And so at my request he sot down on the veranda, and we had a little talk. I guess, too, he was dretful willin’ to talk with me, so’s to sort to waste the time and linger till Genieve got back. And before some time had passed away I turned the conversation onto that skeme of hisen. I had hearn a sight about it first and last, and kinder hankered to-day (for reasons given prior and beforehand) to hear more. And he went on perfectly eloquent about it—he couldn’t help gettin’ all worked up about it every time he got to talkin’ about it; and yet he talked with good sound sense, and he see all the dangers and difficulties in the way, and his mind wuz sot on the best way of surmountin’ and gettin’ over ’em. Genieve’s mind wuz such she naterelly looked so sort o’ high that she couldn’t see much besides the sun-lit glorified mountains of the high lands and the beauty of the Gole. But Victor see the rough road that led down through rocky defiles and through the deep wilderness; he see and counted all the lions that wuz in the path between this and the Promised Land, and his hull mind wuz sot on gettin’ by ’em and slayin’ ’em; but he heard their roars plain, every one of ’em. The name of the two biggest lions that lay in the road ahead of him a roarin’ at him wuz Ignorance and Greed. One of ’em had black skin, black as a coal, and the other wuz light-complected. How to get by them lions wuz his first thought, for they lay watchin’ every move he made at the very beginnin’ of the road that led out to Canaan. The animal Ignorance wuz too gross and heavy and sensual to even try to get out of the path where it must have known it wuz in danger of bein’ crushed to death and trampled down; it wuz too thick-headed to even lift its eyes and look off into a more sun-lighted place; it lay there, down in the dark mud, as heavy, as lifeless, as filthy as the dark soil in which it crouched. Its huge black form filled up the way; how could Victor and them like him lift it up, put life and ambition in its big, heavy carcass, and make it move off and let the hosts go forward? The beast Greed lifted its long neck and fastened its fiery eyes on Victor and his peers, and its mighty arms, tipped with a thousand sharp claws and talons, wuz lifted up to keep them back—force them back into the prison pens of servitude. Victor see all this that Genieve couldn’t see, not bein’ made in that way; he see it, but, like Christian in his march to the Beautiful City, he wuz determined to press forward. And as I sot there and looked at him and hearn him talk, I declare for’t I got all rousted up myself with his project, and I felt ready, and told him so, to help him all I could consistently with my duties as a pardner and a member of the Methodist meetin’ house.