They took Peter from the wreckagewith scarcely a scar except his twisted leg. Death had smoothed out some of the age in him, and had left his face muchas I remembered it long ago in the Mashonaland hills. In his pocket was his old battered Pilgrim’s Progress. It lies before me as I write, as beside it,for I was his only legatee – the little case which came to him weeks later,containing the highest honour that can be bestowed upon a soldier of Britain.
It was fromthe Pilgrim’s Progress that I readnext morning, when in the lee of an apple orchard Mary and Blenkiron and Istood in the soft spring rain beside his grave. And what I read was the tale of the end, not of Mr Standfast who he hadsingled out for his counterpart, but of Mr Valiant-for-Truth whom he had nothoped to emulate. I set down the wordsas a salute and a farewell:
“Then said he, ‘I am going to my Father’s;and though with great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent me ofall the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to himthat shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him thatcan get it. My marks and scars I carrywith me, to be a witness for me that I have fought His battles who will now bemy rewarder.’
“So he passed over, and all thetrumpets sounded for him on the other side.”
John Buchan, Mr Standfast (Chapter 54). London, Hodder & Stoughton (1919)
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