“The fresh air blew in my face, and I felt better and stronger already. I glanced up and down the street. Far up one end of it were many lights, the other was all dark and so I chose that.
“I ran on and on and on, and soon found myself in the country, and tired at last, I crept into a shed and went to sleep among some clean hay, the fragrant smell of which seemed to curl round my heart and revive me.
“I was hungry when daylight came, and was lucky enough to find a mouse, on which I breakfasted, and then went to sleep again.
“It was dark when I awoke, and so I resumed my journey, still going in the same direction, guided by some instinct to place as great a distance as possible ’twixt myself and the cat-dealer’s den I had escaped from.
“Before daylight I came to a great forest, and being tired, I crept in under a bush of furze, and, on a warm dry bed, slept long and sweetly.
“I idled about the forest all night—and a lovely moonlit night it was—finding plenty of food, but seeing no men and no dogs.
“I determined, therefore, to make this forest my home for a time, at all events; but I must not sleep on the ground, for dogs would be sure to find me out and worry me. Luckily I found a comfortable shelter half way up the trunk of a grand old oak, and so I concluded to live here. And a most perfect shelter I found it to be.
“For many, many months, I could not tell you, my friends, how many, I lived in this tree, becoming entirely nocturnal in my habits, for when I ventured out during the day I sometimes saw rough-looking men with dogs, and was glad to escape into the branches of some oak or beech, where I sat trembling with fear until they had gone.
“I found plenty of food in the forest, and my drink was the pure soft water from the purling brooklets. The only thing I ever did long for was a drop of milk.
“The summer and autumn passed away, and winter came wild and dreary. The birds no longer sang in the forests, and many had flown south and away to summer lands beyond the seas. I missed many of my forest friends too; they had gone away, or had hidden themselves in cosy corners and gone to sleep for the winter. This kind of long sleep was denied to me however, and now I often felt cold and wretched, and would wander for hours through the snow and under the stars or moon, that used to glimmer down through the leafless branches, and fall in patches of light on the ground beneath.