As if the distant sky had opened, the large, bright, harmless lightning quivered and was gone, revealing on the opposing hills forest above forest unutterably dark and still.
"Surely," I said, "that is not the way Christian took?"
"They say," Reverie answered, "the Valley of the Shadow of Death lies between those hills."
"But Atheist," I said, "that acid little man, did he indeed walk there alone?"
"I have heard," muttered Superstition, putting out his hand, "'tis fear only that maketh afraid. Atheist has no fear."
"But what of Cruelty," I said, "and Liveloose?"
"Why," answered Superstition, "Cruelty works cunningest when he is afraid; and Liveloose never talks about himself. None the less there's not a tree but casts a shadow. I met once an earnest yet very popular young gentleman of the name of Science, who explained almost everything on earth to me so clearly, and patiently, and fatherly, I thought I should evermore sleep in peace. But we met at noon. Believe me, sir, I would have followed Christian and his friend Hopeful very willingly long since; for as for Cruelty and Obstinate and all that clumsy rabble, I heed them not. Indeed my cousin Mistrust did go, and as you see returned with a caution; and a poor young school-fellow of mine, Jack Ignorance, came to an awful end. But it is because I owe partly to Christian and not all to myself this horrible solitude in which I walk that I dare not risk a deeper. It would be, I feel sure. And so I very willingly beheld Faithful burned; it restored my confidence. And here, sir," he added, almost with gaiety, "lives my friend Mrs. Simple, a widow. She enjoys my company and my old fables, and we keep the blinds down against these mountains, and candles burning against the brighter lightnings."
So saying, Superstition bade us good-night and passed down a little by-lane on our left towards a country cottage, like a dreaming bower of roses beneath the moon.
But Reverie and I continued on as if the moon herself as patiently pursued us. And by-and-by we came to a house called Gloom, whose gardens slope down with plashing fountains and glimmering banks of flowers into the shadow and stillness of a broad valley, named beneath the hills of Silence, Peace.