Pilgrim laughed. "Master, what a thing to say. The old saying has it: however high the mountain, a traveller's road runs over it; however deep the water, a ferryman is there to take you across."

Here is the proverb, and it is still in use: 山高自有客行路, 水深自有渡船人 — however high the mountain there is a traveller's road over it, however deep the water there is a ferryman to cross it. English reaches for where there is a will there is a way, but the Chinese is not about will at all. It is about precedent: somebody has been here before you and has already worked out the crossing. 那 is nǎ, the interrogative, so 說那裡話 runs literally as where does such talk come from — what a thing to say.

"How could there be no way through? Set your mind at rest and ride on."

豈 is the rhetorical how could, a word that already contains its own answer of no. 通達 is to get through, and it has survived into modern Chinese meaning both a road that connects and a person who is reasonable and worldly-wise. Pilgrim is leaning on both senses at once: of course the mountain has a road, and of course you are being silly.

At these words the elder broke into smiles, shook out the whip, urged the horse forward, and rode straight up onto the high crag.

喜笑花生 will stop a modern reader, because 花生 on its own is the everyday word for peanut. Here the two characters are doing their literal work — 花 flowers, 生 grow — and joy and laughter come into bloom on the old monk's face. 揚鞭策馬, raise the whip and spur the horse, is a set four-character pairing, and its briskness is the point. A few lines back he was frightened. Now 徑, straight, he is riding at the crag.