fire burned because oil was poured into it from the other side, he perversely turned that fire also against himself.  And when they came to the man in the iron cage, you could not have told whether the miserable man inside the cage or the miserable man outside of it sighed the loudest.  And so on, through all the significant rooms.  The spider-room overwhelmed him altogether, till his sobs and the beating of his breast were heard all over the house.  The robin also when gobbling up spiders he made an emblem of himself, and the tree that was rotten at the heart,—­till the Interpreter’s patience with this so perverse pilgrim was fairly worn out.  So the Interpreter shut up his significant rooms, and had this so troublesome pilgrim into his own chamber, and there carried it so tenderly to Mr. Fearing that at last he did seem to have taken some little heart of grace.  “And then we,” said Greatheart, “set forward, and I went before him; but the man was of few words, only he would often sigh aloud.”

4.  “Dumpish at the House Beautiful” is his biographer’s not very respectful comment on the margin of the history.  There were too many merry-hearted damsels running up and down that house for Mr. Fearing.  He could not lift his eyes but one of those too-tripping maidens was looking at him.  He could not stir a foot but he suddenly ran against a talking and laughing bevy of them.  There was one thing he loved above everything, and that was to overhear the talk that went on at that season in that house about the City above, and about the King of that City, and about His wonderful ways with pilgrims, and the entertainment they all got who entered that City.  But to get a word out of Mr. Fearing upon any of these subjects,—­all the king’s horses could not have dragged it out of him.  Only, the screen was always seen to move during such conversations, till it soon came to be known to all the house who was behind the screen.  And the talkers only talked a little louder as the screen moved, and took up, with a smile to one another, another and a yet more comforting topic.

The Rarity Rooms also were more to Mr. Fearing than his necessary food.  He would be up in the morning and waiting at the doors of those rooms before the keepers had come with their keys.  And they had to tell him that the candles were to be put out at night before he would go away.  He was always reading, as if he had never read it before, the pedigree of the Lord of the Hill.  Moses’ rod, Shamgar’s goad, David’s sling and stone, and what not—­he laughed and danced and sang like a child around these ancient tables.  The armoury-room also held him, where were the swords, and shields, and helmets, and breast-plates, and shoes that would not wear out.  You would have thought you had your man all right as long as you had him alone among these old relics; but, let supper be ready, and the house gathered, and Mr. Fearing was as dumpish as ever.  Eat he would not, drink he would not, nor would he sit at