Argosy, Vol. 123, No. 2 — page 90: what you’re looking at

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

222 sides. The only weapon ye draw, then, is in behalf o’ thine own skin?” | The twinkle in Richard Eveleigh’s eyes became a fire of resentment. He tilted the point of the pistol which he had previously lowered. “Be very careful, Master Roundhead!” said he. ‘‘ My humor brooks no insolence from churls. Yet I make answer simply that I was not trained to violence.” ‘Neither have I heard aright, was thy brother, the late Sir William Eveleigh,”’ said Bunyan scornfully. ‘“‘ Like thee, he was in sympathy with the king. Unlike thee, Master Weakspine, he fought for his king, and, they do tell me, laid down his life for him on Marston Moor.” Eveleigh’s face became very pale at. this taunt. His right arm stiffened, and the pistol was again leveled straight at Hob- ‘goblin’s face. I blamed myself for not having taken a hand in the matter while yet there was time. Now I dared not make an open move. Quicker than any action of mine would be the pressure of a finger on that trigger. All I could do was draw, cock and carefully aim my own pistol at Master Eveleigh’s heart. But I could not hope that my bullet would reach him before his found Jack Bunyan, and I was loth to shoot Joyce’s uncle without actual prove- cation. “Be seated!” commanded Eveleigh, sighting along the pistol-barrel. “Nay,” said Bunyan stolidly. ‘I feel more of a man standing. But thy weapon frights me not, Master Weakspine. My trust is in the Lord. Thy pistol would miss fire or its ball miss me!” For a few moments Eveleigh stared at the man, puzzled. Then he laughed, un- cocked, and tossed the pistol on the weather-worn table at his right and said:| “Thou ranting predestinist! What can aman do against such? And I like not cold killing.” “ Ranting predestinist!” growled Bun- yan. ‘“ Ye speak as one without under- standing. To my mind ’tis ranting liturgy is the abomination, such as ye do practise most like, who worship the Most High by rule, as if a man’s soul as well as his tongue should be shaped in artifice. How shall a - THE ARGOSY, man call his soul his own when the expres< sion of every other man’s is set forth for him by the king’s law and writ down in a book!” ‘How say ye?” Eveleigh queried sharply, himself appearing to forget the oddity of argument with a man he had but newly met and at whose head he had scarce done levelling a horse-pistol. “ There you are wrong, my round-headed, narrow-brained friend. For mark ye, all men are not alike. some ha’ power to think and some ha’ not. Thus ’tis the duty of a king and such as are his ministers to think for the unlettered and unversed of his realm.” “Then,” said John naively, “ ’twere folly for dolts like me and my kind to do aught in the way of thinking, leaving the matter to them that make a profession of it. But by what right does a king so act? Granting that he may ha’ control over our subject bedies, by what authority do he usurp God’s sovereignty over a man’s soul?” ‘There is a divine right,” said Eveleigh, “ whereby a Christian king is, in his person, God’s anointed minister over all those com- mitted to his charge.” And then to my great amusement, inter- est and entertainment, these two oddly matched individuals entered into a most fervid argument on a variety of subjects— a chain of things, one linking on with the other. They waxed hot on kings, com- moners, pomps, vanities, carnal sins, di-ine rights, people’s rights, freedom of con- science, and the exercise of personal con- viction. Bunyan was, as his went, thunderously argumentative; Eveleigh witty, and, as the debate went on, seeming to enjoy the en- counter immensely. In the battle of words Hebgoblin clearly forgot what he came for, and Eveleigh his first alarm at the appearance of a Round- head in the privacy of that garden. But I had not forgotten anything. While I sat in that tree I was filled with a great curiosity to know by what strange circum- stance, designed or accidental, these twe had fallen together, and what the upshot would be. 7 Several questions kept recurring in my mind. Why had Ruth Prynne summoned Co DOO AMG S C@