He looked round the room, and realised suddenly that the fire was out. Then he got up. "Sleep," he muttered, "I must sleep or I shall lose my wits," and he flung himself down on a settle. He closed his eyes. For a while he felt dizzy, tossed up and down upon a sea of darkness, then his brain became illuminated as with fire; he began again to count. One by one he dropped the coins into a bag. He roused himself with a smothered curse, turned over, and tried to fix his mind upon something else. He had gone fishing the week before with some of his friends, and they had betted on their probable catch. But he had hooked only two or three little trout, too small to be of any use, so he had flung them back into the mere. Now he heard them fall with a splash, and jingle as they reached the bottom. He seemed to be fishing again, and dropping them over the side of the boat, but sometimes it was a coin he dropped, sometimes a silver-bellied fish. Still he went on counting. The trout and the money were confused in his mind. He knew that he had mixed them up; he knew that he was neither asleep nor awake, and he tried to clear his brain. The effort was painful, he struggled as though fighting with evil powers, but in the end he overcame, yet rose up feeling sick, dazed, and in despair. The room was dusky. How long had he been lying on the settle? He looked at the clock, and it began to strike the hour of nine. At six he had counted the strokes, since then he had not heard them, yet he had not slept. He must sleep, or he would go mad. He sat staring before him for a minute, then went to the door. He threaded his way through the deserted passages, where draughts blew upon him from unexpected quarters; some of the rooms were shut up; but others were open, disclosing their emptiness. A grey film of dust seemed to lie on everything, and the evening light, glimmering through the cobwebbed windows, gave a green colour to the air, as though it, even, had gone mouldy with long disuse. He found Mally Ray returned to the kitchen, and preparing their evening meal. But he refused it. Mally Ray was a dour-faced Scot, honest, clean, yet with a mind that regarded human affection as a wile of the Evil One, who tried by such a means to entrap the honest Christian to his hurt. In her heart of hearts she loved Joel profoundly, she would have sacrificed her life for him, but she would have thought shame to let him know it. As his nurse she had not spared the rod, for she saw his weaknesses; now she used her tongue in much the same way. She had a long, cadaverous face, a thin and well-drawn-down upper lip, grey eyes and a high forehead. "Tidy your hair, lad," she said, "it makes you look like a wandering Willy." He smoothed it down with both hands, accustomed to do what she told him, but he pushed the hound aside that had come whimpering to his knees. It was in bad condition, having had the distemper and lost its fine litter of puppies with the same sickness.