第 七 章 · THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN

. THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN

The Willow-Wren was twittering his thin little song, hidden himself in

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.

With difficulty he turned to look for his friend and saw him at his

side cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. And still there was

utter silence in the populous bird-haunted branches around them; and

still the light grew and grew.

Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though

the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still

dominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting

to strike him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on things

rightly kept hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head;

and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature,

flushed with fullness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath

for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw

the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing

daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were

looking down on them humourously, while the bearded mouth broke into a

half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay

across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the

pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid

curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw,

last of all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in

entire peace and contentment, the little, round, podgy, childish form

of the baby otter. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and

intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived;

and still, as he lived, he wondered.

“Rat!” he found breath to whisper, shaking. “Are you afraid?”

“Afraid?” murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love.

“Afraid! Of _Him?_ O, never, never! And yet—and yet—O, Mole, I am

afraid!”

Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did

worship.

Sudden and magnificent, the sun’s broad golden disc showed itself over

the horizon facing them; and the first rays, shooting across the level

water-meadows, took the animals full in the eyes and dazzled them. When

they were able to look once more, the Vision had vanished, and the air

was full of the carol of birds that hailed the dawn.

As they stared blankly in dumb misery deepening as they slowly realised

all they had seen and all they had lost, a capricious little breeze,

dancing up from the surface of the water, tossed the aspens, shook the

dewy roses and blew lightly and caressingly in their faces; and with

its soft touch came instant oblivion. For this is the last best gift

that the kindly demi-god is careful to bestow on those to whom he has

revealed himself in their helping: the gift of forgetfulness. Lest the

awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and

pleasure, and the great haunting memory should spoil all the

after-lives of little animals helped out of difficulties, in order that

they should be happy and lighthearted as before.

Mole rubbed his eyes and stared at Rat, who was looking about him in a

puzzled sort of way. “I beg your pardon; what did you say, Rat?” he

asked.

“I think I was only remarking,” said Rat slowly, “that this was the

right sort of place, and that here, if anywhere, we should find him.

And look! Why, there he is, the little fellow!” And with a cry of

delight he ran towards the slumbering Portly.

But Mole stood still a moment, held in thought. As one wakened suddenly

from a beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, and can re-capture

nothing but a dim sense of the beauty of it, the beauty! Till that,

too, fades away in its turn, and the dreamer bitterly accepts the hard,

cold waking and all its penalties; so Mole, after struggling with his

memory for a brief space, shook his head sadly and followed the Rat.

Portly woke up with a joyous squeak, and wriggled with pleasure at the

sight of his father’s friends, who had played with him so often in past

days. In a moment, however, his face grew blank, and he fell to hunting

round in a circle with pleading whine. As a child that has fallen

happily asleep in its nurse’s arms, and wakes to find itself alone and

laid in a strange place, and searches corners and cupboards, and runs

from room to room, despair growing silently in its heart, even so

Portly searched the island and searched, dogged and unwearying, till at

last the black moment came for giving it up, and sitting down and

crying bitterly.

The Mole ran quickly to comfort the little animal; but Rat, lingering,

looked long and doubtfully at certain hoof-marks deep in the sward.

“Some—great—animal—has been here,” he murmured slowly and thoughtfully;

and stood musing, musing; his mind strangely stirred.

“Come along, Rat!” called the Mole. “Think of poor Otter, waiting up

there by the ford!”

Portly had soon been comforted by the promise of a treat—a jaunt on the

river in Mr. Rat’s real boat; and the two animals conducted him to the

water’s side, placed him securely between them in the bottom of the

boat, and paddled off down the backwater. The sun was fully up by now,

and hot on them, birds sang lustily and without restraint, and flowers

smiled and nodded from either bank, but somehow—so thought the

animals—with less of richness and blaze of colour than they seemed to

remember seeing quite recently somewhere—they wondered where.

The main river reached again, they turned the boat’s head upstream,

towards the point where they knew their friend was keeping his lonely

vigil. As they drew near the familiar ford, the Mole took the boat in

to the bank, and they lifted Portly out and set him on his legs on the

tow-path, gave him his marching orders and a friendly farewell pat on

the back, and shoved out into mid-stream. They watched the little

animal as he waddled along the path contentedly and with importance;

watched him till they saw his muzzle suddenly lift and his waddle break

into a clumsy amble as he quickened his pace with shrill whines and

wriggles of recognition. Looking up the river, they could see Otter

start up, tense and rigid, from out of the shallows where he crouched

in dumb patience, and could hear his amazed and joyous bark as he

bounded up through the osiers on to the path. Then the Mole, with a

strong pull on one oar, swung the boat round and let the full stream

bear them down again whither it would, their quest now happily ended.

“I feel strangely tired, Rat,” said the Mole, leaning wearily over his

oars as the boat drifted. “It’s being up all night, you’ll say,

perhaps; but that’s nothing. We do as much half the nights of the week,

at this time of the year. No; I feel as if I had been through something

very exciting and rather terrible, and it was just over; and yet

nothing particular has happened.”

“Or something very surprising and splendid and beautiful,” murmured the

Rat, leaning back and closing his eyes. “I feel just as you do, Mole;

simply dead tired, though not body tired. It’s lucky we’ve got the

stream with us, to take us home. Isn’t it jolly to feel the sun again,

soaking into one’s bones! And hark to the wind playing in the reeds!”

“It’s like music—far away music,” said the Mole nodding drowsily.

“So I was thinking,” murmured the Rat, dreamful and languid.

“Dance-music—the lilting sort that runs on without a stop—but with

words in it, too—it passes into words and out of them again—I catch

them at intervals—then it is dance-music once more, and then nothing

but the reeds’ soft thin whispering.”

“You hear better than I,” said the Mole sadly. “I cannot catch the

words.”

“Let me try and give you them,” said the Rat softly, his eyes still

closed. “Now it is turning into words again—faint but clear—_Lest the

awe should dwell—And turn your frolic to fret—You shall look on my

power at the helping hour—But then you shall forget!_ Now the reeds

take it up—_forget, forget_, they sigh, and it dies away in a rustle

and a whisper. Then the voice returns—

“_Lest limbs be reddened and rent—I spring the trap that is set—As I

loose the snare you may glimpse me there—For surely you shall forget!_

Row nearer, Mole, nearer to the reeds! It is hard to catch, and grows

each minute fainter.

“_Helper and healer, I cheer—Small waifs in the woodland wet—Strays I

find in it, wounds I bind in it—Bidding them all forget!_ Nearer, Mole,

nearer! No, it is no good; the song has died away into reed-talk.”

“But what do the words mean?” asked the wondering Mole.

“That I do not know,” said the Rat simply. “I passed them on to you as

they reached me. Ah! now they return again, and this time full and

clear! This time, at last, it is the real, the unmistakable thing,

simple—passionate—perfect——”

“Well, let’s have it, then,” said the Mole, after he had waited

patiently for a few minutes, half-dozing in the hot sun.

But no answer came. He looked, and understood the silence. With a smile

of much happiness on his face, and something of a listening look still

lingering there, the weary Rat was fast asleep.