GREAT. You came in at the gate, did you not?
VALIANT. Yes, yes; for the same man also told us, that all would be nothing if we did not begin to enter this way at the gate.
GREAT. "Look you," said the guide to Christiana, "the pilgrimage of your husband, with what he has gotten thereby, is spread abroad far and near."
GREAT. Yes, that it is, and these also are his four sons.
VALIANT. What! and going on pilgrimage too?
GREAT. Yes, verily, they are following after.
VALIANT. It glads me at heart. Good man, how joyful will he be when he shall see them that would not go with him, yet to enter after him in at the gates into the City!
GREAT. Without doubt it will be a comfort to him; for, next to the joy of seeing himself there, it will be a joy to meet there his wife and children.
VALIANT. But, now you are upon that, pray let me hear your opinion about it. Some make a question whether we shall know one another when we are there.
GREAT. Do they think they shall know themselves, then? or that they shall rejoice to see themselves in that happiness? And if they think they shall know and do this, why not know others, and rejoice in their welfare also? Again, since relations are our second self, though that state will cease there, yet why may it not be wisely concluded that we shall be more glad to see them there than to see they are wanting?
VALIANT. Well, I perceive whereabouts you are as to this. Have you any more things to ask me about my beginning to come on pilgrimage?
GREAT. Yes. Were your father and mother willing that you should become a pilgrim?
VALIANT. Oh, no; they used all means imaginable to persuade me to stay at home.
GREAT. Why, what could they say against it?
VALIANT. They said it was an idle life; and, if I myself were not inclined to sloth and laziness, I would never favor a pilgrim's condition.
VALIANT. Why, they told me that it was a dangerous way: "Yea, the most dangerous way in the world," said they, "is that which the pilgrims go."
GREAT. Did they show you wherein this way is so dangerous?
VALIANT. Yes; and that in many particulars.
VALIANT. They told me of the Slough of Despond, where Christian was well-nigh smothered. They told me that there were archers standing ready in Beelzebub's castle to shoot them who should knock at the wicket-gate for entrance. They told me also of the wood and dark mountains of the Hill Difficulty; of the lions; and also of the three giants, Bloody-man, Maul, and Slay-good. They said moreover that there was a foul fiend haunted the Valley of Humiliation, and that Christian was by him almost bereft of life. "Besides," said they, "you must go over the Valley of the Shadow of Death, where the hobgoblins are, where the light is darkness, where the way is full of snares, pits, traps, and gins." They told me also of Giant Despair, of Doubting Castle, and of the ruin that the pilgrims met with there. Further, they said I must go over the Enchanted Ground, which was dangerous; and that, after all this, I should find a river, over which I should find no bridge, and that that river did lie betwixt me and the Celestial Country.