And he was especially comforted by Hopeful telling him that there were a great many men of the better sort in Vanity Fair who were now resolved to undertake the pilgrimage to the Celestial City.  Some way beyond Vanity Fair was a delicate plain, called Ease, where Christian and Hopeful went with much content.  But at the farther side of that plain was a little hill, which was named Lucre.  In this hill was a silver-mine which was very dangerous to enter, for many men who had gone to dig silver there had been smothered in the bottom by damps and noisome airs.  Four men from Vanity Fair—­Mr. Money-love, Mr. Hold-the-World, Mr. By-Ends, and Mr. Save-All—­were going into the silver-mine as Christian and Hopeful passed by.

“Tarry for us,” said Mr. Money-love; “and when we have got a little riches to take us on our journey, we will come with you.”

Hopeful was willing to wait for his fellow-townsmen, but Christian told him that, having entered the mine, they would never come out; and, besides, that treasure is a snare to them that seek it, for it hindereth their pilgrimage.  And he spoke truly; for I saw in my dream that some were killed by falling into the mine as they gazed from the brink, and the rest who went down to dig were poisoned by the vapours in the pit.

In the meantime, Christian and Hopeful came to the river of life, and walked along the bank with great delight.  They drank of the water of the river, which was pleasant and enlivening to their weary spirits, and they ate of the fruit of the green trees that grew by the river side.  Then, finding a fair meadow covered with lilies, they laid down and slept; and in the morning they rose up, wondrously refreshed, and continued their journey along the bank of the river.  But the way soon grew rough and stony, and seeing on their left hand a stile across the meadow called By-Path Meadow, Christian leaped over it, and said to Hopeful, “Come, good Hopeful, let us go this way.  It is much easier.”

“I am afraid,” said Hopeful, “that it will take us out of the right road.”

But Christian persuaded him to jump over the stile, and there they got into a path which was very easy for their feet.  But they had not gone very far when it began to rain and thunder and lighten in a most dreadful manner, and night came on apace, and stumbling along in the darkness, they reached Doubting Castle, and the lord thereof, Giant Despair, took them and threw them into a dark and dismal dungeon.  Here they lay for three days without one bit of bread or drop of drink.  On the third day Giant Despair came and flogged them with a great crabtree cudgel, and so disabled them that they were not even able to rise up from the mire of their dungeon floor.  And indeed, they could scarcely keep their heads above the mud in which they lay.

Now Giant Despair had a wife, and her name was Diffidence; and when she found that, in spite of their flogging, Christian and Hopeful were still alive, she advised her husband to kill them outright.  It happened, however, to be sunshiny weather, and sunshiny weather always made Giant Despair fall into a helpless fit, in which he lost for the time the use of his hands.  So all he could do was to try and persuade his prisoners to kill themselves with knife or halter.