“Here be two locks of hair, master, and three strips of a handkerchief, all bloody, as you see,” said the knave, thrusting them across the rails towards the window where Mrs. Juxon and Cuthbert were sitting. At this sight the poor convalescent fainted, and suffered a relapse, which again disturbed his reason. But as the spring opened, his mind was restored to the vigour of his best days. He saw and embraced his privileges as a pardoned penitent, and he willingly prepared to return to his parents. It was plain, indeed, to himself as well as to Juxon, that his earthly pilgrimage could not be long, for consumption had set her deadly mark upon his cheek; and he was oppressed with a cough which he knew he must carry to the grave with him: but, grateful for the blessings of restored peace and hope, he took his last farewell of Juxon, and set forward on his journey home. He travelled down with a train of return pack horses to Bristol, and was five days upon the road. It was the middle of April, but the weather was cold, snowy, and ungenial;--as in some springs there is a brief season of summer heat, so in this there was that sharp and bitter check known among shepherds and countrymen by the name of the black thorn winter. There was a heavy fall of snow on the very day that he rode from Bristol to Glastonbury; and when he alighted at the small hostel where he was to leave his hired horse, all was dull, still and silent. He had passed through empty streets, and he came to an empty yard, where it was long before a lame hostler, with a sack over his shoulder, and a pair of wooden shoes on his feet, came out to take his hack. It was long, again, before he could procure any one to guide him to Priest Hill Cottage;--at last an urchin with a blue face, and his hands in his breeches pockets, was driven out, by a scolding landlady, to show Cuthbert on his way. The north-east wind blew keenly, and drove the snow into his face and neck as he followed the awkward and floundering steps of the stupid and unwilling boy: the distance seemed long; and when they stopped before the wicket of the small cottage, it had a most poor and desolate appearance.