"Tell me all, Christie, boy," said Treffy, pitifully.
"It's a beautiful place, Master Treffy," said Christie; "you'd be ever so happy and comfortable if you could only get there. But there's no sin allowed inside the gates; that's what the clergyman, said, and what the hymn said too:—
"'There is a city bright,
Closed are its gates to sin.'"
"Then there's no chance for me, Christie," said the old man, "no chance for me."
And hours after that, when Christie thought Treffy was fast asleep on his bed in the corner, he heard his poor old trembling voice murmuring again and again: "Closed are its gates to sin, closed are its gates to sin."
And there was another ear listening to old Treffy's voice. The man at the gate, of whom Bunyan writes, had heard the old man's sorrowful wail, and it went to his very heart. He knew all about old Treffy, and he was soon to say to him, with tones of love, as he opened the gate of rest: "I am willing with all my heart to let thee in."
CHAPTER VI.
THE ONLY WAY INTO "HOME, SWEET HOME."
That week was a very long and sorrowful one to Treffy and to Christie. The old man seldom spoke, except to murmur the sad words of the hymn, or to say to Christie in a despairing voice,—