I shod the little horse bravely—­merely pricked him once, slightly, with a cafi, for doing which, I remember, he kicked me down; I was not disconcerted, however, but, getting up, promised to be more cautious in future; and having finished the operation, I filed the hoof well with the rin baro, then dismissed him to graze amongst the trees, and, putting my smaller tools into the muchtar, I sat down on my stone, and, supporting my arm upon my knee, leaned my head upon my hand.  Heaviness had come over me.

CHAPTER LXXXIV

Several causes—­Frogs and eftes—­Gloom and twilight—­What should I do?—­’Our Father’—­Fellow-men—­What a mercy!—­Almost calm—­Fresh store—­History of Saul—­Pitch dark.

Heaviness had suddenly come over me, heaviness of heart, and of body also.  I had accomplished the task which I had imposed upon myself, and now that nothing more remained to do, my energies suddenly deserted me, and I felt without strength, and without hope.  Several causes, perhaps, co-operated to bring about the state in which I then felt myself.  It is not improbable that my energies had been overstrained during the work the progress of which I have attempted to describe; and every one is aware that the results of overstrained energies are feebleness and lassitude—­want of nourishment might likewise have something to do with it.  During my sojourn in the dingle, my food had been of the simplest and most unsatisfying description, by no means calculated to support the exertion which the labour I had been engaged upon required; it had consisted of coarse oaten cakes and hard cheese, and for beverage I had been indebted to a neighbouring pit, in which, in the heat of the day, I frequently saw, not golden or silver fish, but frogs and eftes swimming about.  I am, however, inclined to believe that Mrs. Herne’s cake had quite as much to do with the matter as insufficient nourishment.  I had never entirely recovered from the effects of its poison, but had occasionally, especially at night, been visited by a grinding pain in the stomach, and my whole body had been suffused with cold sweat; and indeed these memorials of the drow have never entirely disappeared—­even at the present time they display themselves in my system, especially after much fatigue of body and excitement of mind.  So there I sat in the dingle upon my stone, nerveless and hopeless, by whatever cause or causes that state had been produced—­there I sat with my head leaning upon my hand, and so I continued a long, long time.  At last I lifted my head from my hand, and began to cast anxious, unquiet looks about the dingle—­the entire hollow was now enveloped in deep shade—­I cast my eyes up; there was a golden gleam on the tops of the trees which grew towards the upper parts of the dingle; but lower down all was gloom and twilight—­yet, when I first sat down on my stone, the sun was right above the dingle, illuminating all its depths by the