pass, and never
return, and the South still waits for you. Take the Adventure, heed the
call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes!' 'Tis but a banging of the
door behind you, a blithesome step forward, and you are out of the old
life and into the new! Then some day, some day long hence, jog home here
if you will, when the cup has been drained and the play has been played,
and sit down by your quiet river with a store of goodly memories for
company. You can easily overtake me on the road, for you are young, and
I am ageing and go softly. I will linger, and look back; and at last I
will surely see you coming, eager and light-hearted, with all the South
in your face!'

The voice died away and ceased as an insect's tiny trumpet dwindles
swiftly into silence; and the Water Rat, paralysed and staring, saw at
last but a distant speck on the white surface of the road.

Mechanically he rose and proceeded to repack the luncheon-basket,
carefully and without haste. Mechanically he returned home, gathered
together a few small necessaries and special treasures he was fond of,
and put them in a satchel; acting with slow deliberation, moving about
the room like a sleep-walker; listening ever with parted lips. He swung
the satchel over his shoulder, carefully selected a stout stick for his
wayfaring, and with no haste, but with no hesitation at all, he stepped
across the threshold just as the Mole appeared at the door.

'Why, where are you off to, Ratty?' asked the Mole in great surprise,
grasping him by the arm.

'Going South, with the rest of them,' murmured the Rat in a dreamy
monotone, never looking at him. 'Seawards first and then on shipboard,
and so to the shores that are calling me!'

He pressed resolutely forward, still without haste, but with dogged
fixity of purpose; but the Mole, now thoroughly alarmed, placed himself
in front of him, and looking into his eyes saw that they were glazed and
set and turned a streaked and shifting grey--not his friend's eyes, but
the eyes of some other animal! Grappling with him strongly he dragged
him inside, threw him down, and held him.

The Rat struggled desperately for a few moments, and then his strength
seemed suddenly to leave him, and he lay still and exhausted, with
closed eyes, trembling. Presently the Mole assisted him to rise and
placed him in a chair, where he sat collapsed and shrunken into
himself, his body shaken by a violent shivering, passing in time into
an hyster