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until it had lasted longer than the morning, and now the shearers were working with surly concentration: they leaned back and rested as each sheep was done—before they had talked and joked, a sound of voices above the noise of the sheep and the snip-snip-snip of the shears.
    On and on: sheep and more sheep. I had been doing this forever. My stomach and my back were giving me a great deal of pain, the first from the pounds of food I had stuffed into it, the second from the bend and lift, bend and lift that had been going on the length of this unending day.
    I was closed up entirely in the attempt to keep pace, to keep going at all, and I remained like that for a great space of time. If I relaxed at all I would never start again. The inner spur was obstinate anger, nothing more now. It was no longer important that Bronwen was there, picking up the stray pieces of wool into her apron; all that mattered was to keep going, to lift the sheep, mark and release them, and that was everything in life.
    It ended, of course: the sun was reaching down to Penmawr and the end came with a trickle of lambs—they had only their tails trimmed and their ears nicked. I was still laboring and closed in over my work when I saw the shearers beginning to get up. I thought it was only the break for tea, but I looked, and the far pen was empty. At the very end were the rams hidden in a pen by themselves: they were taken by the best shearers. I did not think I could lift them, but their horns were a handle, and somehow, lumping them along with my knees I carried them one by one to the middle. With the last ram I could hardly get up after I had marked him: I released him, watched him go, and stayed there on my knees. I thought I was going to be sick.
    Some of the shearers were going home, others stayed to help with the driving of the sheep up into the mountain again. I cleaned the stamp, corked the black oil and went away: they called after me to come in for tea, but I affected not to hear.
    In my deep chair I tried to relax, but I was twitching all over. In the end I went to sleep there, unwashed and in my filthy clothes, until one in the morning, when I jerked myself awake and crawled off to bed, cold and trembling.
    I was very poorly the next day, and for some days after that. Apart from a back as stiff as a board and blistered hands—normal consequences—my old illness began again: it was not very bad, but enough to make me feel rather ill all day and to stop me sleeping at night. Something was wrong with my digestion, as I have said before, and whatever it was (doctors were vague and contradictory) it was linked in some way with my nervous system, and, whenever the one went wrong, the other betrayed me.
    There is nothing more contemptible and selfish than a hypochondriac, and I always tried to avoid paying too much attention to my body; but for a man living alone, with a body that will force itself into notice, it is difficult to maintain a sense of proportion.
    I did hope for one good from this physical exhaustion and ill health: I hoped that I should plunge again into my usual habit of mind, and that I should shake off the strong passion that hurt me so. For a day or two it seemed that this might be the case, and I decided to go up to London for a time as soon as I felt better.
    But I was deceived. The first day that I did feel equal to a walk—the evening of Thursday—I went down from my garden to the bottom of the valley, across the huge flat slates that made the bridge and up to the Craig y Nos. This is the black precipice that breaks the side of the Saeth ridge, a sudden plunge of harsh granite among the slate and shale: above it there is an apron of green, close grass with an edge of bilberries and fern. It made a charming afternoon or evening walk—it kept the sun late—and I often went up there for half an hour or so in the last of the day.
    That evening the sun was hot on the stones and as I sat leaning on my knees, looking