Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 4 — page 146: what you’re looking at

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

652 “ This gentleman,” she said, ‘“ Master Hallam Brooke, whose father, I am told, served and died for the Parliament’s cause on the same field where my father fell on the king’s side—Master Brooke would not have taken authority unto himself had I not won from him a promise that he would tell no man of what he had seen and heard in the manor garden. ‘‘ This, sir, was before he came to realize that the person he had thought my uncle was indeed the king. He might have broken that promise without loss of honor as a gentleman, but he sought rather to save me and his honor as a soldier at the same time by the course he took.” The general pondered the point for a few moments, then smiled in a_ remotely amused way, as a god might over the little problems of little people. ‘““T fear me,” he said, “ justice must be doubly blind when so fair a Portia pleads.” Then he scowled at me. “‘ Get thee gone, lad, to thy company,” said he with a kindly gruffness. ‘I ha’ need o’ brave men, and oft it takes a fool to be the bravest. “T say thou art a fool, boy, to ha’ placed such value on a promise made without knowledge of the involving mat- - ter. But greater men ha’ been no lesser fools when reason fell beauty-struck. _ “Get thee gone to thy duty. And ye may thank, not me, but God and this fair lady—aye, and thy red-haired comrade, who stands reprimanded—that ye do not now dangle, stark-eyed and tongue-tied, on a rope!”’ That night Cromwell’s division of the Parliamentary army marched southwest to join Lord Fairfax in the subjugation of such counties as were yet loyal—nominal- ly, at least—to Charles. It is now common knowledge of how our arms triumphed, scattering the Royalist forces throughout that peninsula extending to Land’s End. And im the rout of Gor- ing’s forces at Langport in Somerset I had the pleasure of knowing that my father’s house was again mine own and that my Lord Fairfax and his staff were quartered there for a time. -s oy GOGSIE ~ "wee enw eee — — '(ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. Swiftly Charles’s forces were beaten in their attempt to relieve Chester. Two months after Naseby, the Royalist cause again suffered defeat at Philiphaugh, while Cromwell in the south tog Basing House and captured the great mainstay of the Royalists, the Marquis of Winchester. In the following spring, to make short of that history which does not affect the rest of this chronicle, the last Royalist rout occurred at Stowe, and in April the king, himself driven from his stronghold at Ox- ford, was again a fugitive. He finally gave: himself up at Newark. to the Scots, who, in January of the following year, yielded him over to Parliament. His trial and execution at London are matters which I do not care to dwell upon. But before these final scenes in that fratricidal war John Bunyan and I (with many others not of the permanent army) were mustered out. And at once we made all haste, a pair of hopeful and eager lov- ers, to Naseby. We had seen neither Mistress Joyce nor Ruth Prynne since that day of our dis- missal from Cromwell’s presence. We had not even had the privilege of a word with them, for it behooved us both to attend strictly to our duties in the hours following Cromwell’s mood of clemency. But now we came once more to Eveleigh Manor and presented ourselves at the kitchen door, playing again that we were tinker and apprentice in search of employ. Of that meeting I shall say little, save that while John and Ruth sat together at the kitchen door I walked with Mistress Joyce in the garden. For, mark ye, I was come. again to her, not this time as a trooper of the opposite side, but as a landed gentleman of that England which was presently to be at peace. And in the church at Naseby, John Bun- yan and his angel were wedded. That is what I was coming to in this conclusion, and for a particular reason. As I see it now, looking backward, that Puritan maid (with her little books) was truly the instrument of John’s finding bim- Ru (G|OOO C EO