But did I laugh? Laugh! ay, and well you might, to see
yourself so well.'
But to return and begin again. Goodwill, who opened the gate, was, as we
saw, a person of a very grave and commanding aspect; so much so, that in
his sudden joy our pilgrim was a good deal overawed as he looked on the
countenance of the man who stood in the gate, and it was some time
afterwards before he understood why he wore such a grave and almost sad
aspect. But afterwards, as he went up the way, and sometimes returned in
thought to the wicket-gate, he came to see very good reason why the
keeper of that gate looked as he did look. The site and situation of the
gate, for one thing, was of itself enough to banish all light-mindedness
from the man who was stationed there. For the gatehouse stood just above
the Slough of Despond, and that itself filled the air of the place with a
dampness and a depression that could be felt. And then out of the
downward windows of the gate, the watcher's eye always fell on the City
of Destruction in the distance, and on her sister cities sitting like her
daughters round about her.
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