Page:The pilgrim's progress by John Bunyan every child can read (1909).djvu/263

Rh But met you with no opposition afore you set out of doors?

Yes, a neighbor of mine, one Mrs. Timorous: she was akin to him that would have persuaded my husband to go back for fear of the lions. She all-to-be-fooled me for, as she called it, my intended desperate adventure; she also urged what she could to dishearten me from it—the hardship and troubles that my husband met with in the way; but all this I got over pretty well. But a dream that I had of two ill-looked ones, that I thought did plot how to make me fail in my journey, that hath troubled me much: yea, it still runs in my mind, and makes me afraid of every one that I meet, lest they should meet me to do me a mischief, and to turn me out of my way. Yea, I may tell my Lord, though I would not have everybody know it, that, between this and the gate by which we got into the way, we were both so sorely attacked that we were made to cry out "murder;" and the two that made this attack upon us were like the two that I saw in my dream.

Then said the Interpreter, "Thy beginning is good; thy latter end shall greatly increase." So he addressed himself to Mercy, and said unto her, "And what moved thee to come hither, sweet-heart?"

Then Mercy blushed and trembled, and for a while continued silent.

Then said he, "Be not afraid; only believe, and speak thy mind."