"Oh, what a long and dreary way did he find it! The first half-mile was tolerably level, but the next two miles and a half were all uphill, only with a very little going down sometimes. The sun was shining without clouds, and his bones were sore, and he was getting hungry; and what was worse than all, his heart was very sad, and the road was solitary. He scarcely met anyone, excepting a party of people with asses; still he often caught sight of the round hill, and found himself getting nearer to it: he thought it looked higher, and higher, and higher as he went on, and he had to go beyond it. It was quite noonday before he reached the foot of it; and there he had to ask a man, who was breaking stones on the road, the nearest way to the common. The man showed him a deep lane a little further, up which he was to go, and when he had got to the end of it, he saw the common and the rabbit-burrows, and sheep, and geese, and many cottages. He asked at many doors before he could learn where nurse lived; but when he saw her house he was pleased, because it looked larger and neater than the others, and he thought there would be room for him. It stood in a pretty garden, surrounded with a neat quickset hedge, nicely shorn. "He opened the wicket-gate without fear, and walked up to the door. He saw a neat kitchen within, for the door was half open; he knocked, and called, 'Is nurse at home?' No one answered at first, but soon he heard a step, and nurse's daughter-in-law appeared. "She was a tall, hard-looking woman, and the first words she said, were: "'Surely it is not you, Master Low, and in such a plight? Why, you have been a-fighting.' "'I want nurse,' said Bernard. "'What, mother-in-law?' answered the woman; 'you can't see her.' "'Why?' answered Bernard. "'She is sick in bed,' said the woman. "'Let me go up and see her, if you please,' said Bernard. "'You can't do no such thing,' said the woman; 'she is not in the house, and if she was she could not have much to say to you. Has not Miss Grizzy forbid her to come about you? and times are hard, Master Low. You has run away from school, I doubt not, by the look of you. You has been a-fighting. Don't think that we shall go to harbour you here, and get nothing but cross words for our pains. Miss Grizzy told mother that there would be nothing a-coming to you when all was paid. So go back as fast as you can; you can't come in. Go back, there's a good lad.' "She then, in her great goodness, handed him a crust and a bit of dry cheese, and pushed him from the door; for she was afraid that her husband and his mother, who were both out, might come in before the child was gone.