The Wind in the Willows
the dark selvedge of the river bank. Though it was past ten o’clock at
night, the sky still clung to and retained some lingering skirts of
light from the departed day; and the sullen heats of the torrid
afternoon broke up and rolled away at the dispersing touch of the cool
fingers of the short midsummer night. Mole lay stretched on the bank,
still panting from the stress of the fierce day that had been cloudless
from dawn to late sunset, and waited for his friend to return. He had
been on the river with some companions, leaving the Water Rat free to
keep a engagement of long standing with Otter; and he had come back to
find the house dark and deserted, and no sign of Rat, who was doubtless
keeping it up late with his old comrade. It was still too hot to think
of staying indoors, so he lay on some cool dock-leaves, and thought
over the past day and its doings, and how very good they all had been.
The Rat’s light footfall was presently heard approaching over the
parched grass. “O, the blessed coolness!” he said, and sat down, gazing
thoughtfully into the river, silent and pre-occupied.
“You stayed to supper, of course?” said the Mole presently.
“Simply had to,” said the Rat. “They wouldn’t hear of my going before.
You know how kind they always are. And they made things as jolly for me
as ever they could, right up to the moment I left. But I felt a brute
all the time, as it was clear to me they were very unhappy, though they
tried to hide it. Mole, I’m afraid they’re in trouble. Little Portly is
missing again; and you know what a lot his father thinks of him, though
he never says much about it.”
“What, that child?” said the Mole lightly. “Well, suppose he is; why
worry about it? He’s always straying off and getting lost, and turning
up again; he’s so adventurous. But no harm ever happens to him.
Everybody hereabouts knows him and likes him, just as they do old
Otter, and you may be sure some animal or other will come across him
and bring him back again all right. Why, we’ve found him ourselves,
miles from home, and quite self-possessed and cheerful!”
“Yes; but this time it’s more serious,” said the Rat gravely. “He’s
been missing for some days now, and the Otters have hunted everywhere,
high and low, without finding the slightest trace. And they’ve asked
every animal, too, for miles around, and no one knows anything about
him. Otter’s evidently more anxious than he’ll admit. I got out of him
that young Portly hasn’t learnt to swim very well yet, and I can see
he’s thinking of the weir. There’s a lot of water coming down still,
considering the time of the year, and the place always had a
fascination for the child. And then there are—well, traps and
things—_you_ know. Otter’s not the fellow to be nervous about any son
of his before it’s time. And now he _is_ nervous. When I left, he came
out with me—said he wanted some air, and talked about stretching his
legs. But I could see it wasn’t that, so I drew him out and pumped him,
and got it all from him at last. He was going to spend the night
watching by the ford. You know the place where the old ford used to be,
in by-gone days before they built the bridge?”
“I know it well,” said the Mole. “But why should Otter choose to watch
there?”
“Well, it seems that it was there he gave Portly his first
swimming-lesson,” continued the Rat. “From that shallow, gravelly spit
near the bank. And it was there he used to teach him fishing, and there
young Portly caught his first fish, of which he was so very proud. The
child loved the spot, and Otter thinks that if he came wandering back
from wherever he is—if he _is_ anywhere by this time, poor little
chap—he might make for the ford he was so fond of; or if he came across
it he’d remember it well, and stop there and play, perhaps. So Otter
goes there every night and watches—on the chance, you know, just on the
chance!”
They were silent for a time, both thinking of the same thing—the
lonely, heart-sore animal, crouched by the ford, watching and waiting,
the long night through—on the chance.
“Well, well,” said the Rat presently, “I suppose we ought to be
thinking about turning in.” But he never offered to move.
“Rat,” said the Mole, “I simply can’t go and turn in, and go to sleep,
and _do_ nothing, even though there doesn’t seem to be anything to be
done. We’ll get the boat out, and paddle up stream. The moon will be up
in an hour or so, and then we will search as well as we can—anyhow, it
will be better than going to bed and doing _nothing_.”
“Just what I was thinking myself,” said the Rat. “It’s not the sort of
night for bed anyhow; and daybreak is not so very far off, and then we
may pick up some news of him from early risers as we go along.”
They got the boat out, and the Rat took the sculls, paddling with
caution. Out in midstream, there was a clear, narrow track that faintly
reflected the sky; but wherever shadows fell on the water from bank,
bush, or tree, they were as solid to all appearance as the banks
themselves, and the Mole had to steer with judgment accordingly. Dark
and deserted as it was, the night was full of small noises, song and
chatter and rustling, telling of the busy little population who were up
and about, plying their trades and vocations through the night till
sunshine should fall on them at last and send them off to their
well-earned repose. The water’s own noises, too, were more apparent
than by day, its gurglings and “cloops” more unexpected and near at
hand; and constantly they started at what seemed a sudden clear call
from an actual articulate voice.
