plied the
place of friends, money, and many other things of almost equal
importance--iron perseverance, without which all the advantages of time
and circumstance are of very little avail in any undertaking. I was
determined to make a horse-shoe, and a good one, in spite of every
obstacle--ay, in spite of dukkerin. {269} At the end of four days,
during which I had fashioned and refashioned the thing at least fifty
times, I had made a petul such as no master of the craft need have been
ashamed of; with the second shoe I had less difficulty, and, by the time
I had made the fourth, I would have scorned to take off my hat to the
best smith in Cheshire.

But I had not yet shod my little gry: this I proceeded now to do. After
having first well pared the hoofs with my churi, {270a} I applied each
petul hot, glowing hot, to the pindro. {270b} Oh, how the hoofs hissed!
and, oh, the pleasant pungent odour which diffused itself through the
dingle!--an odour good for an ailing spirit.

I shod the little horse bravely--merely pricked him once, slightly, with
a cafi, {270c} 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 Efts--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 c