134 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



was not hungry. But quite as dreadful a thought 

 flashed across my brain — that of suicide ! I had 

 long given up all hopes of escape. Why, then, 

 prolong sufferings which now I fancied must inevi- 

 tably end in death ? I had my loaded gun, and 

 one moment's pain would save the agony of a 

 lingering death, which now seemed inevitable. 

 Thus whispered the fiend in my ear, and the horrid 

 thought gradually took such hold on me, that 

 fearing that in a moment of desperation the temp- 

 tation might prove too strong for me, I dashed 

 my gun in the snow to render it useless, and at 

 that moment felt like another man. No blame 

 could attach to me that even for a moment I 

 entertained such a dreadful and sinful thought. 

 I was no longer master of myself; my whole 

 disposition seemed changed. How long I now 

 wandered on I had no means of guessing. I 

 moved mechanically, as if in a trance. My clothes 

 were all frozen, and every time my foot sank into 

 the snow it seemed to take me five minutes to get 

 it up again. Every sinew in my leg was cracking, 

 and my hands hung down like useless and dead 

 weights at my sides. At length I saw something 

 indistinctly looming through the fog before me. 

 I was close to it. I struggled on, and found that 

 it was an empty shed by the side of the lake, used 

 for keeping nets and fishing gear in. I staggered 



