the beach. To get round to this point, I had to sail a great way
out to sea; and here I all but lost my life.

But I got back to my home at last. On my way there, quite worn
out with the toils of the boat, I lay down in the shade to rest
my limbs, and slept. But judge, if you can, what a start I gave,
when a voice woke me out of my sleep, and spoke my name three
times! A voice in this wild place! To call me by name, too! Then
the voice said, "Where are you? Where have you been? How came you
here?" But now I saw it all; for at the top of the hedge sat
Poll, who did but say the words she had been taught by me.

I now went in search of some goats, and laid snares for them,
with rice for a bait I had set the traps in the night, and found
they had all stood, though the bait was gone. So I thought of a
new way to take them, which was to make a pit and lay sticks and
grass on it, so as to hide it; and in this way I caught an old
goat and some kids. But the old goat was much too fierce for me,
so I let him go. I brought all the young ones home, and let them
fast a long time, till at last they fed from my hand, and were
quite tame. I kept them in a kind of park, in which there were
trees to screen them from the sun. At first my park was three
miles round; but it struck me that, in so great a space, the kids
would soon get as wild as if they had the range of the whole
vale, and that it would be as well to give them less room; so I
had to make a hedge which took me three months to plant. My park
held a flock of twelve goats, and in two years more there were
more than two score.

My dog sat at meals with me, and one cat on each side of me, on