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.
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