IX
WAYFARERS ALL
The Water Rat was restless, and he did not exactly know why. To allappearance the summer's pomp was still at fullest height, and althoughin the tilled acres green had given way to gold, though rowans werereddening, and the woods were dashed here and there with a tawnyfierceness, yet light and warmth and colour were still present inundiminished measure, clean of any chilly premonitions of the passingyear. But the constant chorus of the orchards and hedges had shrunk toa casual evensong from a few yet unwearied performers; the robin wasbeginning to assert himself once more; and there was a feeling in theair of change and departure. The cuckoo, of course, had long beensilent; but many another feathered friend, for months a part of thefamiliar landscape and its small society, was missing too, and itseemed that the ranks thinned steadily day by day. Rat, ever observantof all winged movement, saw that it was taking daily a southingtendency; and even as he lay in bed at night he thought he could makeout, passing in the darkness overhead, the beat and quiver ofimpatient pinions, obedient to the peremptory call.
Nature's Grand Hotel has its Season, like the others. As the guests oneby one pack, pay, and depart, and the seats at the _table-d'hote_ shrinkpitifully at each succeeding meal; as suites of rooms are closed, carpetstaken up, and waiters sent away; those boarders who are staying on, _enpension_, until the next year's full re-opening, cannot help beingsomewhat affected by all these flittings and farewells, this eagerdiscussion of plans, routes, and fresh quarters, this daily shrinkage inthe stream of comradeship. One gets unsettled, depressed, and inclined tobe querulous. Why this craving for change? Why not stay on quietly here,like us, and be jolly? You don't know this hotel out of the season, andwhat fun we have among ourselves, we fellows who remain and see the wholeinteresting year out. All very true, no doubt, the others always reply;we quite envy you--and some other year perhaps--but just now we haveengagements--and there's the bus at the door--our time is up! So theydepart, with a smile and a nod, and we miss them, and feel resentful. TheRat was a self-sufficing sort of animal, rooted to the land, and, whoeverwent, he stayed; still, he could not help noticing what was in the air,and feeling some of its influence in his bones.
It was difficult to settle down to anything seriously, with all thisflitting going on. Leaving the water-side, where rushes stood thickand tall in a stream that was becoming sluggish and low, he wanderedcountry-wards, crossed a field or two of pasturage already lookingdusty and parched, and thrust into the great sea of wheat, yellow,wavy, and murmurous, full of quiet motion and small whisperings. Herehe often loved to wander, through the forest of stiff strong stalksthat carried their own golden sky away over his head--a sky that wasalways dancing, shimmering, softly talking; or swaying strongly tothe passing wind and recovering itself with a toss and a merry laugh.Here, too, he had many small friends, a society complete in itself,leading full and busy lives, but always with a spare moment to gossip,and exchange news with a visitor. To-day, however, though they werecivil enough, the field-mice and harvest mice seemed pre-occupied.Many were digging and tunnelling busily; others, gathered together insmall groups, examined plans and drawings of small flats, stated to bedesirable and compact, and situated conveniently near the Stores. Somewere hauling out dusty trunks and dress-baskets, others were alreadyelbow-deep packing their belongings; while everywhere piles andbundles of wheat, oats, barley, beech-mast and nuts, lay about readyfor transport.
"Here's old Ratty!" they cried as soon as they saw him. "Come and beara hand, Rat, and don't stand about idle!"
"What sort of games are you up to?" said the Water Rat severely. "Youknow it isn't time to be thinking of winter quarters yet, by a longway!"
"O yes, we know that," explained a field-mouse rather shamefacedly;"but it's always as well to be in good time, isn't it? We really_must_ get all the furniture and baggage and stores moved out of thisbefore those horrid machines begin clicking round the fields; andthen, you know, the best flats get picked up so quickly nowadays, andif you're late you have to put up with _anything_; and they want sucha lot of doing up, too, before they're fit to move into. Of course,we're early, we know that; but we're only just making a start."
