I have been so often in false positions in life, so frequently implicated where no real blame could attach to me, that I shall not be in the least surprised if I be arrested as a horse-stealer! The night now began to fall rapidly, so that I was obliged to proceed at a slow pace; and at length, as the wood seemed to thicken, I was forced to get off, and walk beside my horse. I have often found myself in situations of real peril, with far less anxiety than I now felt; my position seemed at the time inexplicable and absurd. I suppose, thought I, that no man was ever lost in the wood of Belleville; he must find his way out of it sooner or later; and then, there can be no great difficulty in returning to Paris. This was about the extent of the comfort I could afford myself; for, once back in the capital, I could not speculate on a single step further. I was at last so weary with the slow and cautious progression I was condemned to, that I half determined to picket my horse to a tree, and lie down to sleep till daylight. While I sought out a convenient spot for my bivouac, a bright twinkling light, like a small star, caught my eye. Twice it appeared, and vanished again so that I was well assured of its being real, and no phantom of my now over-excited brain. It appeared to proceed from the very densest part of the wood, and whither, so far as I could see, no path conducted. As I listened to catch any sounds, I again caught sight of the faint star, which now seemed at a short distance from the road where I stood. Fastening my horse to a branch, I advanced directly through the brushwood for about a hundred yards, when I came to a small open space, in which stood one of those modest cottages, of rough timber, wherein, at certain seasons, the game-keepers take refuge. A low, square, log hut, with a single door, and an unglazed window, comprised the whole edifice, being one of the humblest, even of its humble kind, I had ever seen. Stealing cautiously to the window, I peeped in. On a stone, in the middle of the earthen floor, a small iron lamp stood, which threw a faint and fickle light around. There was no furniture of any kind; nothing that bespoke the place as inhabited; and it was only as I continued to gaze that I detected the figure of a man, who seemed to be sleeping on a heap of dried leaves, in one corner of the hovel. I own that, with all my anxiety to find a guide, I began to feel some scruples about obtruding on the sleeper's privacy. He was evidently no "Garde de chasse," who are a well-to-do sort of folk, being usually retired sous-officiers of the army. He might be a poacher, a robber, or perhaps a dash of both together--a trade I had often heard of as being resorted to by the most reckless and abandoned of the population of Paris, when their crimes and their haunts became too well known in the capital.