give me bread, and I shall want nothing else. I will go;' and he got up and looked to see which was the shortest way to get to the round hill. When he fancied he had made this out, he got up and set off slowly, for by this time the stripes given him by the switch had got stiff; but he had set his mind on going to nurse's, and, indeed, he did not dare to go home.
"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.