"O, bother _starts_," said the Rat. "It's a splendid day. Come for arow, or a stroll along the hedges, or a picnic in the woods, orsomething."
"Well, I _think_ not _to-day_, thank you," replied the field-mousehurriedly. "Perhaps some _other_ day--when we've more _time_--"
The Rat, with a snort of contempt, swung round to go, tripped over ahat-box, and fell, with undignified remarks.
"If people would be more careful," said a field-mouse rather stiffly,"and look where they're going, people wouldn't hurt themselves--andforget themselves. Mind that hold-all, Rat! You'd better sit downsomewhere. In an hour or two we may be more free to attend to you."
"You won't be 'free' as you call it, much this side of Christmas, Ican see that," retorted the Rat grumpily, as he picked his way out ofthe field.
He returned somewhat despondently to his river again--his faithful,steady-going old river, which never packed up, flitted, or went intowinter quarters.
In the osiers which fringed the bank he spied a swallow sitting.Presently it was joined by another, and then by a third; and thebirds, fidgeting restlessly on their bough, talked together earnestlyand low.
"What, _already_," said the Rat, strolling up to them. "What's thehurry? I call it simply ridiculous."
"O, we're not off yet, if that's what you mean," replied the firstswallow. "We're only making plans and arranging things. Talking itover, you know--what route we're taking this year, and where we'llstop, and so on. That's half the fun!"
"Fun?" said the Rat; "now that's just what I don't understand. Ifyou've _got_ to leave this pleasant place, and your friends who willmiss you, and your snug homes that you've just settled into, why, whenthe hour strikes I've no doubt you'll go bravely, and face all thetrouble and discomfort and change and newness, and make believe thatyou're not very unhappy. But to want to talk about it, or even thinkabout it, till you really need--"
"No, you don't understand, naturally," said the second swallow."First, we feel it stirring within us, a sweet unrest; then back comethe recollections one by one, like homing pigeons. They flutterthrough our dreams at night, they fly with us in our wheelings andcirclings by day. We hunger to inquire of each other, to compare notesand assure ourselves that it was all really true, as one by one thescents and sounds and names of long-forgotten places come graduallyback and beckon to us."
"Couldn't you stop on for just this year?" suggested the Water Rat,wistfully. "We'll all do our best to make you feel at home. You've noidea what good times we have here, while you are far away."
"I tried 'stopping on' one year," said the third swallow. "I had grownso fond of the place that when the time came I hung back and let theothers go on without me. For a few weeks it was all well enough, butafterwards, O the weary length of the nights! The shivering, sunlessdays! The air so clammy and chill, and not an insect in an acre of it!No, it was no good; my courage broke down, and one cold, stormy nightI took wing, flying well inland on account of the strong easterlygales. It was snowing hard as I beat through the passes of the greatmountains, and I had a stiff fight to win through; but never shall Iforget the blissful feeling of the hot sun again on my back as I speddown to the lakes that lay so blue and placid below me, and the tasteof my first fat insect! The past was like a bad dream; the future wasall happy holiday as I moved southwards week by week, easily, lazily,lingering as long as I dared, but always heeding the call! No, I hadhad my warning; never again did I think of disobedience."
"Ah, yes, the call of the South, of the South!" twittered the othertwo dreamily. "Its songs, its hues, its radiant air! O, do youremember--" and, forgetting the Rat, they slid into passionatereminiscence, while he listened fascinated, and his heart burnedwithin him. In himself, too, he knew that it was vibrating at last,that chord hitherto dormant and unsuspected. The mere chatter of thesesou
thern-bound birds, their pale and second-hand reports, had yetpower to awaken this wild new sensation and thrill him through andthrough with it; what would one moment of the real thing work inhim--one passionate touch of the real southern sun, one waft of theauthentic odour? With closed eyes he dared to dream a moment in fullabandonment, and when he looked again the river seemed steely andchill, the green fields grey and lightless. Then his loyal heartseemed to cry out on his weaker self for its treachery.
