Page:The Pilgrim's Progress, the Holy War, Grace Abounding Chunk1.djvu/262

258 things of the place, and was ready to take his journey to go to the city, my Lord, as he did to Christian before, gave him a bottle of spirits and some comfortable things to eat. Thus we set forward, and I went before him; but the man was but of few words, only he would sigh aloud.

When we were come to the place where the three fellows were hanged, he said that he doubted that that would be his end also. Only he seemed glad when he saw the Cross and the Sepulchre. There, I confess, he desired to stay a little to look, and he seemed for a while after to be a little cheery. When he came to the Hill Difficulty, he made no stick at that, nor did he much fear the lions: for you must know that his troubles were not about such things as these; his fear was about his acceptance at last.

I got him into the house Beautiful, I think, before he was willing. Also, when he was in, I brought him acquainted with the damsels of the place; but he was ashamed to make himself much in company. He desired much to be alone; yet he always loved good talk, and often would get behind the screen to hear it. He also loved much to see ancient things, and to be pondering them in his mind. He told me afterwards that he loved to be in those two houses from which he came last—to wit, at the gate, and that of the Interpreter but that he durst not be so bold as to ask.

When we went also from the house Beautiful, down the hill, into the Valley of Humiliation, he went down as well as ever I saw a man in my life; for he cared not how mean he was, so he might be happy at last. Yea, I think there was a kind of sympathy betwixt that valley and him; for I never saw him better in all his pilgrimage than he was in that valley.

Here he would lie down, embrace the ground, and kiss the very flowers that grew in this valley. (Lam. iii. 27–29.) He would now be up every morning by break of day, tracing and walking to and fro in the valley.

But when he was come to the entrance of the Valley of the