A NIGHT S ADVENTURE. 7 



tell in which direction my route lay. To be lost, pooh ! 

 pooh ! what nonsense ! I was not still a school-boy, and 

 had been too long cut loose from my mother's apron 

 strings. The whole thing appeared too absurd and 

 ridiculous. Off I went, as I thought, straight back to 

 the place I had left ; I must cross my own path in a few 

 minutes only a few steps farther ! I am certainly close 

 now ! and thus arguing and consoling, I proceeded. 

 By degrees it began to dawn upon me, though much 

 against my inclination, that I was " certain sure out 

 of my reckoning." The more convinced I became of 

 the uncertainty of my position, the more I became 

 excited ; at first I walked faster, talked to myself, and 

 tried, though I fear very indifferently, to treat the 

 whole affair as an admirable joke. But soon my counte- 

 nance became elongated, and a very gloomy expression 

 usurped the place of my previous smile. For change, 

 I shouted, with the hope some one might hear me a 

 very improbable thing except, perchance, some solitary 

 aborigine should be out in attendance on his bear or 

 other traps. At last I became fairly desperate, and 

 broke into a headlong run ; the pace was too fast to 

 keep up, and fairly blown, wearied, and exhausted, I 

 sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree. The depression 

 I felt will never be forgotten. The terrible loneliness, 

 the perfect solitude and monotony, with the certainty 



