The Wind in the Willows
the red and glowing vintage of the South, and, leaning towards the
Water Rat, compelled his gaze and held him, body and soul, while he
talked. Those eyes were of the changing foam-streaked grey-green of
leaping Northern seas; in the glass shone a hot ruby that seemed the
very heart of the South, beating for him who had courage to respond to
its pulsation. The twin lights, the shifting grey and the steadfast
red, mastered the Water Rat and held him bound, fascinated, powerless.
The quiet world outside their rays receded far away and ceased to be.
And the talk, the wonderful talk flowed on—or was it speech entirely,
or did it pass at times into song—chanty of the sailors weighing the
dripping anchor, sonorous hum of the shrouds in a tearing North-Easter,
ballad of the fisherman hauling his nets at sundown against an apricot
sky, chords of guitar and mandoline from gondola or caique? Did it
change into the cry of the wind, plaintive at first, angrily shrill as
it freshened, rising to a tearing whistle, sinking to a musical trickle
of air from the leech of the bellying sail? All these sounds the
spell-bound listener seemed to hear, and with them the hungry complaint
of the gulls and the sea-mews, the soft thunder of the breaking wave,
the cry of the protesting shingle. Back into speech again it passed,
and with beating heart he was following the adventures of a dozen
seaports, the fights, the escapes, the rallies, the comradeships, the
gallant undertakings; or he searched islands for treasure, fished in
still lagoons and dozed day-long on warm white sand. Of deep-sea
fishings he heard tell, and mighty silver gatherings of the mile-long
net; of sudden perils, noise of breakers on a moonless night, or the
tall bows of the great liner taking shape overhead through the fog; of
the merry home-coming, the headland rounded, the harbour lights opened
out; the groups seen dimly on the quay, the cheery hail, the splash of
the hawser; the trudge up the steep little street towards the
comforting glow of red-curtained windows.
Lastly, in his waking dream it seemed to him that the Adventurer had
risen to his feet, but was still speaking, still holding him fast with
his sea-grey eyes.
“And now,” he was softly saying, “I take to the road again, holding on
southwestwards for many a long and dusty day; till at last I reach the
little grey sea town I know so well, that clings along one steep side
of the harbour. There through dark doorways you look down flights of
stone steps, overhung by great pink tufts of valerian and ending in a
patch of sparkling blue water. The little boats that lie tethered to
the rings and stanchions of the old sea-wall are gaily painted as those
I clambered in and out of in my own childhood; the salmon leap on the
flood tide, schools of mackerel flash and play past quay-sides and
foreshores, and by the windows the great vessels glide, night and day,
up to their moorings or forth to the open sea. There, sooner or later,
the ships of all seafaring nations arrive; and there, at its destined
hour, the ship of my choice will let go its anchor. I shall take my
time, I shall tarry and bide, till at last the right one lies waiting
for me, warped out into midstream, loaded low, her bowsprit pointing
down harbour. I shall slip on board, by boat or along hawser; and then
one morning I shall wake to the song and tramp of the sailors, the
clink of the capstan, and the rattle of the anchor-chain coming merrily
in. We shall break out the jib and the foresail, the white houses on
the harbour side will glide slowly past us as she gathers steering-way,
and the voyage will have begun! As she forges towards the headland she
will clothe herself with canvas; and then, once outside, the sounding
slap of great green seas as she heels to the wind, pointing South!
“And you, you will come too, young brother; for the days pass, and
never return, and the South still waits for you. Take the Adventure,
heed the call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes! ’Tis but a
banging of the door behind you, a blithesome step forward, and you are
out of the old life and into the new! Then some day, some day long
hence, jog home here if you will, when the cup has been drained and the
play has been played, and sit down by your quiet river with a store of
goodly memories for company. You can easily overtake me on the road,
for you are young, and I am ageing and go softly. I will linger, and
look back; and at last I will surely see you coming, eager and
light-hearted, with all the South in your face!”
The voice died away and ceased as an insect’s tiny trumpet dwindles
swiftly into silence; and the Water Rat, paralysed and staring, saw at
last but a distant speck on the white surface of the road.
Mechanically he rose and proceeded to repack the luncheon-basket,
carefully and without haste. Mechanically he returned home, gathered
together a few small necessaries and special treasures he was fond of,
and put them in a satchel; acting with slow deliberation, moving about
the room like a sleep-walker; listening ever with parted lips. He swung
the satchel over his shoulder, carefully selected a stout stick for his
wayfaring, and with no haste, but with no hesitation at all, he stepped
across the threshold just as the Mole appeared at the door.
“Why, where are you off to, Ratty?” asked the Mole in great surprise,
grasping him by the arm.
“Going South, with the rest of them,” murmured the Rat in a dreamy
monotone, never looking at him. “Seawards first and then on shipboard,
and so to the shores that are calling me!”
He pressed resolutely forward, still without haste, but with dogged
fixity of purpose; but the Mole, now thoroughly alarmed, placed himself
in front of him, and looking into his eyes saw that they were glazed
and set and turned a streaked and shifting grey—not his friend’s eyes,
but the eyes of some other animal! Grappling with him strongly he
dragged him inside, threw him down, and held him.