The line of the horizon was clear and hard against the sky, and in one
particular quarter it showed black against a silvery climbing
phosphorescence that grew and grew. At last, over the rim of the
waiting earth the moon lifted with slow majesty till it swung clear of
the horizon and rode off, free of moorings; and once more they began to
see surfaces—meadows wide-spread, and quiet gardens, and the river
itself from bank to bank, all softly disclosed, all washed clean of
mystery and terror, all radiant again as by day, but with a difference
that was tremendous. Their old haunts greeted them again in other
raiment, as if they had slipped away and put on this pure new apparel
and come quietly back, smiling as they shyly waited to see if they
would be recognised again under it.
Fastening their boat to a willow, the friends landed in this silent,
silver kingdom, and patiently explored the hedges, the hollow trees,
the runnels and their little culverts, the ditches and dry water-ways.
Embarking again and crossing over, they worked their way up the stream
in this manner, while the moon, serene and detached in a cloudless sky,
did what she could, though so far off, to help them in their quest;
till her hour came and she sank earthwards reluctantly, and left them,
and mystery once more held field and river.
Then a change began slowly to declare itself. The horizon became
clearer, field and tree came more into sight, and somehow with a
different look; the mystery began to drop away from them. A bird piped
suddenly, and was still; and a light breeze sprang up and set the reeds
and bulrushes rustling. Rat, who was in the stern of the boat, while
Mole sculled, sat up suddenly and listened with a passionate
intentness. Mole, who with gentle strokes was just keeping the boat
moving while he scanned the banks with care, looked at him with
curiosity.
“It’s gone!” sighed the Rat, sinking back in his seat again. “So
beautiful and strange and new. Since it was to end so soon, I almost
wish I had never heard it. For it has roused a longing in me that is
pain, and nothing seems worth while but just to hear that sound once
more and go on listening to it for ever. No! There it is again!” he
cried, alert once more. Entranced, he was silent for a long space,
spellbound.
“Now it passes on and I begin to lose it,” he said presently. “O Mole!
the beauty of it! The merry bubble and joy, the thin, clear, happy call
of the distant piping! Such music I never dreamed of, and the call in
it is stronger even than the music is sweet! Row on, Mole, row! For the
music and the call must be for us.”
The Mole, greatly wondering, obeyed. “I hear nothing myself,” he said,
“but the wind playing in the reeds and rushes and osiers.”
The Rat never answered, if indeed he heard. Rapt, transported,
trembling, he was possessed in all his senses by this new divine thing
that caught up his helpless soul and swung and dandled it, a powerless
but happy infant in a strong sustaining grasp.
In silence Mole rowed steadily, and soon they came to a point where the
river divided, a long backwater branching off to one side. With a
slight movement of his head Rat, who had long dropped the rudder-lines,
directed the rower to take the backwater. The creeping tide of light
gained and gained, and now they could see the colour of the flowers
that gemmed the water’s edge.
“Clearer and nearer still,” cried the Rat joyously. “Now you must
surely hear it! Ah—at last—I see you do!”
Breathless and transfixed the Mole stopped rowing as the liquid run of
that glad piping broke on him like a wave, caught him up, and possessed
him utterly. He saw the tears on his comrade’s cheeks, and bowed his
head and understood. For a space they hung there, brushed by the purple
loose-strife that fringed the bank; then the clear imperious summons
that marched hand-in-hand with the intoxicating melody imposed its will
on Mole, and mechanically he bent to his oars again. And the light grew
steadily stronger, but no birds sang as they were wont to do at the
approach of dawn; and but for the heavenly music all was marvellously
still.
On either side of them, as they glided onwards, the rich meadow-grass
seemed that morning of a freshness and a greenness unsurpassable. Never
had they noticed the roses so vivid, the willow-herb so riotous, the
meadow-sweet so odorous and pervading. Then the murmur of the
approaching weir began to hold the air, and they felt a consciousness
that they were nearing the end, whatever it might be, that surely
awaited their expedition.
A wide half-circle of foam and glinting lights and shining shoulders of
green water, the great weir closed the backwater from bank to bank,
troubled all the quiet surface with twirling eddies and floating
foam-streaks, and deadened all other sounds with its solemn and
soothing rumble. In midmost of the stream, embraced in the weir’s
shimmering arm-spread, a small island lay anchored, fringed close with
willow and silver birch and alder. Reserved, shy, but full of
significance, it hid whatever it might hold behind a veil, keeping it
till the hour should come, and, with the hour, those who were called
and chosen.
Slowly, but with no doubt or hesitation whatever, and in something of a
solemn expectancy, the two animals passed through the broken tumultuous
water and moored their boat at the flowery margin of the island. In
silence they landed, and pushed through the blossom and scented herbage
and undergrowth that led up to the level ground, till they stood on a
little lawn of a marvellous green, set round with Nature’s own
orchard-trees—crab-apple, wild cherry, and sloe.
“This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to me,”
whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. “Here, in this holy place, here
if anywhere, surely we shall find Him!”
Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that
turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the
ground. It was no panic terror—indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and
happy—but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he
knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near.