I even fancied I could see small bright eyes looking out at my fire, and once or twice I was almost sure I heard voices--whispering--, perhaps the voices of the woods.
Occasionally I added, with some amusement, a few dry pages of Montaigne to the fire, and watched the cheerful blaze that followed.
"No," said I, "Montaigne is not for the open spaces and the stars.
Without a roof over his head Montaigne would--well, die of sneezing." So I sat all night long there by the tree.

Occasionally I dropped into a light sleep, and then, as my fire died down, I grew chilly and awakened, to build up the fire and doze again.

I saw the first faint gray streaks of dawn above the trees, I saw the pink glow in the east before the sunrise, and I watched the sun himself rise upon a new day-- When I walked out into the meadow by daylight and looked about me curiously, I saw, not forty rods away, the back of a barn.
"Be you the fellow that was daown in my cowpasture all night ?" asked the sturdy farmer.
"I'm that fellow," I said.
"Why didn't you come right up to the house ?" "Well--" I said, and then paused.
"Well..." said I..