Page:The pilgrim's progress by John Bunyan every child can read (1909).djvu/100

90 I had thought, dear friend, to have had your company quite from our town; but you did get the start of me, wherefore I was forced to come thus much of the way alone.

How long did you stay in the City of Destruction before you set out after me on your pilgrimage?

Till I could stay no longer; for there was great talk, presently after you were gone out, that our city would, in a short time, with fire from heaven, be burned down to the ground.

What! did your neighbors talk so?

Yes, it was for a while in everybody's mouth.

What! and did no more of them but you come out to escape the danger?

Though there was, as I said, a great talk thereabout, yet I do not think they did firmly believe it. For, in the heat of the talking I heard some of them deridingly speak of you, and of your desperate journey; for so they called this your pilgrimage. But I did believe, and do still, that the end of our city will be with fire and brimstone from above; and therefore I have made my escape.

Did you hear no talk of neighbor Pliable?

Yes, Christian; I heard that he followed you till he came to the Slough of Despond, where, as some said, he fell in; but he would not be known to have so done; but I am sure he was soundly bedabbled with that kind of dirt.