Putting out all his strength, Christian quickly got up with Faithful. Then I saw in my dream they went very lovingly on together, and had sweet discourse of all things that had happened to them in their pilgrimage; for they had been neighbours in the City of Destruction, and both of them were bound for the Delectable Mountains, and the Celestial City beyond. They were now in a great wilderness, and they walked on together till they came to the town of Vanity, at which a fair is kept all the year long, called Vanity Fair.
II.--Vanity Fair
I saw in my dream that Christian and Faithful tried to avoid seeing Vanity Fair; but this they could not do, because the way to the Celestial City lies through the town where this lusty fair is kept. About 5,000 years ago, Beelzebub, Apollyon, and the rest of the fiends saw by the path which the pilgrims made, that their way lay through the town of Vanity. So they set up a fair there, in which all sorts of vanity should be sold every day in the year. Among the merchandise sold at this fair are lands, honours, titles, lusts, pleasures, and preferments; delights of all kinds, as servants, gold, silver, and precious stones; murders and thefts; blood and bodies, yea, and lives and souls. Moreover, at this fair, there are at all times to be seen jugglings, cheats, games, plays, fools, apes, knaves, and rogues, and that of every sort.
When Christian and Faithful came through Vanity Fair everybody began to stare and mock at them, for they were clothed in a raiment different from the raiment of the multitude that traded in the fair, and their speech also was different, and few could understand what they said. But what amused the townspeople most of all was that the pilgrims set light by all their wares.
"What will ye buy? What will ye buy?" said one merchant to them mockingly.
"We buy the truth," said Christian and Faithful, looking gravely upon him.
At this some men began to taunt the pilgrims, and some tried to strike them; and things at last came to a hubbub and great stir, and all the fair was thrown into disorder. Thereupon, Christian and Faithful were arrested as disturbers of the peace. After being beaten and rolled in the dirt, they were put into a cage, and made a spectacle to all the men of the fair. The next day they were again beaten, and led up and down the fair in heavy chains for an example and terror to others.
But some of the better sort were moved to take their part; and this so angered the chief men in the town that they resolved to put the pilgrims to death. They were therefore indicted before the Lord Chief Justice Hategood with having disturbed the trade of Vanity Fair, and won a party over to their own pernicious way of thinking, in contempt of the law of Prince Beelzebub. Mr. Envy, Mr. Superstition, and Mr. Pickthank bore witness against them; and the jurymen, on hearing Faithful affirm that the customs of their town of Vanity were opposed to the spirit of Christianity, brought him in guilty of high treason to Beelzebub. No doubt, they would have condemned Christian also; but, by the mercy of God, he escaped from prison, being assisted by one of the men of the town, named Hopeful, who had come over to his way of thinking.
Faithful was tied to a stake, and scourged, and stoned, and burnt to death. But I saw in my dream that the Shining Ones came with a chariot and horses, and made their way through the multitude to the flames in which Faithful was burning, and put him in the chariot, and, with the sound of trumpets, carried him up through the clouds, and on to the gate of the Celestial City.
So Christian was left alone to continue his journey; but I saw in my dream that, as he was going out of the town of Vanity, Hopeful came up to him and said that he would be his companion. And thus it ever is. Whenever a man dies to bear testimony to the truth, another rises out of his ashes to carry on his work.