"Why do you ever come back, then, at all?" he demanded of the swallowsjealously. "What do you find to attract you in this poor drab littlecountry?"
"And do you think," said the first swallow, "that the other call isnot for us too, in its due season? The call of lush meadow-grass, wetorchards, warm, insect-haunted ponds, of browsing cattle, ofhaymaking, and all the farm-buildings clustering round the House ofthe perfect Eaves?"
"Do you suppose," asked the second one, "that you are the only livingthing that craves with a hungry longing to hear the cuckoo's noteagain?"
"In due time," said the third, "we shall be home-sick once more forquiet water-lilies swaying on the surface of an English stream. Butto-day all that seems pale and thin and very far away. Just now ourblood dances to other music."
They fell a-twittering among themselves once more, and this timetheir intoxicating babble was of violet seas, tawny sands, andlizard-haunted walls.
Restlessly the Rat wandered off once more, climbed the slope that rosegently from the north bank of the river, and lay looking out towardsthe great ring of Downs that barred his vision further southwards--hissimple horizon hitherto, his Mountains of the Moon, his limit behindwhich lay nothing he had cared to see or to know. To-day, to himgazing South with a new-born need stirring in his heart, the clear skyover their long low outline seemed to pulsate with promise; to-day,the unseen was everything, the unknown the only real fact of life. Onthis side of the hills was now the real blank, on the other lay thecrowded and coloured panorama that his inner eye was seeing soclearly. What seas lay beyond, green, leaping, and crested! Whatsun-bathed coasts, along which the white villas glittered against theolive woods! What quiet harbours, thronged with gallant shipping boundfor purple islands of wine and spice, islands set low in languorouswaters!
He rose and descended river-wards once more; then changed his mind andsought the side of the dusty lane. There, lying half-buried in thethick, cool under-hedge tangle that bordered it, he could muse on themetalled road and all the wondrous world that it led to; on all thewayfarers, too, that might have trodden it, and the fortunes andadventures they had gone to seek or found unseeking--out there,beyond--beyond!
Footsteps fell on his ear, and the figure of one that walked somewhatwearily came into view; and he saw that it was a Rat, and a very dustyone. The wayfarer, as he reached him, saluted with a gesture ofcourtesy that had something foreign about it--hesitated a moment--thenwith a pleasant smile turned from the track and sat down by his sidein the cool herbage. He seemed tired, and the Rat let him restunquestioned, understanding something of what was in his thoughts;knowing, too, the value all animals attach at times to mere silentcompanionship, when the weary muscles slacken and the mind marks time.
The wayfarer was lean and keen-featured, and somewhat bowed at theshoulders; his paws were thin and long, his eyes much wrinkled at thecorners, and he wore small gold ear rings in his neatly-set well-shapedears. His knitted jersey was of a faded blue, his breeches, patched andstained, were based on a blue foundation, and his small belongings thathe carried were tied up in a blue cotton handkerchief.
When he had rested awhile the stranger sighed, snuffed the air, andlooked about him.
"That was clover, that warm whiff on the breeze," he remarked; "andthose are cows we hear cropping the grass behind us and blowing softlybetween mouthfuls. There is a sound of distant reapers, and yonderrises a blue line of cottage smoke against the woodland. The riverruns somewhere close by, for I hear the call of a moorhen, and I seeby your build that you're a freshwater mariner. Everything seemsasleep, and yet going on all the time. It is a goodly life that youlead, friend; no doubt the best in the world, if only you are strongenough to lead it!"
"Yes, it's _the_ life, the only life, to live," responded the WaterRat dreamily, and without his usual whole-hearted conviction.
"I did not say exactly that," replied the stranger cautiously; "but nodoubt it's the best. I've tried it, and I know. And because I've justtried it--six months of it--and know it's the best, here am I,footsore and hungry, tramping away from it, tramping southwards,following the old call, back to the old life, _the_ life which is mineand which will not let me go."
