"What a good thing I am so near home," I thought, as I became aware that almost in a moment a thick grey mist had risen—all around was bathed in it, and I ran on as fast as I could.
The mist now and then cleared a little, but the night was falling fast and I saw no sign of the white gates I was looking for. I ran the faster—but the hedges remained unbroken, and after a while I was forced to own to myself that somehow or other I had got into the wrong lane! Oh dear! I dared not turn back—I just ran on, and the mist grew thicker again. I soon got so tired, that the temptation was strong to sit down at all costs. And if I had done so I might have fainted or fallen asleep, and not perhaps been found till too late!
It was a dreadful feeling—after a while I think I began to get rather dazed and stupefied, from fatigue and anxiety. I had only just a sort of instinct that at all costs I must keep going.
"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.