CHAPTER 1
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 âBother!â and âO blow!â and also âHang spring-cleaning!â 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, âUp we go! Up we go!â till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.
âThis is fine!â he said to himself. âThis is better than whitewashing!â 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.
âHold up!â said an elderly rabbit at the gap. âSixpence for the privilege of passing by the private road!â 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. âOnion-sauce! Onion-sauce!â he remarked jeeringly, and was gone before they could think of a thoroughly satisfactory reply. Then they all started grumbling at each other. âHow stupid you are! Why didnât you tell him ââ âWell, why didnât you say ââ âYou might have reminded him ââ 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 â everything happy, and progressive, and occupied. And instead of having an uneasy conscience pricking him and whispering âWhitewash!â 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 â 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 â 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 spellbound 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 waterâs 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.
âHullo, Mole!â said the Water Rat.
âHullo, Rat!â said the Mole.
âWould you like to come over?â inquired the Rat presently.
âO, itâs all very well to talk,â said the Mole, rather pettishly, he being new to a river and riverside life and its ways.
The Rat said nothing, but stopped 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 Moleâs 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 fore-paw as the Mole stepped gingerly down. âLean on that!â he said. âNow then, step lively!â and the Mole to his surprise and rapture found himself actually seated in the stern of a real boat.
âThis has been a wonderful day!â said he, as the Rat shoved off and took to the sculls again. âDo you know, Iâve never been in a boat before in all my life.â
âWhat?â cried the Rat, open-mouthed. âNever been in a â you never â well, I â what have you been doing, then?â
âIs it so nice as all that?â 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.
âNice? Itâs the only thing,â said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant forward for his stroke. âBelieve me, my young friend, there is nothing â absolutely nothing â half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing,â he went on dreamily: âmessing â about â in â boats; messing ââ
âLook ahead, Rat!â 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.
ââ about in boats â or with boats,â the Rat went on composedly, picking himself up with a pleasant laugh. âIn or out of âem, it doesnât matter. Nothing seems really to matter, thatâs the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you donât; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, youâre always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when youâve done it thereâs always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but youâd much better not. Look here! If youâve really nothing else on hand this morning, supposing we drop down the river together, and have a long day of it?â
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. âWhat a day Iâm having!â he said. âLet us start at once!â
âHold hard a minute, then!â 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.
âShove that under your feet,â he observed to the Mole, as he passed it down into the boat. Then he untied the painter and took the sculls again.
âWhatâs inside it?â asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosity.
âThereâs cold chicken inside it,â replied the Rat briefly; âcoldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrench rollscresssandwidgespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesoda water ââ
âO stop, stop,â cried the Mole in ecstasies: âThis is too much!â
âDo you really think so?â inquired the Rat seriously. âItâs only what I always take on these little excursions; and the other animals are always telling me that Iâm a mean beast and cut it very fine!â
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 forbore to disturb him.
âI like your clothes awfully, old chap,â he remarked after some half an hour or so had passed. âIâm going to get a black velvet smoking-suit myself some day, as soon as I can afford it.â
âI beg your pardon,â said the Mole, pulling himself together with an effort. âYou must think me very rude; but all this is so new to me. So â this â is â a â River!â
âThe River,â corrected the Rat.
âAnd you really live by the river? What a jolly life!â
âBy it and with it and on it and in it,â said the Rat. âItâs brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, and food and drink, and (naturally) washing. Itâs my world, and I donât want any other. What it hasnât got is not worth having, and what it doesnât know is not worth knowing. Lord! the times weâve had together! Whether in winter or summer, spring or autumn, itâs always got its fun and its excitements. When the floods are on in February, and my cellars and basement are brimming with drink thatâs 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 smell 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!â
âBut isnât it a bit dull at times?â the Mole ventured to ask. âJust you and the river, and no one else to pass a word with?â
âNo one else to â well, I mustnât be hard on you,â said the Rat with forbearance. âYouâre new to it, and of course you donât know. The bank is so crowded nowadays that many people are moving away altogether. O no, it isnât 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 â as if a fellow had no business of his own to attend to!â
âWhat lies over there?â asked the Mole, waving a paw towards a background of woodland that darkly framed the water-meadows on one side of the river.
âThat? O, thatâs just the Wild Wood,â said the Rat shortly. âWe donât go there very much, we river-bankers.â
âArenât they â arenât they very nice people in there?â said the Mole a trifle nervously.
âW-e-ll,â replied the Rat, âlet me see. The squirrels are all right. And the rabbits â some of âem, but rabbits are a mixed lot. And then thereâs Badger, of course. He lives right in the heart of it; wouldnât live anywhere else, either, if you paid him to do it. Dear old Badger! Nobody interferes with him. Theyâd better not,â he added significantly.
âWhy, who should interfere with him?â asked the Mole.
âWell, of course â there â are others,â explained the Rat in a hesitating sort of way. âWeasels â and stoats â and foxes â and so on. Theyâre all right in a way â Iâm very good friends with them â pass the time of day when we meet, and all that â but they break out sometimes, thereâs no denying it, and then â well, you canât really trust them, and thatâs the fact.â
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.
âAnd beyond the Wild Wood again?â he asked: âWhere itâs all blue and dim, and one sees what may be hills or perhaps they maynât, and something like the smoke of towns, or is it only cloud-drift?â
âBeyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,â said the Rat. âAnd thatâs something that doesnât matter, either to you or me. Iâve never been there, and Iâm never going, nor you either, if youâve got any sense at all. Donât ever refer to it again, please. Now then! Hereâs our backwater at last, where weâre going to lunch.â
Leaving the main stream, they now passed into what seemed at first sight like a little landlocked 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 s...