Their home was now as desolate as their hearts. When Mr. Conscience next called, as he did the day after the funeral, he was at once admitted. They all felt he had come to reproach them, and were greatly relieved when the old gentleman listened with admirable patience, and heard the ladies, especially, tell of all their grief, and renew the story of their bereavements. He had no reproaches for their tears and cries; for nature will speak. He renewed his visits daily; and he whom they dreaded most to see was now looked for with desire. And, when he saw the tender frame of Gertrude droop under the weight of unrelieved anguish, and an intense, ever-constant yearning for the child she had lost, then it was he became urgent for an instant renewal of the pilgrimage to the Celestial City. "You have," said he, "many trials before you; but it is by effort, active effort, that health and peace will be attained. You can go to your children, but they will return to you no more." Mr. Conscience opened the volume of Wordsworth which lay on the centre-table beside the miniature of Lucy, and, folding down a page, rose to leave. "Let me address you in the language of one of the purest poets that the world has ever known," said Mr. Conscience, handing the volume to Gertrude, and, making his adieu, left the house. "Read the page he has folded down, Gertrude," said Annie. And Gertrude read as follows: "They whom you deplore Are glorified; or, if they sleep, shall wake From sleep, and dwell with God in endless love. OUR PILGRIMS SET OUT ANEW. Hope, below this, consists not with belief Beyond the tenderness of human hearts; 313 ; "see! this passage "See!" cried Gertrude, with enthusiasm is underscored, every line of it, by Lucy. It is not Wordsworth who speaks to us now, but Lucy, dear Lucy! tells us this." From the skies she It was with words and consolations such as these old Mr. Conscience won them to commence once more their pilgrimage. Wonderfully were they sustained when this purpose was maturing and being acted on. They had little to detain them in the circles of society in Sterling City. Once more, then, they determined on renewing their pilgrimage. Making the wisest investments they could of their property, and procuring the necessary letters of credit, they made ready to set out. They were certain of this one thing. They never could reach the Celestial City in a coach-and-four, nor by any of the modern modes of locomotion. This journey could be performed by no other method by the rich than by the poor. It must be accomplished, if at all, staff in hand, on foot. They found it hard to set out with nothing but their staffs. Indeed, both husbands and wives had more than one habit and silk-lined cloak, which they felt they must take with them at all hazards. And so it turned out that our pilgrims left the City of Sterling each with a pack on their shoulders as large as that described by Mr. John Bunyan: only these packs were com posed of somewhat different materials, but alike in this: the pack made their journey wearisome, especially in climbing up rocks, and threading narrow defiles. After they had been a week on their journey, they felt greatly invigorated by the exercise. They were more buoyant than they had been since their great troubles. It was the heartfelt joy that they were now nearing their true place of rest, where, with the loved and the lost, the fruition of all their aspirations for purity only could be attained. CHAPTER LVII. THE PILGRIMS GET INTO THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND. As, in the history of the life-long pilgrimage of God's ancient people, but few of the particulars of their trials, temptations, and backslidings, are related, in like manner we shall pass over all that happened to our modern pilgrims until they reached the Great Desert. They had made all the preparations they could for that wilderness which, the Guide-book told them, lay before them. With staffs, and shoes fitted for sharp, flinty, broken stones, known as pilgrims' sandals, they set out for the Celestial City. The path, always straight, was at times very steep to climb and hard to descend. Indeed, as Mr. Conscience had told them in Vanity Fair, it could not be travelled but on foot; and yet it was called OF CARAVANSARIES. 315 "the king's highway." Their previous habits made this route very hard to travel, especially on the recommencement of their journey. But it grew easier as they became in some sort familiar with these ups-and-downs, meeting them morning, noon, and night. Then there were sweet sunny spots of beauty in their pathway, adorned with fragrant flowers, along the roadside; and they grew glad in the consciousness they were walking as pilgrims in all ages have walked. It was a matter of wonder to them now that they could have believed themselves making any advance on their pilgrimage while wandering in foreign lands, and, on returning, to have made their home in the City of Sterling, when, according to the Guide-book, that city is at the greatest distance of all others from the Celestial City. Fewer pilgrims leave that city than any of all known resting-places in the pilgrimage; inasmuch as the passions which make that city attractive become more and more exigent and earnest every day, month, and year, they live in it. Frank Trueman's party had been getting on happily until they began to descend from the table-land, over which the path led them into a moorland waste, flat for days and days, and dreary all around them. The weather, too, became lowering, and not a ray of sunshine did they get. The place, too, where the sun stood in the heavens, could not be told at any hour of the day. Moreover, the caravansaries those places of rest and refreshment, built by the Lord of the Way along the roadside, where pilgrims were usually well provided for, and which were their safe shelter in storms were at very great distances from each other; and no diligence on their part prevented them from being often benighted, and compelled to walk weary miles, in a broken country, in midnight darkness. Now, this was all their own fault; for, though the coach-and-four was left behind, they still were burdened with as much as they could well carry, — for some things, as we have before said, they thought they must have; and, as they could do no better, they had made them up into the smallest possible pack, which was strapped upon their backs. Now, with such burdens, it was no wonder they did not make those long stretches in good time to reach the places of rest while the day lasted. They were told of this, indeed, by pilgrims who passed them with lighter burdens than themselves; for modern pilgrims rarely travel without packs of some sort. In this there is a marked difference between the modern and the Bunyan pilgrims, who, when they set out, bore with them a heavy burden, of which they were relieved, unconsciously to themselves, as they journeyed; whereas, now-a-days, the packs increase rather than diminish, with most pilgrims, as they go forward. The day was declining — it was one of the dull, dark days of which we have spoken when they came to a morass. The sword-like sedges grew thick and high, and the level plain prevented them from making any guess as to its width. They had been following a beaten track over the plain; but, when they came to the swamp, they paused in dubiety, perplexed by the different paths into the swamp. Frank and Gertrude had reached this wall of bulrushes first, and Frank lifted up Gertrude in his arms, the better to view the tracks, and point out the course best to be taken. She told him there were two paths one leading to the right, the other to the left; that the one to the left, though most broken at the edge of the swamp, soon became confused, while that to the right was |