“This dog had bitten J. J. van den Poel’s baby, when playing at his uncle’s house, where the child was holding in his hand a piece of meat, which the dog had seized, and so bitten the child, and thus inflicted a wound on the two fingers of the right hand, through the skin to the flesh, making the blood pour out of the wound, and causing the child to die from this world by the terror thus produced within a few days afterwards.”[42]
Chapter V.
From the stony horrors of Paris, and the serio-grotesque doings of the Batavians, it will be a relief to turn to the imagery of the “Inspired Dreamer”:—
“Now I saw in my dream, that they went on until they were come to the place that Simple, and Sloth, and Presumption, lay and slept in, when Christian went by on pilgrimage: and behold they were hanged up in irons, a little way off on the other side.”
This was written between 1660 and 1670. It is to be observed that the expression is “irons,” and not chains, and that the fact is mentioned in a simple, natural way, as if the mode of punishment was quite usual for grave offences. Christiana says—“They should never be bewailed by me; they have but what they deserve: and I think it well that they stand so near the highway, that others may see and take warning.” And she suggests that their crimes should be engraved on an iron or brass plate, and left “for a caution to other bad men,” which Greatheart told her had already been done. But Mercy, with a lack of tenderness which her name and fine earnest character do not bespeak, cries out, “No, no, let them hang, and their names rot, and their crimes live for ever against them!”
The crimes in question were combination against the truth, and opposition unto holiness, figuratively deserving the highest punishment that could be awarded.