hepherd's dog, when I had
inadvertently approached too near a sheepfold--the startling rush of
some affrighted bird in the wood, flapping wildly up through the
foliage--a distant village clock in some indefinite direction over the
hill-top--or, finally, as on one occasion, a few remote shots, which I
at first fancied might have been fired off by my friends to direct me
homewards, but afterwards ascribed, more correctly, perhaps, to
poachers in the woods. The manner in which the peasantry live here--in
separate villages, built occasionally a good deal apart, and not in
cottages scattered everywhere over the country, as with
us--sufficiently accounts for this wide-spread silence.

Just as I was losing faith in the correctness of my present course,
the chimes of a clock were distinctly heard, coming apparently over
the top of the wooded hill on my left. I immediately turned into the
wood once more, and strove to make a march directly through the trees
in the direction of the sound, and right up the steep ascent, which
was clothed by them to the summit. But this I soon found to be totally
impracticable, in the absence of anything like a path or opening; for
though I made my way well enough through the old trees, which stood
far apart, and were pretty free from branches near the ground, yet
towards the upper part of the hill, I got entangled in such a
close-growing rising generation as it was almost impossible to
penetrate. I was often almost in despair of being able to extricate
myself even from my present entanglement, and to retrace my steps to
the open ground below; in my exhausted condition, as it was already
long past midnight, I was making up my mind to roost with the owls on
the fork of a tree; and was even anticipating the possibility of
becoming a permanent scarecrow there, when my very bones would be
concealed in the thicket from the anxious search of my friends.

It was under the influence of excessive fatigue, perhaps, and the
relaxation of the will generally consequent thereon, that my
resolution now at length seemed on the point of giving way; nay, the
very attachment to life itself, on my own individual account, seemed
fading, and a disinclination to continue the struggle farther appeared
to be gradually creeping over me. I was becoming reconciled to what
appeared inevitable, and could look upon my own probable fate almost
as calmly as if it had been that of a stranger. I believe something
very similar not