I observed when the trees had laid their burdened branches overhead, and the thick-flowered bushes begun to straiten our way, that this Mr. Superstition who had desired to accompany us was of a very different courage from that his manner at the inn seemed to profess.

He walked with almost as much caution and ungainliness as Mistrust, his deep and shining eyes busily searching the gloom to left and right of him.  Indeed, those same dark eyes of his reminded me not a little of Mrs. Nature’s, they were so full of what they could not tell.

He was on foot; my new friend Reverie, like myself, led his horse, a pale, lovely creature with delicate nostrils and deep-smouldering eyes.

“You must think me very bold to force my company on you,” said Superstition awkwardly, turning to Reverie, “but my house is never so mute with horror as in these moody summer nights when thunder is in the air.  See there!” he cried.

As if the distant sky had opened, the large, bright, harmless lightning quivered and was gone, revealing on the opposing hills forest above forest unutterably dark and still.

“Surely,” I said, “that is not the way Christian took?”

“They say,” Reverie answered, “the Valley of the Shadow of Death lies between those hills.”

“But Atheist,” I said, “that acid little man, did he indeed walk there alone?”

“I have heard,” muttered Superstition, putting out his hand, “’tis fear only that maketh afraid.  Atheist has no fear.”

“But what of Cruelty,” I said, “and Liveloose?”

“Why,” answered Superstition, “Cruelty works cunningest when he is afraid; and Liveloose never talks about himself.  None the less there’s not a tree but casts a shadow.  I met once an earnest yet very popular young gentleman of the name of Science, who explained almost everything on earth to me so clearly, and patiently, and fatherly, I thought I should evermore sleep in peace.  But we met at noon.  Believe me, sir, I would have followed Christian and his friend Hopeful very willingly long since; for as for Cruelty and Obstinate and all that clumsy rabble, I heed them not.  Indeed my cousin Mistrust did go, and as you see returned with a caution; and a poor young school-fellow of mine, Jack Ignorance, came to an awful end.  But it is because I owe partly to Christian and not all to myself this horrible solitude in which I walk that I dare not risk a deeper.  It would be, I feel sure.  And so I very willingly beheld Faithful burned; it restored my confidence.  And here, sir,” he added, almost with gaiety, “lives my friend Mrs. Simple, a widow.  She enjoys my company and my old fables, and we keep the blinds down against these mountains, and candles burning against the brighter lightnings.”

So saying, Superstition bade us good-night and passed down a little by-lane on our left towards a country cottage, like a dreaming bower of roses beneath the moon.