roll sealed, to comfort me by
reading as I go in the way; I was also bid to give it in at the
celestial gate, in token of my certain going in after it; all which
things I doubt you want, and want them because you came not in at the
gate.

To these things they gave him no answer; only they looked upon each
other, and laughed. Then I saw that they went on all, save that
Christian kept before, who had no more talk but with himself, and that
sometimes sighingly, and sometimes comfortably; also he would be often
reading in the roll that one of the Shining Ones gave him, by which he
was refreshed.

I beheld, then, that they all went on till they came to the foot of the
hill Difficulty, at the bottom of which there was a string. There were
also in the same place two other ways besides that which came straight
from the gate; one turned to the left hand and the other to the right,
at the bottom of the hill; but the narrow way lay right up the hill, and
the name of the going up the side of the hill is called Difficulty.
Christian now went to the spring; and drank thereof to refresh himself,
and then began to go up the hill, saying:

The hill, though high, I covet to ascend;
The difficulty will not me offend;
For I perceive the way to life lies here.
Come, pluck up heart, let's neither faint nor fear.
Better, though _difficult_, the right way to go,
Than wrong, though _easy_, where the end is woe.

The other two also came to the foot of the hill. But when they saw the
hill was steep and high, and that there were two other ways to go; and
supposing also that these two ways might meet again with that up which
Christian went on the other side of the hill; therefore they were
resolved to go in those ways. Now the name of one of those ways was
Danger, and the name of the other Destruction. So the one took the way
which is called Danger, which led him into a great wood; and the other
took directly up the way to Destruction, which led him into a wide
field, full of dark mountains, where he stumbled and fell, and rose no
more.

I looked then after Christian, to see him go up the hill, where I
perceived he fell from running to going, and from going to clambering
upon his hands and his knees, because of the steepness of the place. Now
about midway to the top of the hill was a pleasant arbor, made by the
Lord of the hill for the refreshment of weary travellers. Thither,
therefore, Christian got, where also he sat down to