The Rat struggled desperately for a few moments, and then his strength
seemed suddenly to leave him, and he lay still and exhausted, with
closed eyes, trembling. Presently the Mole assisted him to rise and
placed him in a chair, where he sat collapsed and shrunken into
himself, his body shaken by a violent shivering, passing in time into
an hysterical fit of dry sobbing. Mole made the door fast, threw the
satchel into a drawer and locked it, and sat down quietly on the table
by his friend, waiting for the strange seizure to pass. Gradually the
Rat sank into a troubled doze, broken by starts and confused murmurings
of things strange and wild and foreign to the unenlightened Mole; and
from that he passed into a deep slumber.
Very anxious in mind, the Mole left him for a time and busied himself
with household matters; and it was getting dark when he returned to the
parlour and found the Rat where he had left him, wide awake indeed, but
listless, silent, and dejected. He took one hasty glance at his eyes;
found them, to his great gratification, clear and dark and brown again
as before; and then sat down and tried to cheer him up and help him to
relate what had happened to him.
Poor Ratty did his best, by degrees, to explain things; but how could
he put into cold words what had mostly been suggestion? How recall, for
another’s benefit, the haunting sea voices that had sung to him, how
reproduce at second-hand the magic of the Seafarer’s hundred
reminiscences? Even to himself, now the spell was broken and the
glamour gone, he found it difficult to account for what had seemed,
some hours ago, the inevitable and only thing. It is not surprising,
then, that he failed to convey to the Mole any clear idea of what he
had been through that day.
To the Mole this much was plain: the fit, or attack, had passed away,
and had left him sane again, though shaken and cast down by the
reaction. But he seemed to have lost all interest for the time in the
things that went to make up his daily life, as well as in all pleasant
forecastings of the altered days and doings that the changing season
was surely bringing.
Casually, then, and with seeming indifference, the Mole turned his talk
to the harvest that was being gathered in, the towering wagons and
their straining teams, the growing ricks, and the large moon rising
over bare acres dotted with sheaves. He talked of the reddening apples
around, of the browning nuts, of jams and preserves and the distilling
of cordials; till by easy stages such as these he reached midwinter,
its hearty joys and its snug home life, and then he became simply
lyrical.
By degrees the Rat began to sit up and to join in. His dull eye
brightened, and he lost some of his listening air.
Presently the tactful Mole slipped away and returned with a pencil and
a few half-sheets of paper, which he placed on the table at his
friend’s elbow.
“It’s quite a long time since you did any poetry,” he remarked. “You
might have a try at it this evening, instead of—well, brooding over
things so much. I’ve an idea that you’ll feel a lot better when you’ve
got something jotted down—if it’s only just the rhymes.”
The Rat pushed the paper away from him wearily, but the discreet Mole
took occasion to leave the room, and when he peeped in again some time
later, the Rat was absorbed and deaf to the world; alternately
scribbling and sucking the top of his pencil. It is true that he sucked
a good deal more than he scribbled; but it was joy to the Mole to know
that the cure had at least begun.
X.
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF TOAD
The front door of the hollow tree faced eastwards, so Toad was called
at an early hour; partly by the bright sunlight streaming in on him,
partly by the exceeding coldness of his toes, which made him dream that
he was at home in bed in his own handsome room with the Tudor window,
on a cold winter’s night, and his bedclothes had got up, grumbling and
protesting they couldn’t stand the cold any longer, and had run
downstairs to the kitchen fire to warm themselves; and he had followed,
on bare feet, along miles and miles of icy stone-paved passages,
arguing and beseeching them to be reasonable. He would probably have
been aroused much earlier, had he not slept for some weeks on straw
over stone flags, and almost forgotten the friendly feeling of thick
blankets pulled well up round the chin.
Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes first and his complaining toes next,
wondered for a moment where he was, looking round for familiar stone
wall and little barred window; then, with a leap of the heart,
remembered everything—his escape, his flight, his pursuit; remembered,
first and best thing of all, that he was free!
Free! The word and the thought alone were worth fifty blankets. He was
warm from end to end as he thought of the jolly world outside, waiting
eagerly for him to make his triumphal entrance, ready to serve him and
play up to him, anxious to help him and to keep him company, as it
always had been in days of old before misfortune fell upon him. He
shook himself and combed the dry leaves out of his hair with his
fingers; and, his toilet complete, marched forth into the comfortable
morning sun, cold but confident, hungry but hopeful, all nervous
terrors of yesterday dispelled by rest and sleep and frank and
heartening sunshine.
He had the world all to himself, that early summer morning. The dewy
woodland, as he threaded it, was solitary and still: the green fields
that succeeded the trees were his own to do as he liked with; the road
itself, when he reached it, in that loneliness that was everywhere,
seemed, like a stray dog, to be looking anxiously for company. Toad,
however, was looking for something that could talk, and tell him
clearly which way he ought to go. It is all very well, when you have a