THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

VOL. X—SEPTEMBER, 1862.—NO. LIX.

DAVID GAUNT.

Was ihr den Geist der Zeitenheisst, Das ist im Grund der Herren eigner Geist.—FAUST

PART I.

What kind of sword, do you think, was that which oldChristian had in that famous fight of his with Apollyon, long ago? He cut thefiend to the marrow with it, you remember, at last; though the battle wenthardly with him, too, for a time. Some of his blood, Banyan says, is on thestones of the valley to this day. That is a vague record of the combat betweenthe man and the dragon in that strange little valley, with its perpetualevening twilight and calm, its meadows crusted with lilies, its herd-boy withhis quiet song, close upon the precincts of hell. It fades back, the valley andthe battle, dim enough, from the sober freshness of this summer morning. Lookout of the window here, at the hubbub of the early streets, the freckledchildren racing past to school, the dewy shimmer of yonder willows in thesunlight, like drifts of pale green vapor. Where is Apollyon? does he puthimself into flesh and blood, as then, nowadays? And the sword which Christianused, like a man, in his deed of derring-do?

Reading the quaint history, just now, I have a mind to tellyou a modern story. It is not long: only how, a few months ago, a pooritinerant, and a young girl, (like these going by with baskets on their arms,)who lived up in these Virginia hills, met Evil in their lives, and how it faredwith them: how they thought that they were in the Valley of Humiliation, thatthey were Christian, and Rebellion and Infidelity Apollyon; the different waysthey chose to combat him; the weapons they used. I can tell you that; but youdo not know—do you?—what kind of sword old Christian used, or whereit is, or whether its edge is rusted.

I must not stop to ask more, for these war-days are short,and the story might be cold before you heard it.

* * * * *

A brick house, burrowed into the side of a hill, with redgleams of light winking out of the windows in a jolly way into the winter'snight: wishing, one might fancy, to cheer up the hearts of the freezing stablesand barn and hen-house that snuggled about the square yard, trying to keepwarm. The broad-backed old hill (Scofield's Hill, a famousplace for papaws in summer) guards them tolerably well; but then, house andbarn and hill lie up among the snowy peaks of theVirginian Alleghanies, and you know how they would chill and awe the air.People away down yonder in the river-bottoms see these peaks dim and far-shining,as though they cut through thick night; but we, up among them here, find thenight wide, filled with a pale starlight that has softened for itself out ofthe darkness overhead a great space up towards heaven.

The snow lay deep, on this night of which I tell you,—anight somewhere near the first of January in this year. Two old men, a whiteand a black, who were rooting about the farm-yard from stable to fodder-rack,waded through deep drifts of it.

"Tell yer, Mars' Joe," said the negro, banging thestable-door, "dat hoss ort n't ...