الفصل الفصل 1 · THE RIVER BANK

. THE RIVER BANK

The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning

his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders

and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had

dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his

black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the

air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his

dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and

longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his

brush on the floor, said “Bother!” and “O blow!” and also “Hang

spring-cleaning!” and bolted out of the house without even waiting to

put on his coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he

made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the

gravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer

to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and

scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and

scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself,

“Up we go! Up we go!” till at last, pop! his snout came out into the

sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great

meadow.

“This is fine!” he said to himself. “This is better than whitewashing!”

The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes caressed his heated

brow, and after the seclusion of the cellarage he had lived in so long

the carol of happy birds fell on his dulled hearing almost like a

shout. Jumping off all his four legs at once, in the joy of living and

the delight of spring without its cleaning, he pursued his way across

the meadow till he reached the hedge on the further side.

“Hold up!” said an elderly rabbit at the gap. “Sixpence for the

privilege of passing by the private road!” He was bowled over in an

instant by the impatient and contemptuous Mole, who trotted along the

side of the hedge chaffing the other rabbits as they peeped hurriedly

from their holes to see what the row was about. “Onion-sauce!

Onion-sauce!” he remarked jeeringly, and was gone before they could

think of a thoroughly satisfactory reply. Then they all started

grumbling at each other. “How _stupid_ you are! Why didn’t you tell

him——” “Well, why didn’t _you_ say——” “You might have reminded him——”

and so on, in the usual way; but, of course, it was then much too late,

as is always the case.

It all seemed too good to be true. Hither and thither through the

meadows he rambled busily, along the hedgerows, across the copses,

finding everywhere birds building, flowers budding, leaves

thrusting—everything happy, and progressive, and occupied. And instead

of having an uneasy conscience pricking him and whispering “whitewash!”

he somehow could only feel how jolly it was to be the only idle dog

among all these busy citizens. After all, the best part of a holiday is

perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other

fellows busy working.

He thought his happiness was complete when, as he meandered aimlessly

along, suddenly he stood by the edge of a full-fed river. Never in his

life had he seen a river before—this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied

animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and

leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that

shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake

and a-shiver—glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter

and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side

of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a

man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at

last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a

babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the

heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.

As he sat on the grass and looked across the river, a dark hole in the

bank opposite, just above the water’s edge, caught his eye, and

dreamily he fell to considering what a nice snug dwelling-place it

would make for an animal with few wants and fond of a bijou riverside

residence, above flood level and remote from noise and dust. As he

gazed, something bright and small seemed to twinkle down in the heart

of it, vanished, then twinkled once more like a tiny star. But it could

hardly be a star in such an unlikely situation; and it was too

glittering and small for a glow-worm. Then, as he looked, it winked at

him, and so declared itself to be an eye; and a small face began

gradually to grow up round it, like a frame round a picture.

A brown little face, with whiskers.

A grave round face, with the same twinkle in its eye that had first

attracted his notice.

Small neat ears and thick silky hair.

It was the Water Rat!

Then the two animals stood and regarded each other cautiously.

“Hullo, Mole!” said the Water Rat.

“Hullo, Rat!” said the Mole.

“Would you like to come over?” enquired the Rat presently.

“Oh, its all very well to _talk_,” said the Mole, rather pettishly, he

being new to a river and riverside life and its ways.

The Rat said nothing, but stooped and unfastened a rope and hauled on

it; then lightly stepped into a little boat which the Mole had not

observed. It was painted blue outside and white within, and was just

the size for two animals; and the Mole’s whole heart went out to it at

once, even though he did not yet fully understand its uses.

The Rat sculled smartly across and made fast. Then he held up his

forepaw as the Mole stepped gingerly down. “Lean on that!” he said.

“Now then, step lively!” and the Mole to his surprise and rapture found

himself actually seated in the stern of a real boat.

“This has been a wonderful day!” said he, as the Rat shoved off and

took to the sculls again. “Do you know, I’ve never been in a boat

before in all my life.”

