However, there was one thing than which this was better, and that was being at church, which, to this boy at least, was the very fifth essence of dreariness.
He closed the door and went into the kitchen.

That was nearly as bad.
The kettle was on the fire, to be sure, in anticipation of tea; but the coals under it were black on the top, and it made only faint efforts, after immeasurable intervals of silence, to break into a song, giving a hum like that of a bee a mile off, and then relapsing into hopeless inactivity.

Having just had his dinner, he was not hungry enough to find any resource in the drawer where the oatcakes lay, and, unfortunately, the old wooden clock in the corner was going, else there would have been some amusement in trying to torment it into demonstrations of life, as he had often done in less desperate circumstances than the present.

At last he went up-stairs to the very room in which he now was, and sat down upon the floor, just as he was sitting now.

He had not even brought his Pilgrim's Progress with him from his grandmother's room.