"Is this, then, yet another of them?" mused the Rat. "And where haveyou just come from?" he asked. He hardly dared to ask where he wasbound for; he seemed to know the answer only too well.
"Nice little farm," replied the wayfarer, briefly. "Upalong in thatdirection--" he nodded northwards. "Never mind about it. I hadeverything I could want--everything I had any right to expect of life,and more; and here I am! Glad to be here all the same, though, gladto be here! So many miles further on the road, so many hours nearer tomy heart's desire!"
His shining eyes held fast to the horizon, and he seemed to belistening for some sound that was wanting from that inland acreage,vocal as it was with the cheerful music of pasturage and farmyard.
"You are not one of _us_," said the Water Rat, "nor yet a farmer; noreven, I should judge, of this country."
"Right," replied the stranger. "I'm a seafaring rat, I am, and theport I originally hail from is Constantinople, though I'm a sort of aforeigner there too, in a manner of speaking. You will have heard ofConstantinople, friend? A fair city and an ancient and glorious one.And you may have heard too, of Sigurd, King of Norway, and how hesailed thither with sixty ships, and how he and his men rode upthrough streets all canopied in their honour with purple and gold; andhow the Emperor and Empress came down and banqueted with him onboard his ship. When Sigurd returned home, many of his Northmenremained behind and entered the Emperor's body-guard, and my ancestor,a Norwegian born, stayed behind too, with the ships that Sigurd gavethe Emperor. Seafarers we have ever been, and no wonder; as for me,the city of my birth is no more my home than any pleasant port betweenthere and the London River. I know them all, and they know me. Set medown on any of their quays or foreshores, and I am home again."
"I suppose you go great voyages," said the Water Rat with growinginterest. "Months and months out of sight of land, and provisionsrunning short, and allowanced as to water, and your mind communingwith the mighty ocean, and all that sort of thing?"
"By no means," said the Sea Rat frankly. "Such a life as you describewould not suit me at all. I'm in the coasting trade, and rarely out ofsight of land. It's the jolly times on shore that appeal to me, asmuch as any seafaring. O, those southern seaports! The smell of them,the riding-lights at night, the glamour!"
"Well, perhaps you have chosen the better way," said the Water Rat,but rather doubtfully. "Tell me something of your coasting, then, ifyou have a mind to, and what sort of harvest an animal of spirit mighthope to bring home from it to warm his latter days with gallantmemories by the fireside; for my life, I confess to you, feels to meto-day somewhat narrow and circumscribed."
"My last voyage," began the Sea Rat, "that landed me eventually inthis country, bound with high hopes for my inland farm, will serve asa good example of any of them, and, indeed, as an epitome of myhighly-coloured life. Family troubles, as usual, began it. Thedomestic storm-cone was hoisted, and I shipped myself on board a smalltrading vessel bound from Constantinople, by classic seas whose everywave throbs with a deathless memory, to the Grecian Islands and theLevant. Those were golden days and balmy nights! In and out of harbourall the time--old friends everywhere--sleeping in some cool temple orruined cistern during the heat of the day--feasting and song aftersundown, under great stars set in a velvet sky! Thence we turned andcoasted up the Adriatic, its shores swimming in an atmosphere ofamber,
rose, and aquamarine; we lay in wide landlocked harbours, weroamed through ancient and noble cities, until at last one morning, asthe sun rose royally behind us, we rode into Venice down a path ofgold. O, Venice is a fine city, wherein a rat can wander at his easeand take his pleasure! Or, when weary of wandering, can sit at theedge of the Grand Canal at night, feasting with his friends, when theair is full of music and the sky full of stars, and the lights flashand shimmer on the polished steel prows of the swaying gondolas,packed so that you could walk across the canal on them from side toside! And then the food--do you like shell-fish? Well, well, we won'tlinger over that now."