“What?” cried the Rat, open-mouthed: “Never been in a—you never—well

I—what have you been doing, then?”

“Is it so nice as all that?” asked the Mole shyly, though he was quite

prepared to believe it as he leant back in his seat and surveyed the

cushions, the oars, the rowlocks, and all the fascinating fittings, and

felt the boat sway lightly under him.

“Nice? It’s the _only_ thing,” said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant

forward for his stroke. “Believe me, my young friend, there is

_nothing_—absolute nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing

about in boats. Simply messing,” he went on dreamily:

“messing—about—in—boats; messing——”

“Look ahead, Rat!” cried the Mole suddenly.

It was too late. The boat struck the bank full tilt. The dreamer, the

joyous oarsman, lay on his back at the bottom of the boat, his heels in

the air.

“—about in boats—or _with_ boats,” the Rat went on composedly, picking

himself up with a pleasant laugh. “In or out of ’em, it doesn’t matter.

Nothing seems really to matter, that’s the charm of it. Whether you get

away, or whether you don’t; whether you arrive at your destination or

whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at

all, you’re always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and

when you’ve done it there’s always something else to do, and you can do

it if you like, but you’d much better not. Look here! If you’ve really

nothing else on hand this morning, supposing we drop down the river

together, and have a long day of it?”

The Mole waggled his toes from sheer happiness, spread his chest with a

sigh of full contentment, and leaned back blissfully into the soft

cushions. “_What_ a day I’m having!” he said. “Let us start at once!”

“Hold hard a minute, then!” said the Rat. He looped the painter through

a ring in his landing-stage, climbed up into his hole above, and after

a short interval reappeared staggering under a fat, wicker

luncheon-basket.

“Shove that under your feet,” he observed to the Mole, as he passed it

down into the boat. Then he untied the painter and took the sculls

again.

“What’s inside it?” asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosity.

“There’s cold chicken inside it,” replied the Rat briefly; “

coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscresssandwiches

pottedme atgingerbeerlemonadesodawater——”

“O stop, stop,” cried the Mole in ecstacies: “This is too much!”

“Do you really think so?” enquired the Rat seriously. “It’s only what I

always take on these little excursions; and the other animals are

always telling me that I’m a mean beast and cut it _very_ fine!”

The Mole never heard a word he was saying. Absorbed in the new life he

was entering upon, intoxicated with the sparkle, the ripple, the scents

and the sounds and the sunlight, he trailed a paw in the water and

dreamed long waking dreams. The Water Rat, like the good little fellow

he was, sculled steadily on and forebore to disturb him.

“I like your clothes awfully, old chap,” he remarked after some half an

hour or so had passed. “I’m going to get a black velvet smoking-suit

myself some day, as soon as I can afford it.”

“I beg your pardon,” said the Mole, pulling himself together with an

effort. “You must think me very rude; but all this is so new to me.

So—this—is—a—River!”

“_The_ River,” corrected the Rat.

“And you really live by the river? What a jolly life!”

“By it and with it and on it and in it,” said the Rat. “It’s brother

and sister to me, and aunts, and company, and food and drink, and

(naturally) washing. It’s my world, and I don’t want any other. What it

hasn’t got is not worth having, and what it doesn’t know is not worth

knowing. Lord! the times we’ve had together! Whether in winter or

summer, spring or autumn, it’s always got its fun and its excitements.

When the floods are on in February, and my cellars and basement are

brimming with drink that’s no good to me, and the brown water runs by

my best bedroom window; or again when it all drops away and, shows

patches of mud that smells like plum-cake, and the rushes and weed clog

the channels, and I can potter about dry shod over most of the bed of

it and find fresh food to eat, and things careless people have dropped

out of boats!”

“But isn’t it a bit dull at times?” the Mole ventured to ask. “Just you

and the river, and no one else to pass a word with?”

“No one else to—well, I mustn’t be hard on you,” said the Rat with

forbearance. “You’re new to it, and of course you don’t know. The bank

is so crowded nowadays that many people are moving away altogether: O

no, it isn’t what it used to be, at all. Otters, kingfishers,

dabchicks, moorhens, all of them about all day long and always wanting

you to _do_ something—as if a fellow had no business of his own to

attend to!”

