Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) / Classic Tales and Old-Fashioned Stories

by Unknown

Then Christian and Hopeful thought of their escape from Doubting Castle, and they looked at one another with tears in their eyes. But yet they said nothing to the Shepherds. Now I saw in my dream that the Shepherds brought them to another place, where was a door in the side of a hill, and they opened the door and bid the pilgrims look in. They looked in therefore and saw that within it was very dark and smoky. They also thought that they heard there a rumbling noise as of fire, and a cry as of some in trouble.

Then said Christian, "What means this?"

The Shepherds said, "This is a byway to hell."

And the Shepherds said one to another, "Let us show the pilgrims the gates of the Celestial City, if they have skill to look through our glass."

So they took Christian and Hopeful to the top of another high hill, called Clear, and gave them the glass to look. They tried to look, but the remembrance of that last thing the Shepherds had showed them made their hands shake, so that they could not look steadily through the glass. Yet they thought they saw something like the gate, and also some of the beauty of the place. When they were about to depart, one of the Shepherds gave them a note of the way. Another of them bid them beware when they met the Flatterer. The third bid them take heed that they did not sleep upon the Enchanted Ground. And the fourth bid them "Godspeed." So I awoke from my dream.

And I slept and dreamed again, and I saw the same two pilgrims going down the mountains and along the highway. They went on then till they came to a place where they saw another path that seemed to be as straight as the way which they should go. And here they knew not which of the two to take, for both seemed straight before them, therefore here they stood still to think.

And as they were thinking about the way, behold, a man, black of flesh, but covered with a very light robe, came to them, and asked them why they stood there.

They answered they were going to the Celestial City, but knew not which of these ways to take.

"Follow me," said the man. "It is there I am going."

So they followed him in the path that had joined the way, and this path slowly turned, and at last turned them so far from the City that they wished to go to, that in a little time their faces were turned away from it. Yet they still followed him. But by and by before they knew what had happened, he led them both into a net, in which they were so entangled that they knew not what to do. Then the white robe fell off the black man's back, and they knew that he was the Flatterer and had brought them into his net. Wherefore there they lay, crying some time, for they could not get themselves out. And as they lay weeping in the net, they saw a Shining One coming toward them with a whip of small cord in his hand. When he was come to the place where they were, he asked them whence they came, and what they were doing there.