Mr. Standfast. At which he called to him
Mr. Greatheart, and said unto him, "Sir, although it was not my hap to be
much in your good company in the days of my pilgrimage, yet, since the
time I knew you, you have been profitable to me. When I came from home I
left behind me a wife and five small children. Let me entreat you, at
your return (for I know that you will go and return to your master's
house in hopes that you may be a conductor to more of the holy pilgrims),
that you send to my family and let them be acquainted with all that hath
and shall happen to me. Tell them, moreover, of my happy arrival to this
place, and of the present late blessed condition I am in, and so on for
many other messages and charges." Yes, Mr. Standfast; very good. But I
would have liked you on your deathbed much better if you had had a word
to spare from yourself and your wife and your children for poor
Greatheart himself, who had neither wife nor children, nor near hope of
heaven, but only your trust and charge and many suchlike trusts and
charges to carry out when you are at home and free of all trust and all
charge and all care. But yours is the way of all the pilgrims--so long,
at least, as they are in this selfish life. Let them and their children
only be well looked after, and they have not many thoughts or many words
left for those who sweat and bleed to death for them and theirs. They
lean on this and that Greatheart all their own way up, and then they
leave their widows and children to lean on whatever Greatheart is sent to
meet them; but it is not one pilgrim in ten who takes the thought or has
the heart to send a message to Mr. Greatheart himself for his own
consolation and support. I read that Mr. Ready-to-halt alone, good soul,
had the good feeling to do it. He thanked Mr. Greatheart for his conduct
and for his kindness, and so addressed himself to his journey. All the
same, noble Greatheart! go on in thy magnanimous work. Take back all
their errands. Seek out at any trouble all their wives and children.
Embark again and again on all thy former battles and hardships for the
good of other men. But be assured that all this thy labour is not in
vain in thy Lord. Be well assured that not one drop of thy blood or thy
sweat or thy tears shall fall to the ground on that day when they that be
wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn
many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. Go b