CHAPTER III--THE DARK HOUR COMES UPON LAVENGRO AND HIS SOUL IS HEAVY.
WITHIN HIM.
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 everyone 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.