"There's a good fellow. May I put Big Ben--such is his name, I'm told--into one of them?" "Great heavens! do you want me to take the bear?" "It's as gentle as a lamb! Would you like to see me put my head in its mouth?" "No! lead it away, fix it where you like; but I say, Peter, you don't expect me to look after it, do you?" "Give it lodging only! Jake's going to see to its board. Many thanks, Joel. I'm off to-morrow, but I'll be up to bid you good-bye in the morning. Come along, you limping Ursus, it's time you were abed." CHAPTER VI JOEL'S DARKNESS Easter was over; Peter Fleming had gone back to Oxford; Joel Hart spent much of his time away from home; the lambing season was past; mid-summer had come. Joel had friends after his own heart scattered through the countryside--young men with small estates and little education like himself. They forgathered in each other's houses, and spent their time cock-fighting and gambling, losing one day to gain the next, enjoying and suffering all the excitements of prosperity and failure in quick succession. Joel began by winning, and saw an easy way of retrieving his fortunes opening out before him. Then he lost, and, growing desperate, lost more and more heavily, till he had little left to lose. He owed money to the village tradesmen, but that did not trouble his conscience. When he could not meet his debts of honour--as he was pleased to call them--he felt disgraced; hurt in his pride. So he came riding home, gave himself up to brooding, sent word to Lucy that he was ill, and kept the house for days. Ill he most certainly was, but in mind and conscience, not in body. One afternoon he sat alone in the parlour of Forest Hall, his head sunk on his breast, and his eyes burning. The fire had died out, and the hearth was filled with ash, yet, though it was June, he shivered. Mally Ray, his old nurse and now his housekeeper, had gone off for the day, and left him to fend for himself. On the table lay the remains of a meal, and the atmosphere of the room was heavy, in spite of the sunshine outside, and the chiming of a light wind through the tree-tops of the forest. He had slept little of late, and his nights had been made hideous by dreams, which belonged neither to the sphere of waking nor sleeping, but beset him when he was only half-conscious; and when reality, instead of being obliterated, was turned into a distortion of the truth. A vision of old Mistress Lynn and her money-bags haunted him. But he managed to banish it in his clearer moments. No sooner, however, had his will become weakened by weariness, than the vision returned. He spent, or seemed to spend, hours counting the coins, and dropping them into a bag. Through the night, through the day, at unexpected moments, he was possessed by this demon of counting. He felt the cold metal between his fingers, yet his hands were in his empty pockets, or hanging by his side.