The Thirteen Little Black Pigs Part 9

"The lane must lead to somewhere," I said to myself, though really it seemed as if it was endless. I must have been running, or half running and sometimes walking for nearly an hour when at last--the mist having cleared a little--I saw a light in front, a little to one side. It seemed to bob up and down as I ran--the lane was uneven just here, and once or twice I was afraid it had gone. But no--there it was again, and to my joy I found it came from a cottage window across a field to the right.

"I shall find I am miles and miles from home," I thought, and just fancy my surprise when I knocked at the door and asked my way, to be told that I was not half-a-mile from the hall."

I had gone thoroughly wrong almost from the first, and the long lane skirted the fields away up on higher ground behind our house as it were, where I had had no business to be at all.

They were just sallying out with lanterns to look for me, but they never would have thought of that lane, and there I might easily have been left all night if my strength had really failed.

Oh how glad I was to change my damp clothes and to have a nice hot cup of tea in my mother's room beside the fire!

Since then I have never boasted about being sure to find my way.

EDMUND EVANS, ENGRAVER AND PRINTER, RACQUET COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.