“What lies over _there?_” asked the Mole, waving a paw towards a

background of woodland that darkly framed the water-meadows on one side

of the river.

“That? O, that’s just the Wild Wood,” said the Rat shortly. “We don’t

go there very much, we river-bankers.”

“Aren’t they—aren’t they very _nice_ people in there?” said the Mole, a

trifle nervously.

“W-e-ll,” replied the Rat, “let me see. The squirrels are all right.

_And_ the rabbits—some of ’em, but rabbits are a mixed lot. And then

there’s Badger, of course. He lives right in the heart of it; wouldn’t

live anywhere else, either, if you paid him to do it. Dear old Badger!

Nobody interferes with _him_. They’d better not,” he added

significantly.

“Why, who _should_ interfere with him?” asked the Mole.

“Well, of course—there—are others,” explained the Rat in a hesitating

sort of way.

“Weasels—and stoats—and foxes—and so on. They’re all right in a way—I’m

very good friends with them—pass the time of day when we meet, and all

that—but they break out sometimes, there’s no denying it, and

then—well, you can’t really trust them, and that’s the fact.”

The Mole knew well that it is quite against animal-etiquette to dwell

on possible trouble ahead, or even to allude to it; so he dropped the

subject.

“And beyond the Wild Wood again?” he asked: “Where it’s all blue and

dim, and one sees what may be hills or perhaps they mayn’t, and

something like the smoke of towns, or is it only cloud-drift?”

“Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,” said the Rat. “And that’s

something that doesn’t matter, either to you or me. I’ve never been

there, and I’m never going, nor you either, if you’ve got any sense at

all. Don’t ever refer to it again, please. Now then! Here’s our

backwater at last, where we’re going to lunch.”

Leaving the main stream, they now passed into what seemed at first

sight like a little land-locked lake. Green turf sloped down to either

edge, brown snaky tree-roots gleamed below the surface of the quiet

water, while ahead of them the silvery shoulder and foamy tumble of a

weir, arm-in-arm with a restless dripping mill-wheel, that held up in

its turn a grey-gabled mill-house, filled the air with a soothing

murmur of sound, dull and smothery, yet with little clear voices

speaking up cheerfully out of it at intervals. It was so very beautiful

that the Mole could only hold up both forepaws and gasp, “O my! O my! O

my!”

The Rat brought the boat alongside the bank, made her fast, helped the

still awkward Mole safely ashore, and swung out the luncheon-basket.

The Mole begged as a favour to be allowed to unpack it all by himself;

and the Rat was very pleased to indulge him, and to sprawl at full

length on the grass and rest, while his excited friend shook out the

table-cloth and spread it, took out all the mysterious packets one by

one and arranged their contents in due order, still gasping, “O my! O

my!” at each fresh revelation. When all was ready, the Rat said, “Now,

pitch in, old fellow!” and the Mole was indeed very glad to obey, for

he had started his spring-cleaning at a very early hour that morning,

as people _will_ do, and had not paused for bite or sup; and he had

been through a very great deal since that distant time which now seemed

so many days ago.

“What are you looking at?” said the Rat presently, when the edge of

their hunger was somewhat dulled, and the Mole’s eyes were able to

wander off the table-cloth a little.

“I am looking,” said the Mole, “at a streak of bubbles that I see

travelling along the surface of the water. That is a thing that strikes

me as funny.”

“Bubbles? Oho!” said the Rat, and chirruped cheerily in an inviting

sort of way.

A broad glistening muzzle showed itself above the edge of the bank, and

the Otter hauled himself out and shook the water from his coat.

“Greedy beggars!” he observed, making for the provender. “Why didn’t

you invite me, Ratty?”

“This was an impromptu affair,” explained the Rat. “By the way—my

friend Mr. Mole.”

“Proud, I’m sure,” said the Otter, and the two animals were friends

forthwith.

