THE SAD SITUATION OF THE STRAYING PILGRIMS. 119

CHR. I am glad I have with me a merciful brother; but we must not stand here; let us try to go back again.

HOPE. But, good brother, let me go before.

CHR. No, if you please, let me go first, that if there be any danger, I may be first therein, because by my means we are both gone out of the way.

They are in

of

danger drowning as back.

HOPE. No, said Hopeful, you shall not go first, for your mind being troubled may lead you out of the way again. Then for their encouragement they heard the voice of one saying, "Let thine heart be towards the highway, even the way that thou wentest; turn again," Jer. xxxi. 21. But by this time the waters were greatly risen, by reason of which the way of going back was very dangerous. (Then I thought that it is easier going out of the way when we are in, than going in when we are out.) Yet they adventured to go back; but it was so dark, and the flood was so high, that in their going back they had like to have been drowned nine or ten times.

they go

They sleep in

Giant Despair.

Neither could they, with all the skill they had, get again to the stile that night. Wherefore at last, lighting under a little shelter, they sat down there until the the grounds of day brake; but, being weary, they fell asleep. Now there was, not far from the place where they lay, a castle, called Doubting-castle, the owner whereof was Giant Despair, and it was in his grounds they now were sleeping: wherefore he, getting up in the morning early, and walking up and down in his fields, caught Christian and Hopeful asleep in his grounds. Then with a grim and surly voice he bid them awake, and asked them whence they were, and what they did in his grounds. They told him they were pilgrims, and that they had lost their

120

He

GIANT DESPAIR SEIZES THEM AND CONFINES THEM.

them in his

grounds, and

carries them

to Doubting

castle.

finds way. Then said the giant, You have this night trespassed on me by trampling in and lying on my grounds, and therefore you must go along with me. So they were forced to go, because he was stronger than they. They also had but little to say, for they knew themselves in a fault. The giant, therefore, drove them before him, and put them into his castle, into a very dark dungeon, nasty, and stinking to the spirits of these two men. Here,

The grievous

then, they lay from Wednesday morning till Saturness of their day night, without one bit of bread or drop of imprisonment. drink, or light, or any to ask how they did: they were, therefore, here in evil case, and were far from friends and acquaintance, Psa. lxxxviii. 18. Now in this place Christian had double sorrow, because it was through his unadvised haste that they were brought into this distress.

Now Giant Despair had a wife, and her name was Diffidence so when he was gone to bed, he told his wife what he had done, to wit, that he had taken a couple of prisoners, and cast them into his dungeon for trespassing on his grounds. Then he asked her also what he had best to do further to them. So she asked him what they were, whence they came, and whither they were bound, and he told her. Then she counselled him, that when he arose in the morning he should beat them without mercy. So when he arose, he getteth him a grievous crabtree cudgel, and goes down into the dungeon to them, and there first falls to rating of them as if they were dogs, although they never gave him a word of distaste. Then On Thursday he falls upon them, and beats them fearfully, in Giant Despair such sort that they were not able to help themselves, or to turn them upon the floor. This done,

beats his prisoners.