FLUFF-BUTTON THE RABBIT 65 
grass, and the field resounded with the incessant 
bleating of the lambs who ran to a strange ewe and 
were butted aside. 
Because White-Lamb still kept his close lamb's 
coat, and had not yet lost the instincts of his race 
in the placid vegetable life of his mother, he grew 
restless towards nightfall, and trotted over to the 
gate to look at the woods an unknown land to 
him. The Night Longing calls to the animals who 
live under man's dominion as surely as to the Wild 
Folk, but they very seldom hear it. Sometimes, 
however, the sleepy cattle in the meadows lose 
their wits in the dark ; and if a man passes by they 
forget that he is their lord and master, who in 
the daytime goads them where he will, and only 
remember that at one time their forefathers charged 
his naked ancestors through the forest, and gored 
and trampled upon them. The old impulses are 
strongest in the young animals, just as among men 
a boy burns with a hundred noble purposes which 
he will forget when he becomes a man, and soils 
his hands in the world's ways. 
The path wound away until it was lost to view 
among the fir trees ; but right at the end of the 
vista, and barred across perpendicularly by the 
tall stems, was a clearing into which the sunset light 
slanted. As White-Lamb watched the light on 
