shall be careful after this! I shall not go into their house, but get
the farmer to let them out. I've thought of a new game with them!"

His mother consented; the farmer did let the pigs out; and Clare and
they had a right good game together among the ricks in the yard.

His growing nature showed itself in a swiftly widening friendship for
live things. The spreading ripples of his affection took in the cows
and the horses, the hens and the geese, and every creature about the
place, till at length it had to pull up at the moles, because he could
not get at them. I doubt if he would have liked them if he had seen
one eat a frog! He called the pigs little brothers, and the horses and
cows big brothers, and was perfectly at home with them before people
knew he cared for their company. I think his absolute simplicity
brought him near to the fountain of life, or rather, prevented him
from straying from it; and this kept him so alive himself, that he was
delicately sensitive to all life. He felt himself pledged to all other
life as being one with it. Its forms were therefore so open to him as
to seem familiar from the first. He knew instinctively what went on in
regions of life differing from his own--knew, without knowing how,
what the animals were thinking and feeling; so was able to interpret
their motions, even the sudden changes in their behaviour.

There was one dangerous animal on the place--a bull, of which the
farmer had often said he must part with him, or he would be the death
of somebody. One morning he was struck with terror to find Clare in
the stall with Nimrod. The brute was chained up pretty short, but was
free enough for terrible mischief: Clare was stroking his nose, and
the beast was standing as still as a bull of bronze, with one curved
and one sharp, forward-set, wicked-looking horn in alarming proximity