could smell through the darkness the friendly
fields again; and they braced themselves for the last long stretch,
the home stretch, the stretch that we know is bound to end, some time,
in the rattle of the door-latch, the sudden firelight, and the sight
of familiar things greeting us as long-absent travellers from far
over-sea. They plodded along steadily and silently, each of them
thinking his own thoughts. The Mole's ran a good deal on supper, as it
was pitch-dark, and it was all a strange country for him as far as he
knew, and he was following obediently in the wake of the Rat, leaving
the guidance entirely to him. As for the Rat, he was walking a little
way ahead, as his habit was, his shoulders humped, his eyes fixed on
the straight grey road in front of him; so he did not notice poor Mole
when suddenly the summons reached him, and took him like an electric
shock.

We others, who have long lost the more subtle of the physical senses,
have not even proper terms to express an animal's inter-communications
with his surroundings, living or otherwise, and have only the word
"smell," for instance, to include the whole range of delicate thrills
which murmur in the nose of the animal night and day, summoning,
warning, inciting, repelling. It was one of these mysterious fairy
calls from out the void that suddenly reached Mole in the darkness,
making him tingle through and through with its very familiar appeal,
even while yet he could not clearly remember what it was. He stopped
dead in his tracks, his nose searching hither and thither in its
efforts to recapture the fine filament, the telegraphic current, that
had so strongly moved him. A moment, and he had caught it again; and
with it this time came recollection in fullest flood.

Home! That was what they meant, those caressing appeals, those soft
touches wafted through the air, those invisible little hands pulling
and tugging, all one way! Why, it must be quite close by him at that
moment, his old home that he had hurriedly forsaken and never sought
again, that day when he first found the River! And now it was sending
out its scouts and its messengers to capture him and bring him in.
Since his escape on that bright morning he had hardly given it a
thought, so absorbed had he been in his new life, in all its
pleasures, its surprises, its fresh and captivating experiences. Now,
with a rush of old memories, how clearly it stood up before him, in
the darkness! Shabby indee