tracing the same path,
lodging at the same grave houses, encountering the same terrors, and
yet representing everything as mirrored in a different quality of mind;
the mind of a faithful woman, and of the boys and maidens who walked
with her upon pilgrimage. There was not quite the same romance,
perhaps, but there was more tenderness and sweetness. It came less
from the mind and more from the heart.

Hugh smiled to see how rapidly the dangers of the road must have
diminished, if Mr. Greatheart had often convoyed a party on their way.
That mighty man laid about him with such valour, sliced off the heads
and arms of giants with such cordial good-humour, that there could
hardly, Hugh thought, have been for the next company any adventures
left at all. Moreover so many of the stubborn and ill-favoured persons
had come by a bad end, were hung in chains by the road, or lying
pierced with sorrows, that later pilgrims would have to complain of a
lack of bracing incidents. Still, how delicate and gentle a journey it
was, and with what caressing fondness the writer helped these young and
faltering feet along the way. What pretty and absurd sights they saw!
How laden they were with presents! Christiana had Mr. Skill's boxes,
twelve in all, of medicine, with no doubt a vial or two of tears of
repentance to wash the pills down; she had bottles of wine, parched
corn, figs and raisins from the Lord of the place, to say nothing of
the golden anchor which the maidens gave her, which must have impeded
her movements.

He read with a smile, which was not wholly one of amusement, Mr.
Greatheart's admirable argument as to how the process of redemption was
executed. The Redeemer, it seemed, had no less than four kinds of
righteousness, three to keep, which he could not do without, and one
kind to give away. Every detail of the case was supported by a little
cluster of marginal texts, and no doubt it appeared as logical and
simple to the author as a problem or an equation. But what an
extraordinary form of religion it all was! There was not the least
misgiving in the mind of the author. The Bible was to him a perfectly
unquestioned manifesto of the mind of God, and solved everything and
anything. And yet the whole basis of the pilgrimage was insecure.
There was no free gift of grace at all. Some few fortunate people were
started on pilgrimage by being given an overpowering desire to set out,
while the pleasant party who met at Ma