man, in his deed of derring-do?

Reading the quaint history, just now, I have a mind to tell you a modern
story. It is not long: only how, a few months ago, a poor itinerant, 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
fared with them: how they thought that they were in the Valley of
Humiliation, that they were Christian, and Rebellion and Infidelity
Apollyon; the different ways they chose to combat him; the weapons they
used. I can tell you that; but you do not know--do you?--what kind of
sword old Christian used, or where it 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 red gleams of
light winking out of the windows in a jolly way into the winter's night:
wishing, one might fancy, to cheer up the hearts of the freezing stables
and barn and hen-house that snuggled about the square yard, trying to
keep warm. The broad-backed old hill (Scofield's Hill, a famous place
for papaws in summer) guards them tolerably well; but then, house and
barn and hill lie up among the snowy peaks of the Virginian 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
the night wide, filled with a pale starlight that has softened for
itself out of the darkness overhead a great space up towards heaven.