the laborer.
The will of the deceased persons made Andrew Zane full legatee of both
estates, and left a life interest in the Queen Street house, and $2000 a
year to "Agnes Wilt, my ward and housekeeper." The executors of the Zane
estate were named as Agnes Wilt, Rev. Silas Van de Lear, and Duff
Salter. The two dead men were interred together in the old Presbyterian
burial-ground, and after a month or two of diminishing excitement,
Kensington settled down to the idea that there was a great mystery
somewhere; that Andrew Zane was probably guilty; but that the principal
evidence against him was his own flight.
As to Agnes, there was only one respectable opinion--that she was a
superb work of nature and triumph of womanhood, notwithstanding romantic
and possibly awkward circumstances of origin and relation. All men, of
whatever time of life and for whatsoever reason, admired her--the mean
and earthy if only for her mould, the morally discerning for her
beautiful quality that pitied, caressed, encouraged, or elevated all who
came within her sphere.
"Preachers of the Gospel ought to have such wives," said the Rev. Silas
Van de Lear, looking at his son Calvin, "as Agnes Wilt. She is the most
handy churchwoman in all my ministration in Kensington, which is now
forty years. Besides being pious, and virtuous, and humble before God,
she is very comely to the eye, and possesses a house and an independent
income. A wife like that would naturally help a young minister to get a
higher call."
Young Calvin, who was expected to succeed his father in the venerable
church close by, and was studying divinity, said with much cool
maturity:
"Pa, I've taken it all in. She's the only single girl in Kensington
worth proposing to. It's true that we don't know just who she is, but
it's not that I'm so much afraid of as her, her--in short, her piety."
"Piety does not stand in the way of marriage," answered the old man, who
was both bold and prudent, wise and sincere. "In the covenant of God
nothing is denied to his saints in righteousness. The sense of wedded
pleasure, the beauty that delights the eye, love, appetite, children,
and financial independence--all are ours, no less as of the Elect than
as worldly creatures. The love of God in the heart warms men and women
toward each other."
"Oh, as to that!" exclaimed Calvin, "I've been warmed toward Miss Agnes
since I was a boy. I think she is superb. But she is a little too good
for me. She looks at me whenever I talk to her, whereas the proper way
of humility would be to look down. She has been in love with Andrew
Zane, you know!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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