He was silent for a time; and the Water Rat, silent too and enthralled,floated on dream-canals and heard a phantom song pealing high betweenvaporous grey wave-lapped walls.
"Southwards we sailed again at last," continued the Sea Rat, "coastingdown the Italian shore, till finally we made Palermo, and there Iquitted for a long, happy spell on shore. I never stick too long toone ship; one gets narrow-minded and prejudiced. Besides, Sicily isone of my happy hunting-grounds. I know everybody there, and theirways just suit me. I spent many jolly weeks in the island, stayingwith friends upcountry. When I grew restless again I took advantage ofa ship that was trading to Sardinia and Corsica; and very glad I wasto feel the fresh breeze and the sea-spray in my face once more."
"But isn't it very hot and stuffy, down in the--hold, I think you callit?" asked the Water Rat.
The seafarer looked at him with the suspicion of a wink. "I'm an oldhand," he remarked with much simplicity. "The captain's cabin's goodenough for me."
"It's a hard life, by all accounts," murmured the Rat, sunk in deepthought.
"For the crew it is," replied the seafarer gravely, again with theghost of a wink.
"From Corsica," he went on, "I made use of a ship that was takingwine to the mainland. We made Alassio in the evening, lay to, hauledup our wine-casks, and hove them overboard, tied one to the other by along line. Then the crew took to the boats and rowed shorewards,singing as they went, and drawing after them the long bobbingprocession of casks, like a mile of porpoises. On the sands they hadhorses waiting, which dragged the casks up the steep street of thelittle town with a fine rush and clatter and scramble. When the lastcask was in, we went and refreshed and rested, and sat late into thenight, drinking with our friends, and next morning I took to the greatolive-woods for a spell and a rest. For now I had done with islandsfor the time, and ports and shipping were plentiful; so I led a lazylife among the peasants, lying and watching them work, or stretchedhigh on the hillside with the blue Mediterranean far below me. And soat length, by easy stages, and partly on foot, partly by sea, toMarseilles, and the meeting of old shipmates, and the visiting ofgreat ocean-bound vessels, and feasting once more. Talk ofshell-fish! Why, sometimes I dream of the shell-fish of Marseilles,and wake up crying!"
_"It's a hard life, by all accounts," murmured theRat_]
"That reminds me," said the polite Water Rat; "you happened to mentionthat you were hungry, and I ought to have spoken earlier. Of course,you will stop and take your mid-day meal with me? My hole is close by;it is some time past noon, and you are very welcome to whatever thereis."
"Now I call that kind and brotherly of you," said the Sea Rat. "I wasindeed hungry when I sat down, and ever since I inadvertently happenedto mention shell-fish, my pangs have been extreme. But couldn't youfetch it along out here? I am none too fond of going under hatches,unless I'm obliged to; and then, while we eat, I could tell you moreconcerning my voyages and the pleasant life I lead--at least, it isvery pleasant to me, and by your attention I judge it commends itselfto you; whereas if we go indoors it is a hundred to one that I shallpresently fall asleep."
"That is indeed an excellent suggestion," said the Water Rat, andhurried off home. There he got out the luncheon-basket and packed asimple meal, in which, remembering the stranger's origin andpreferences, he took care to include a yard of long French bread, asausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which lay down andcried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask wherein lay bottledsunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes. Thus laden, hereturned with all speed, and blushed for pleasure at the old seaman'scommendations of his taste and judgment, as together they unpacked thebasket and laid out the contents on the grass by the roadside.
The Sea Rat, as soon as his hunger was somewhat assuaged, continuedthe history of his latest voyage, conducting his simple hearer fromport to port of Spain, landing him at Lisbon, Oporto, and Bordeaux,introducing him to the pleasant harbours of Cornwall and Devon, and soup the Channel to that final quayside, where, landing after winds longcontrary, storm-driven and weather-beaten, he had caught the firstmagical hints and heraldings of another Spring, and, fired by these,had sped on a long tramp inland, hungry for the experiment of life onsome quiet farmstead, very far from the weary beating of any sea.
