pilgrim attempted the perilous journey with such a chicken-heart in his
bosom as this Mr. Fearing. He lay above a month on the bank of the
slough, and would not even attempt the steps. Some kind Pilgrims, though
they had enough to do to keep the steps themselves, offered him a hand;
but no. And after they were safely over it made them almost weep to hear
the man still roaring in his horror at the other side. Some bade him go
home if he would not take the steps, but he said that he would rather
make his grave in the slough than go back one hairsbreadth. Till, one
sunshiny morning,--no one knew how, and he never knew how himself--the
steps were so high and dry, and the scum and slime were so low, that this
hare-hearted man made a venture, and so got over. But, then, as an
unkind friend of his said, this pitiful pilgrim had a slough of despond
in his own mind which he carried always and everywhere about with him,
and made him the proverb of despondency that he was and is. Only, that
sunshiny morning he got over both the slough inside of him and outside of
him, and was heard by Help and his family singing this song on the hither
side of the slough: 'He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of
the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.'

Our pilgrim did not have such a good crossing as Mr. Fearing. Whether it
was that the discharge from the city was deeper and fouler, or that the
day was darker, or what, we are not told, but both Christian and Pliable
were in a moment out of sight in the slough. They both wallowed, says
their plain-spoken historian, in the slough, only the one of the two who
had the burden on his back at every wallow went deeper into the mire;
when his neighbour, who had no such burden, instead of coming to his
assistance, got out of the slough at the same side as he had entered it,
and made with all his might for his own house. But the man called
Christian made what way he could, and still tumbled on to the side of the
slough that was farthest from his own house, till a man called Help gave