erable time, I turned my eyes to the heaven in the direction of a
particular star; I, however, could not find the star, nor indeed many of
the starry train, the greater number having fled, from which
circumstance, and from the appearance of the sky, I concluded that
morning was nigh. About this time I again began to feel drowsy; I
therefore arose, and having prepared for myself a kind of couch in the
tent, I flung myself upon it and went to sleep.

I will not say that I was awakened in the morning by the carolling of
birds, as I perhaps might if I were writing a novel; I awoke because, to
use vulgar language, I had slept my sleep out, not because the birds were
carolling around me in numbers, as they had probably been for hours
without my hearing them. I got up and left my tent; the morning was yet
more bright than that of the preceding day. Impelled by curiosity, I
walked about, endeavouring to ascertain to what place chance, or rather
the pony, had brought me; following the driftway for some time, amidst
bushes and stunted trees, I came to a grove of dark pines, through which
it appeared to lead; I tracked it a few hundred yards, but seeing nothing
but trees, and the way being wet and sloughy, owing to the recent rain, I
returned on my steps, and, pursuing the path in another direction, came
to a sandy road leading over a common, doubtless the one I had traversed
the preceding night. My curiosity satisfied, I returned to my little
encampment, and on the way beheld a small footpath on the left winding
through the bushes, which had before escaped my observation. Having
reached my tent and cart, I breakfasted on some of the provisions which I
had procured the day before, and then proceeded to take a regular account
of the stock formerly possessed by Slingsby the tinker, but now become my
own by right of lawful purchase.

Besides the pony, the cart, and the tent, I found I was possessed of a
mattress stuffed with straw on which to lie, and a blanket to cover me,
the last quite clean and nearly new; then there was a frying pan and a
kettle, the first for cooking any food which required cooking, and the
second for heating any water which I might wish to heat. I likewise
found an earthen teapot and two or three cups; of the first I should
rather say I found the remains, it being broken in three parts, no doubt
since it came into my possession, which would have precluded the
possibility of my asking anybody to tea for t