all animals attach at times to mere silent
companionship, when the weary muscles slacken and the mind marks time.

The wayfarer was lean and keen-featured, and somewhat bowed at the
shoulders; his paws were thin and long, his eyes much wrinkled at the
corners, and he wore small gold ear rings in his neatly-set well-shaped
ears. His knitted jersey was of a faded blue, his breeches, patched and
stained, were based on a blue foundation, and his small belongings that
he carried were tied up in a blue cotton handkerchief.

When he had rested awhile the stranger sighed, snuffed the air, and
looked about him.

"That was clover, that warm whiff on the breeze," he remarked; "and
those are cows we hear cropping the grass behind us and blowing softly
between mouthfuls. There is a sound of distant reapers, and yonder
rises a blue line of cottage smoke against the woodland. The river
runs somewhere close by, for I hear the call of a moorhen, and I see
by your build that you're a freshwater mariner. Everything seems
asleep, and yet going on all the time. It is a goodly life that you
lead, friend; no doubt the best in the world, if only you are strong
enough to lead it!"

"Yes, it's _the_ life, the only life, to live," responded the Water
Rat dreamily, and without his usual whole-hearted conviction.

"I did not say exactly that," replied the stranger cautiously; "but no
doubt it's the best. I've tried it, and I know. And because I've just
tried it--six months of it--and know it's the best, here am I,
footsore and hungry, tramping away from it, tramping southwards,
following the old call, back to the old life, _the_ life which is mine
and which will not let me go."

"Is this, then, yet another of them?" mused the Rat. "And where have
you just come from?" he asked. He hardly dared to ask where he was
bound for; he seemed to know the answer only too well.

"Nice little farm," replied the wayfarer, briefly. "Upalong in that
direction--" he nodded northwards. "Never mind about it. I had
everything I could want--everything I had any right to expect of life,
and more; and here I am! Glad to be here all the same, though, glad
to be here! So many miles further on the road, so many hours nearer to
my heart's desire!"

His shining eyes held fast to the horizon, and he seemed to be
listening for some sound that was wanting from that inland acreage,
vocal as it was with the cheerful music of pasturage and farmyard.

"You are not one of