The Junior Classics, Volume 5: Stories that never grow old
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The Junior Classics, Volume 5: Stories that never grow old
Children's literature
In this place also I had my grapes growing, which I principally
depended on for my winter store of raisins, and which I never
failed to preserve very carefully, as the best and most agreeable
dainty of my whole diet; and indeed they were not only agreeable,
but medicinal, wholesome, nourishing, and refreshing to the last
degree.
As this was also about half-way between my other habitation and
the place where I had laid up my boat, I generally stayed and lay
here in my way thither, for I used frequently to visit my boat;
and I kept all things about or belonging to her in very good
order. Sometimes I went out in her to divert myself, but no more
hazardous voyages would I go, scarcely ever above a stone's cast
or two from the shore, I was so apprehensive of being hurried out
of my knowledge again by the currents or winds, or any other
accident. But now I come to a new scene of my life.
It happened one day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was
exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the
shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand. I stood like
one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition. I listened,
I looked round me, but I could hear nothing, nor see anything; I
went up to a rising ground to look farther; I went up the shore
and down the shore, but it was all one; I could see no other
impression but that one. I went to it again to see if there were
any more, and to observe if it might not be my fancy; but there
was no room for that, for there was exactly the print of a foot--
toes, heel, and every part of a foot. How it came thither I knew
not, nor could I in the least imagine; but after innumerable
fluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly confused and out of
myself, I came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we say,
the ground I went on, but terrified to the last degree, looking
behind me at every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and
tree, and fancying every stump at a distance to be a man. Nor is
it possible to describe how many various shapes my affrighted
imagination represented things to me in, how many wild ideas were
found every moment in my fancy, and what strange, unaccountable
whimsies came into my thoughts by the way.
When I came to my castle (for so I think I called it ever after
this), I fled into it like one pursued. Whether I went over by the
ladder, as first contrived, or went in at the hole in the rock,
which I had called a door, I cannot remember; no, nor could I
remember the next morning, for never frightened hare fled to
cover, or fox to earth, with more terror of mind than I to this
retreat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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