Argosy, Vol. 123, No. 2 — page 79: what you’re looking at

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

THE PROGRESS OF J. BUNYAN. backed defiantly against the wall, his feet surrounded by burning sticks and live coals. The air was think with smoke and dust. The guards stood amazed, waiting instruc- tions from Captain Bombard, who sorrow- fully shook his head: | ‘‘ Ah, lad, lad!” he sighed. ‘“ Thou art in evil case. I leave thee to thine own_re- flections.” With such acknowledgment of defeat he ordered us all out, himself withdrawing and locking the cell door after him. _ ‘Turn- ing to me, he said: “Do ye Trooper Brooke stand guard over him. Mayhap, as y’are his friend, . ye may help him te better thinking.”’ So I spent the rest of that night sitting on a stool outside Jack Bunyan’s cell. I tried to engage him in conversation, but he refused to engage, applying himself gicomily to his book or falling into long spells of brooding reverie. ~ Toward morning I dozed on my stool, but was awakened just as dawn began to steal through the prison alley, by a touch of Jack’s big hand through the bars. “Lad,” said he, with ponderous solem- nity, “I have reasoned all through the night, and to this conclusion have I come: “ Rather do I wish there were no Hell, or I were one of the devils in it. For mark ye, Master Innocent: ‘tis human to wish one might be a tormentor rather than one of the tormented.” I tried to cheer him with the reminder that in another hour his twelve-pen’orth of confinement would be at an end. “And then, friend Jack,” I said, “ it may be by this time there is a stewpan in need of tinkering at Eveleigh Manor.” ‘‘ Aye, aye,” said he, brightening some- what. ‘And I shall see the angel again. And ye will be my company, lad, lest again I fall by the wayside?” “That I shall, Jack!” I said, “for I would profit much by further sight of the angel myself.” It was not that morning after all, but on the second after Jack’s release from dur- ance, that we paid our oft-postponed visit to Eveleigh Manor. In the meantime we troopers were en- 211 gaged in a king-hunt. Manchester and Essex, the earls who had previously com- manded the Parliamentary army, had been deposed in favor of Fairfax and Cromwell because the policy of the two lords had been, not to crush Charles absolutely, but merely bring him to reason by a demon- stration of force. This weak policy had been disastrous, contributing in considerable measure to successive royalist victories. Fairfax and Cromwell, backed at last by Parliament, had determined not only to smash Charles’s forces (as they had done at Naseby), but capture the person of the king himself and bring him not so much to reason, as to trial as a traitor to his own realm. This determination was the more iron bound when, in the rout after Naseby, the king’s baggage was captured, and it was discovered, from numeseus documents seized, that he had been double-dealing not only with friend and enemy at home, but with England’s foes abroad. The welfare of England apparently was second to the ‘safety of his skin and the saving of his crown, together with the “ divine” pre- rogatives of the latter. So, during the next few days we were kept scouring in all directions to the north and west for tidings of the king. But in the confusion after Naseby there was no certainty of the direction the fugitive mon- arch had taken. That he was reported to have been in several far apart places at the same time, proved that no one likely to in- form, knew where he was. The second morning after Hobgoblin’s release from the guardhouse found us both off duty for a few hours and at the same time. Whereupon we seized our oppor- tunity and repaired to the kitchen door. of Eveleigh Manor. In response to Jack’s rather timid knock the door was opened by an old serving-man who was white-haired and not without a certain gentle dignity for one of his prob-. able station in life. He must have been nearly seventy years old. At sight of our Roundhead dress he stiffened up and his eye greeted us in no friendly fashion. “Your business with this house?” he asked sharply, but not discourteously. comiclboool CO