Argosy, Vol. 123, No. 1 — page 19: what you’re looking at

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

THE PROGRESS “ An angel, indeed!” I said, thinking of the beautiful, saintly lady who prayed be- fore that lone altar in Eveleigh Manor. “ Aye, but ye know not all the miracle,”’ said he. ‘‘ Years ago, when I was but a thoughtless youth, playing rebecks and jig- ging on the Lord’s Day, tying cats and howlets in the belfry of a Sunday morning, and muffling the school-bell with wool-- one morning years ago, in Elstow, I was setting a cat and a dog to fight, wagering on the cat, and roaring vile language as I urged her to claw the —’s eyes out, when the door of a small cottage opened and she appeared—the angel!” ‘Indeed she is an angel,’ I repeated. “TI blame you not the error.” ‘‘Error!”? he roared furiously. ‘‘ Hold thy tongue, dolt! No carnal beauty was this, but in truth an angel—the angel of the Lord!” I merely bowed assent to his quaint de- lusion, but exploded when he went on— “In her right hand she held a stew- pan.” Several minutes passed before I made my peace with him and he could proceed. “In her right hand she held a stewpan,” he repeated gravely, but with a severe eye upon me. “‘ Jack Bunyan,’ says she, ‘ it would serve thy soul better if ye tinkered the hole in this stewpan and ceased storing up the evil commissions of thy tongue against the Day of Judgment.’ ” _ This incident, he went on, had a pro- - found effect upon his mind. He felt it to be the direct interposition of that Provi- dence which was repeatedly demonstrating a merciful inclination toward Master Way- ward. | ‘‘ For a time,” said he in a humble voice, “TI gave up playing thé rebeck, even on week-days, forswore gambling, ale, dog- fights, and hockey on Sundays. I even gave up my job as bell-ringer of the EI- stow Episcopal, because I knew in my se- cret heart that it was more carnal joy for Jack Bunyan than for the glory of the Lord. “T turned my thoughts to the means of grace, read and reread the Book till my brains were addled with Scripture, and sat at the feet of my ministering angel, that OF J. BUNYAN. 9 poor orphan girl, mending her stewpans and kettles while she read to me out of a little book she gave me to keep when I left to become a trooper—‘‘ The Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven,” which, alas, I have scarce looked at since; for in the company © of these men of blood I again fell into the- swamp of sin. “But now,” he concluded, as we came within sight of the parliamentary army’s camp, ‘‘ behold the mercy of the Lord! Again the angel appears, a light in my dark, and I am spewed out of a sodden alehouse into her bright presence. “Tell me, sweet youth: is it the finger of Providence, or only that which Master Skeptic calls chance?” During all this rigmarole I had, of course, pictured Mistress Joyce Eveleigh as the angel, although I found it hard to reconcile her dignity with stewpans. Still, her quiet simplicity, her visiting of the poor and sick— | But Hobgoblin presently informed me that is angel was Ruth Prynne, who at the death of her father had left Elstow and -apparently found service with Mistress Eveleigh. Having a thought to closer ac- quaintance with my own angel, I ventured © to suggest to Hobgoblin that he would surely be flying in the face of Providence if he did not follow his trade; that indeed it might be well if he presented himself at the kitchen door of Eveleigh Manor on the morrow, and see if the Lord had not de- creed a few leaky vessels overnight. “By Gog and Magog!” exclaimed Jack Bunyan; “ th’art an inventious youth! On the morrow I shall even borrow a brand and solder and hie me as ye say.” I regretted that I was not a thinker my- self, but—well, Tinker Bunyan might have need of an apprentice! CHAPTER IV. THE ROARING LION. "THERE was a loud uproar in camp as we entered it; bursts of cheering and roars of enthusiasm for Oliver Cromwell, who had just arrived from London Town _ on the heels of the news of his victory over DOOLK (©