It need not be wondered at if all these things took up most of the third year of my abode in the island.  I had now brought my state of life to be much easier than it was at first, and I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition and less on the dark.

Had anyone in England met such a man as I was, it must have frightened them, or raised great laughter.  On my head I wore a great, high, shapeless cap of goat’s skin.  Stockings and shoes I had none, but I had made a pair of somethings, I scarce knew what to call them, to slip over my legs; a jacket, with the skirts coming down to the middle of my thighs, and a pair of open-kneed breeches of the same, completing my outfit.  I had a broad belt of goat’s skin, and in this I hung, on one side, a saw, on the other, a hatchet.  Under my arm hung two pouches for shot and powder; at my back I carried my basket, on my shoulder my gun, and over my head a great clumsy goat’s skin umbrella.

A stoic would have smiled to have seen me at dinner.  There was my majesty, prince and lord of the whole island.  How like a king I dined, too, all alone, attended by my servants!  Poll, my parrot, as if he had been my favourite, was the only person permitted to talk to me.  My old dog sat at my right hand, and two cats on each side of the table, expecting a bit from my hand as a mark of special favour.

III.—­The Footprint

It was my custom to make daily excursions to some part of the island.  One day, walking along the beach, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man’s naked foot plainly impressed on the sand.  I stood like one thunderstruck.  I listened, I looked around, but I could hear nothing nor see anything.  I went up to a rising ground to look further; I walked backwards and forwards on the shore, but I could see only that one impression.

I went to it again.  There was exactly a foot—­toes, heel, and every part of a foot.  How it came thither I knew not; but I hurried home, looking behind me at every two or three steps, and mistaking every bush and tree, fancying every stump to be a man.  I had no sleep that night; but my terror gradually wore off, and after some days I ventured down to the beach to take measure of the footprint by my own.

I found it much larger!  This filled me again with all manner of fears, and when I went home I began to prepare against an attack.  I got out my muskets, loaded them, and went to an enormous amount of labour and trouble—­all because I had seen the print of a naked foot on the sand.  There seemed to me then no labour too great, no task too toilsome, and I made me a second fortification, and planted a vast number of stakes on the outside of my outer wall, which grew and became a thick grove of trees, entirely concealing the place of my retreat, and adding greatly to my security.

I had now been twenty-two years on the island, and had grown so accustomed to the place that, had I felt myself secure from the attack by savages, I fancied I could have been contented to remain there till I died of old age.