Spellbound and quivering with excitement, the Water Rat followed theAdventurer league by league, over stormy bays, through crowdedroadsteads, across harbour bars on a racing tide, up winding riversthat hid their busy little towns round a sudden turn; and left himwith a regretful sigh planted at his dull inland farm, about which hedesired to hear nothing.
By this time their meal was over, and the Seafarer, refreshed andstrengthened, his voice more vibrant, his eye lit with a brightness thatseemed caught from some far-away sea-beacon, filled his glass with thered and glowing vintage of the South, and, leaning towards the Water Rat,compelled his gaze and held him, body and soul, while he talked. Thoseeyes were of the changing foam-streaked grey-green of leaping Northernseas; in the glass shone a hot ruby that seemed the very heart of theSouth, beating for him who had courage to respond to its pulsation. Thetwin lights, the shifting grey and the steadfast red, mastered the WaterRat and held him bound, fascinated, powerless. The quiet world outsidetheir rays receded far away and ceased to be. And the talk, the wonderfultalk flowed on--or was it speech entirely, or did it pass at times intosong--chanty of the sailors weighing the dripping anchor, sonorous hum ofthe shrouds in a tearing North-Easter, ballad of the fisherman haulinghis nets at sundown against an apricot sky, chords of guitar andmandoline from gondola or caique? Did it change into the cry of the wind,plaintive at first, angrily shrill as it freshened, rising to a tearingwhistle, sinking to a musical trickle of air from the leech of thebellying sail? All these sounds the spellbound listener seemed to hear,and with them the hungry complaint of the gulls and the sea-mews, thesoft thunder of the breaking wave, the cry of the protesting shingle.Back into speech again it passed, and with beating heart he was followingthe adventures of a dozen seaports, the fights, the escapes, the rallies,the comradeships, the gallant undertakings; or he searched islands fortreasure, fished in still lagoons and dozed day-long on warm white sand.Of deep-sea fishings he heard tell, and mighty silver gatherings of themile-long net; of sudden perils, noise of breakers on a moonless night,or the tall bows of the great liner taking shape overhead through thefog; of the merry home-coming, the headland rounded, the harbour lightsopened out; the groups seen dimly on the quay, the cheery hail, thesplash of the hawser; the trudge up the steep little street towards thecomforting glow of red-curtained windows.
Lastly, in his waking dream it seemed to him that the Adventurer hadrisen to his feet, but was still speaking, still holding him fast withhis sea-grey eyes.
"And now," he was softly saying, "I take to the road again, holding onsouthwestwards for many a long and dusty day; till at last I reach thelittle grey sea town I know so well, that clings along one steep sideof the harbour. There through dark doorways you look down flights ofstone steps, overhung by great pink tufts of valerian and ending in apatch of sparkling blue water. The little boats that lie tethered tothe rings and stanchions of the old sea-wall are gaily painted asthose I clambered in and out of in my own childhood; the salmon leapon the flood tide, schools of mackerel flash and play past quay-sidesand foreshores, and by the windows the great vessels glide, night andday, up to
their moorings or forth to the open sea. There, sooner orlater, the ships of all seafaring nations arrive; and there, at itsdestined hour, the ship of my choice will let go its anchor. I shalltake my time, I shall tarry and bide, till at last the right one lieswaiting for me, warped out into mid-stream, loaded low, her bowspritpointing 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 thesailors, the clink of the capstan, and the rattle of the anchor-chaincoming merrily in. We shall break out the jib and the foresail, thewhite houses on the harbour side will glide slowly past us as shegathers steering-way, and the voyage will have begun! As she forgestowards the headland she will clothe herself with canvas; and then,once outside, the sounding slap of great green seas as she heels tothe wind, pointing South!
