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.
There was a turn in the path at the top of the hill, a sunken wall, with a broad stone from which the wind had blown the snow.