They will never go out of stile

There is a wooden step stile a mile or so from my front door: old and rickety, mossy-stumped and hedge-bound. I rarely approach it without thinking of our first family dog. A stout, sturdy and athletic fellow, he crossed that stile from puppyhood, front paws as a lever to his leap, landing on the other side with a thump or splosh depending on the weather. Then, one day when he was in his 11th year, he made to do the same. This time, however, he failed to clear the cross-bar and fell backwards in an inelegant heap. Twice more he gamely tried to vault the stile with the same painful result. After the third failure, he sat down and looked up at me with the sad, bewildered eyes of one who had just come face to face with his mortality. I lifted him over from then onwards. Although the Elizabeth