biscuits: my brandy I did not touch, for I had little left, and might
want it when my courage failed me. All that I did, I did almost
mechanically, for I could not realise my situation to myself, beyond
knowing that I was alone, and that return through the chasm which I had
just descended would be impossible. It is a dreadful feeling that of
being cut off from all one's kind. I was still full of hope, and built
golden castles for myself as soon as I was warmed with food and fire; but
I do not believe that any man could long retain his reason in such
solitude, unless he had the companionship of animals. One begins
doubting one's own identity.

I remember deriving comfort even from the sight of my blankets, and the
sound of my watch ticking--things which seemed to link me to other
people; but the screaming of the wood-hens frightened me, as also a
chattering bird which I had never heard before, and which seemed to laugh
at me; though I soon got used to it, and before long could fancy that it
was many years since I had first heard it.

I took off my clothes, and wrapped my inside blanket about me, till my
things were dry. The night was very still, and I made a roaring fire; so
I soon got warm, and at last could put my clothes on again. Then I
strapped my blanket round me, and went to sleep as near the fire as I
could.

I dreamed that there was an organ placed in my master's wool-shed: the
wool-shed faded away, and the organ seemed to grow and grow amid a blaze
of brilliant light, till it became like a golden city upon the side of a
mountain, with rows upon rows of pipes set in cliffs and precipices, one
above the other, and in mysterious caverns, like that of Fingal, within
whose depths I could see the burnished pillars gleaming. In the front