1 "That's the new-born lamb," said Mary.
2 The new-born lamb was in his arms and the little red fox trotted by his side.
3 It was not the first motherless lamb he had found and he knew what to do with it.
4 By the time the lamb fell asleep questions poured forth and Dickon answered them all.
5 He told them how he had found the lamb just as the sun was rising three mornings ago.
6 Dickon sat cross-legged with his rabbit asleep on his arm and a hand resting on the lamb's back.
7 A boy, and a fox, and a crow, and two squirrels, and a new-born lamb, are coming to see me this morning.
8 The new-born lamb Dickon had found three days before lying by its dead mother among the gorse bushes on the moor.
9 There now, and he pushed the rubber tip of the bottle into the nuzzling mouth and the lamb began to suck it with ravenous ecstasy.
10 He was sitting in an armchair and a young lamb was standing by him shaking its tail in feeding-lamb fashion as Dickon knelt giving it milk from its bottle.
11 Ben Weatherstaff walked behind, and the "creatures" trailed after them, the lamb and the fox cub keeping close to Dickon, the white rabbit hopping along or stopping to nibble and Soot following with the solemnity of a person who felt himself in charge.
12 The truth was that in spite of all he had heard he had not in the least understood what this boy would be like and that his fox and his crow and his squirrels and his lamb were so near to him and his friendliness that they seemed almost to be part of himself.
13 He walked over to Colin's sofa and put the new-born lamb quietly on his lap, and immediately the little creature turned to the warm velvet dressing-gown and began to nuzzle and nuzzle into its folds and butt its tight-curled head with soft impatience against his side.
14 Dickon held his rabbit in his arm, and perhaps he made some charmer's signal no one heard, for when he sat down, cross-legged like the rest, the crow, the fox, the squirrels and the lamb slowly drew near and made part of the circle, settling each into a place of rest as if of their own desire.