compact,
grimly set in vast white surroundings; simultaneously they turned and
made swiftly for home, for firelight and the familiar things it played
on, for the voice, sounding cheerily outside their window, of the river
that they knew and trusted in all its moods, that never made them afraid
with any amazement.

As he hurried along, eagerly anticipating the moment when he would be
at home again among the things he knew and liked, the Mole saw clearly
that he was an animal of tilled field and hedgerow, linked to the
ploughed furrow, the frequented pasture, the lane of evening
lingerings, the cultivated garden-plot. For others the asperities, the
stubborn endurance, or the clash of actual conflict, that went with
Nature in the rough; he must be wise, must keep to the pleasant places
in which his lines were laid and which held adventure enough, in their
way, to last for a lifetime.

V

DULCE DOMUM

The sheep ran huddling together against the hurdles, blowing out thin
nostrils and stamping with delicate fore-feet, their heads thrown back
and a light steam rising from the crowded sheep-pen into the frosty
air, as the two animals hastened by in high spirits, with much chatter
and laughter. They were returning across country after a long day's
outing with Otter, hunting and exploring on the wide uplands, where
certain streams tributary to their own River had their first small
beginnings; and the shades of the short winter day were closing in on
them, and they had still some distance to go. Plodding at random
across the plough, they had heard the sheep and had made for them; and
now, leading from the sheep-pen, they found a beaten track that made
walking a lighter business, and responded, moreover, to that small
inquiring something which all animals carry inside them, saying
unmistakably, "Yes, quite right; _this_ leads home!"

"It looks as if we were coming to a village," said the Mole somewhat
dubiously, slackening his pace, as the track, that had in time become
a path and then had developed into a lane, now handed them over to the
charge of a well-metalled road. The animals did not hold with
villages, and their own highways, thickly frequented as they were,
took an independent course, regardless of church, post-office, or
public-house.

"Oh, never mind!" said the Rat. "At this season of the year they're
all safe indoors by this time, sitting round the fire; men, women, and
children, dogs and cats and all.