Thus I forgot the dangers around me. My heart began to gallop, as I lay there alone, a boy fiddling with his own lust. But, alas, this feeling could not go on. While fingering my stick, a new blast of cold—this one very raw—blew hard against me. Darkness now fell like a great black cloak, heavier, pressing in all over me.
Now, was this real, or only my own poor mind? I could not tell. The mind was that of an farmer’s lad, reasserting itself, with all its ignorant fears.
Even more afraid, I looked around. With the clear moon casting its light out, I still could not see very far from me. Distant animals cried, howled. Wolves? Tigers? Dragons? Who knew what waited out there, as I lay with only the leafy branches, above me blotting out the stars, and all manner of barons and devils in the da