“Such a rumpus everywhere!” continued the Otter. “All the world seems

out on the river to-day. I came up this backwater to try and get a

moment’s peace, and then stumble upon you fellows!—At least—I beg

pardon—I don’t exactly mean that, you know.”

There was a rustle behind them, proceeding from a hedge wherein last

year’s leaves still clung thick, and a stripy head, with high shoulders

behind it, peered forth on them.

“Come on, old Badger!” shouted the Rat.

The Badger trotted forward a pace or two; then grunted, “H’m! Company,”

and turned his back and disappeared from view.

“That’s _just_ the sort of fellow he is!” observed the disappointed

Rat. “Simply hates Society! Now we shan’t see any more of him to-day.

Well, tell us, _who’s_ out on the river?”

“Toad’s out, for one,” replied the Otter. “In his brand-new wager-boat;

new togs, new everything!”

The two animals looked at each other and laughed.

“Once, it was nothing but sailing,” said the Rat, “Then he tired of

that and took to punting. Nothing would please him but to punt all day

and every day, and a nice mess he made of it. Last year it was

house-boating, and we all had to go and stay with him in his

house-boat, and pretend we liked it. He was going to spend the rest of

his life in a house-boat. It’s all the same, whatever he takes up; he

gets tired of it, and starts on something fresh.”

“Such a good fellow, too,” remarked the Otter reflectively: “But no

stability—especially in a boat!”

From where they sat they could get a glimpse of the main stream across

the island that separated them; and just then a wager-boat flashed into

view, the rower—a short, stout figure—splashing badly and rolling a

good deal, but working his hardest. The Rat stood up and hailed him,

but Toad—for it was he—shook his head and settled sternly to his work.

“He’ll be out of the boat in a minute if he rolls like that,” said the

Rat, sitting down again.

“Of course he will,” chuckled the Otter. “Did I ever tell you that good

story about Toad and the lock-keeper? It happened this way. Toad....”

An errant May-fly swerved unsteadily athwart the current in the

intoxicated fashion affected by young bloods of May-flies seeing life.

A swirl of water and a “cloop!” and the May-fly was visible no more.

Neither was the Otter.

The Mole looked down. The voice was still in his ears, but the turf

whereon he had sprawled was clearly vacant. Not an Otter to be seen, as

far as the distant horizon.

But again there was a streak of bubbles on the surface of the river.

The Rat hummed a tune, and the Mole recollected that animal-etiquette

forbade any sort of comment on the sudden disappearance of one’s

friends at any moment, for any reason or no reason whatever.

“Well, well,” said the Rat, “I suppose we ought to be moving. I wonder

which of us had better pack the luncheon-basket?” He did not speak as

if he was frightfully eager for the treat.

“O, please let me,” said the Mole. So, of course, the Rat let him.

Packing the basket was not quite such pleasant work as unpacking the

basket. It never is. But the Mole was bent on enjoying everything, and

although just when he had got the basket packed and strapped up tightly

he saw a plate staring up at him from the grass, and when the job had

been done again the Rat pointed out a fork which anybody ought to have

seen, and last of all, behold! the mustard pot, which he had been

sitting on without knowing it—still, somehow, the thing got finished at

last, without much loss of temper.

The afternoon sun was getting low as the Rat sculled gently homewards

in a dreamy mood, murmuring poetry-things over to himself, and not

paying much attention to Mole. But the Mole was very full of lunch, and

self-satisfaction, and pride, and already quite at home in a boat (so

he thought) and was getting a bit restless besides: and presently he

said, “Ratty! Please, _I_ want to row, now!”

The Rat shook his head with a smile. “Not yet, my young friend,” he

said—“wait till you’ve had a few lessons. It’s not so easy as it

looks.”

The Mole was quiet for a minute or two. But he began to feel more and

more jealous of Rat, sculling so strongly and so easily along, and his

pride began to whisper that he could do it every bit as well. He jumped

up and seized the sculls, so suddenly, that the Rat, who was gazing out

over the water and saying more poetry-things to himself, was taken by

surprise and fell backwards off his seat with his legs in the air for

the second time, while the triumphant Mole took his place and grabbed

the sculls with entire confidence.

