midnight
Is all this clear ? ... Thank you . '' With a confused idea that he was being ordered about too frequently of late Portlaw waddled off bedward ; but sleep eluded him ; he lay there watching through his window the light in the window of the sick-room where Hamil lay fighting for breath ; and sometimes he quivered all over in scared foreboding , and sometimes the thought that Malcourt was returning seemed to ease for a moment the dread load of responsibility that was already playing the mischief with his digestion . A curry had started it ; a midnight golden-buck superimposed upon a miniature mince pie had , to his grief and indignation , continued an outrageous conspiracy against his liver begun by the shock of Hamil 's illness . But what completed his exasperation was the indifference of the physicians attending Hamil who did not seem to appreciate the gravity of an impaired digestive system , or comprehend that a man who could n't enjoy eating might as well be in Hamil 's condition ; and Portlaw angrily swallowed the calomel so indifferently shoved toward him and hunted up Wayward , to whom he aired his deeply injured feelings . `` What you need are ` Drover 's Remedies , ' '' observed Wayward , peering at him through his spectacles ; and Portlaw unsuspiciously made a memorandum of the famous live-stock and kennel panacea for future personal emergencies . The weather was unfavourable for Hamil ; a raw , wet wind rattled the windows ; the east lowered thick and gray with hurrying clouds ; volleys of chilly rain swept across the clearing from time to time .