"And you, you will come too, young brother; for the days pass, andnever return, and the South still waits for you. Take the adventure,heed the call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes! 'Tis but abanging of the door behind you, a blithesome step forward, and you areout of the old life and into the new! Then some day, some day longhence, jog home here if you will, when the cup has been drained andthe play has been played, and sit down by your quiet river with astore of goodly memories for company. You can easily overtake me onthe road, for you are young, and I am ageing and go softly. I willlinger, and look back; and at last I will surely see you coming, eagerand light-hearted, with all the South in your face!"
The voice died away and ceased as an insect's tiny trumpet dwindlesswiftly into silence; and the Water Rat, paralysed and staring, saw atlast 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, gatheredtogether a few small necessaries and special treasures he was fond of,and put them in a satchel; acting with slow deliberation, moving aboutthe room like a sleep-walker; listening ever with parted lips. Heswung the satchel over his shoulder, carefully selected a stout stickfor 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 dreamymonotone, 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 doggedfixity of purpose; but the Mole, now thoroughly alarmed, placedhimself in front of him, and looking into his eyes saw that theywere glazed and set and turned a streaked and shifting grey--not hisfriend's eyes, but the eyes of some other animal! Grappling with himstrongly he dragged him inside, threw him down, and held him.
The Rat struggled desperately for a few moments, and then his strengthseemed suddenly to leave him, and he lay still and exhausted, withclosed eyes, trembling. Presently the Mole assisted him to rise andplaced him in a chair, where he sat collapsed and shrunken intohimself, his body shaken by a violent shivering, passing in time intoan hysterical fit of dry sobbing. Mole made the door fast, threw thesatchel into a drawer and locked it, and sat down quietly on the tableby his friend, waiting for the strange seizure to pass. Gradually theRat sank into a troubled doze, broken by starts and confusedmurmurings of things strange and wild and foreign to the unenlightenedMole; and from that he passed into a deep slumber.
Very anxious in mind, the Mole left him for a time and busied himselfwith household matters; and it was getting dark when he returned tothe parlour and found the Rat where he had left him, wide awakeindeed, but listless, silent, and dejected. He took one hasty glanceat his eyes; found them, to his great gratification, clear and darkand brown again as before; and then sat down and tried to cheer him upand help him to relate what had happened to him.
Poor Ratty did his best, by degrees, to explain things; but how couldhe 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 hundredreminiscences? Even to himself, now the spell was broken and theglamour 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 hehad 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 thereaction. But he seemed to have lost all interest for the time in thethings that went to make up his daily life, as well as in all pleasantforecastings of the altered days and doings that the changing seasonwas surely bringing.
Casually, then, and with seeming indifference, the Mole turned histalk to the harvest that was being gathered in, the towering wagonsand their straining teams, the growing ricks, and the large moonrising over bare acres dotted with sheaves. He talked of the reddeningapples around, of the browning nuts, of jams and preserves and thedistilling of cordials; till by easy stages such as these he reachedmidwinter, its hearty joys and its snug home life, and then he becamesimply lyrical.
By degrees the Rat began to sit up and to join in. His dull eyebrightened, and he lost some of his listening air.
Presently the tactful Mole slipped away and returned with a pencil anda few half-sheets of paper, which he placed on the table at hisfriend's elbow.
"It's quite a long time since you did any poetry," he remarked. "Youmight have a try at it this evening, instead of--well, brooding overthings so much. I've an idea that you'll feel a lot better when you'vegot something jotted down--if it's only just the rhymes."
The Rat pushed the paper away from him wearily, but the discreet Moletook occasion to leave the room, and when he peeped in again some timelater, the Rat was absorbed and deaf to the world; alternatelyscribbling and sucking the top of his pencil. It is true that hesucked a good deal more than he scribbled; but it was joy to the Moleto know that the cure had at least begun.
The Wind in the Willows Page 9