tying my handkerchief over my head, but found that by no
possible effort could I make a knot, and that I could only keep it on my
head by holding the corners between my teeth. It was equally impossible
to refasten my overcoat, only a thin tweed (for I had dressed lightly, in
expectation of hard exercise), which had become unbuttoned in my last
fall. It may seem absurd to mention it, but the cravings of hunger grew
so keen, stimulated as they were by the cold and the great exertion, that
it actually occurred to me whether I could eat one of my old dogskin
gloves. I was, however, deterred from making the attempt, partly by the
prospect of its toughness, and partly by the fear of greater injury to my
hands from frost bite, if they were deprived of their last covering. My
exhaustion was so great that I fell down every two or three steps, and
the temptation to give in and lie down in the snow became almost
irresistible, and had to be struggled against with every power of mind
and body. I endeavoured to keep constantly before me the certain fact,
that if sleep once overcame me I should never wake again in this life.
The night seemed interminably long. Again and again I tried to calculate
the time, but always came to the same conclusion, that many hours must
elapse before the return of daylight. The wind had gone down, and the
stillness became so oppressive, that I often spoke aloud for the sake of
hearing my own voice, and to ascertain that the cold, which was intense,
had not deprived me of the power of speech. The hares still sported and
burrowed on the hill sides, but excepting these there were no signs of
life whatever.

Never did shipwrecked mariner watch for the morning more anxiously than
did I through that weary, endless night, for I knew that a glimpse of the
distance in any one direction would enable me to steer my course
homewards. Day dawned at last, but hope and patience were to be yet
further tried, for a dense fog clung to the face of the hill, obscuring
everything but the objects close at hand. Furthermore, I discovered that
I was rapidly becoming snow blind. My eyes, which had been considerably
injured already by the sharp sleet of the evening before, were further
affected by the glare of the snow, and I was fast losing all distinctness
of vision. I first learned the extent of this new calamity when
endeavouring, with the earliest light, to look at my watch. It was a
work of great difficulty to ge