Страница 3 из 14
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 so very beautiful that the Mole could only hold up both fore-paws 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 tablecloth 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 fu
‘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 today. 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 today. 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.