“Stop it, you _silly_ ass!” cried the Rat, from the bottom of the boat.

“You can’t do it! You’ll have us over!”

The Mole flung his sculls back with a flourish, and made a great dig at

the water. He missed the surface altogether, his legs flew up above his

head, and he found himself lying on the top of the prostrate Rat.

Greatly alarmed, he made a grab at the side of the boat, and the next

moment—Sploosh!

Over went the boat, and he found himself struggling in the river.

O my, how cold the water was, and O, how _very_ wet it felt. How it

sang in his ears as he went down, down, down! How bright and welcome

the sun looked as he rose to the surface coughing and spluttering! How

black was his despair when he felt himself sinking again! Then a firm

paw gripped him by the back of his neck. It was the Rat, and he was

evidently laughing—the Mole could _feel_ him laughing, right down his

arm and through his paw, and so into his—the Mole’s—neck.

The Rat got hold of a scull and shoved it under the Mole’s arm; then he

did the same by the other side of him and, swimming behind, propelled

the helpless animal to shore, hauled him out, and set him down on the

bank, a squashy, pulpy lump of misery.

When the Rat had rubbed him down a bit, and wrung some of the wet out

of him, he said, “Now, then, old fellow! Trot up and down the

towing-path as hard as you can, till you’re warm and dry again, while I

dive for the luncheon-basket.”

So the dismal Mole, wet without and ashamed within, trotted about till

he was fairly dry, while the Rat plunged into the water again,

recovered the boat, righted her and made her fast, fetched his floating

property to shore by degrees, and finally dived successfully for the

luncheon-basket and struggled to land with it.

When all was ready for a start once more, the Mole, limp and dejected,

took his seat in the stern of the boat; and as they set off, he said in

a low voice, broken with emotion, “Ratty, my generous friend! I am very

sorry indeed for my foolish and ungrateful conduct. My heart quite

fails me when I think how I might have lost that beautiful

luncheon-basket. Indeed, I have been a complete ass, and I know it.

Will you overlook it this once and forgive me, and let things go on as

before?”

“That’s all right, bless you!” responded the Rat cheerily. “What’s a

little wet to a Water Rat? I’m more in the water than out of it most

days. Don’t you think any more about it; and, look here! I really think

you had better come and stop with me for a little time. It’s very plain

and rough, you know—not like Toad’s house at all—but you haven’t seen

that yet; still, I can make you comfortable. And I’ll teach you to row,

and to swim, and you’ll soon be as handy on the water as any of us.”

The Mole was so touched by his kind manner of speaking that he could

find no voice to answer him; and he had to brush away a tear or two

with the back of his paw. But the Rat kindly looked in another

direction, and presently the Mole’s spirits revived again, and he was

even able to give some straight back-talk to a couple of moorhens who

were sniggering to each other about his bedraggled appearance.

When they got home, the Rat made a bright fire in the parlour, and

planted the Mole in an arm-chair in front of it, having fetched down a

dressing-gown and slippers for him, and told him river stories till

supper-time. Very thrilling stories they were, too, to an

earth-dwelling animal like Mole. Stories about weirs, and sudden

floods, and leaping pike, and steamers that flung hard bottles—at least

bottles were certainly flung, and _from_ steamers, so presumably _by_

them; and about herons, and how particular they were whom they spoke

to; and about adventures down drains, and night-fishings with Otter, or

excursions far a-field with Badger. Supper was a most cheerful meal;

but very shortly afterwards a terribly sleepy Mole had to be escorted

upstairs by his considerate host, to the best bedroom, where he soon

laid his head on his pillow in great peace and contentment, knowing

that his new-found friend the River was lapping the sill of his window.

This day was only the first of many similar ones for the emancipated

Mole, each of them longer and full of interest as the ripening summer

moved onward. He learnt to swim and to row, and entered into the joy of

running water; and with his ear to the reed-stems he caught, at

intervals, something of what the wind went whispering so constantly

among them.