V 



AT THE FARM 



After I left my beloved corn-field, I worked my 

 way gradually from stack to stack and from bank 

 to bank towards the habitations of man. What it 

 was exactly that turned my steps in that direction 

 I cannot say ; probably the same instinct which 

 sends the missel-thrush in spring to build her nest 

 in the orchard, possibly some relic of the memory 

 of the garden of Eden, where man, and beast, and 

 bird lived together in harmony and love in days 

 which have now, alas ! faded far away into the past. 

 I cannot say that my progress thither was un- 

 eventful, because it was full of adventures and 

 risks ; but they were none of them at all out of 

 the ordinary routine of a rat's daily experience, and 

 I do not propose to linger over them. I was never 

 really driven into a corner by man, or bird, or 

 beast, though I had plenty of escapes which were 

 quite narrow enough to be exciting. I married my 

 second wife in one of the stacks, and left her to take 



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