The men stood silent, until the hush was broken by a low murmur:--"For Thou only art holy." Holmes had taken off his hat, unconscious that he did it; he put it on slowly, and walked on. What was it that Knowles had said to him once about mean and selfish taints on his divine soul? "For Thou only art holy": if there were truth in that! "How quiet it is!" he said, as they stopped to leave him. It was,--a breathless quiet; the great streets of the town behind them were shrouded in snow; the hills, the moors, the prairie swept off into the skyless dark, a gray and motionless sea lit by a low watery moon. "The very earth listens," he said. "Listens for what?" said the literal old Doctor. "I think it listens always," said Vandyke, his eye on fire. "For its King--that shall be. Not as He came before. It has not long to wait now: the New Year is not far off." "I've no faith in folding your hands, waiting for it; nor have you either, Charley," growled Knowles. "There's an infernal lot of work to be done before it comes, I fancy. Here, let me light my cigar." Holmes bade them good-night, laughing, and struck into the by-road through the hills. He shook hands with Vandyke before he went,--a thing he scarce ever did with anybody. Knowles noticed it, and, after he was out of hearing, mumbled out some sarcasm at "a minister of the gospel consorting with a cold, silent scoundrel like that!" Vandyke listened to his scolding in his usual lazy way, and they went back into town. The road Holmes took was rutted deep with wagon-wheels, not easily travelled; he walked slowly therefore, being weak, stopping now and then to gather strength. He had not counted the hours until this day, to be balked now by a little loss of blood. The moon was nearly down before he reached the Cloughton hills: he turned there into a narrow path which he remembered well. Now and then he saw the mark of a little shoe in the snow,--looking down at it with a hot panting in his veins and a strange flash in his eye, as he walked on steadily.