UNREST AND REST 



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home of our ancestors, whence we originally came 

 forth to people the world. 



I suppose that all the other rats from the farm 

 were there too, but I was far too much occupied 

 with my own feelings to notice whether they were 

 present or not. Nothing stopped us, not even 

 rivers. We were escorted on our way by a good 

 many owls and hawks, but the country was care- 

 fully preserved, and so they did not attack us in 

 very great numbers. In fact, unless they could 

 pick off a straggler here and there, they did not 

 venture to swoop down into the pack, because 

 we should inevitably have pulled them to pieces 

 claws or no claws, we were in such deadly 

 earnest. 



And so we gathered strength as we went on, for 

 more rats joined us at every step, until we were a 

 very vast army. And yet we attracted singularly 

 little notice for a long time, for we retained enough 

 of our traditional caution to keep a good deal under 

 cover, in the hedgerows and the plantations, and 

 also the bulk of our travelling was done at night, 

 and more or less in Indian file ; so that, if you 

 had watched at a gap in the hedge, under the dim 

 starlight, you would never have seen more than 

 two or three rats at a time, but you would have 



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