The Wind in the Willows Read online

  VII

  THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN

  The Willow-Wren was twittering his thin little song, hidden himself inthe dark selvedge of the river bank. Though it was past ten o'clock atnight, the sky still clung to and retained some lingering skirts oflight from the departed day; and the sullen heats of the torridafternoon broke up and rolled away at the dispersing touch of the coolfingers of the short midsummer night. Mole lay stretched on the bank,still panting from the stress of the fierce day that had beencloudless from dawn to late sunset, and waited for his friend toreturn. He had been on the river with some companions, leaving theWater Rat free to keep an engagement of long standing with Otter; andhe had come back to find the house dark and deserted, and no sign ofRat, who was doubtless keeping it up late with his old comrade. Itwas still too hot to think of staying indoors, so he lay on some cooldock-leaves, and thought over the past day and its doings, and howvery good they all had been.

  The Rat's light footfall was presently heard approaching over theparched 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 forme as ever they could, right up to the moment I left. But I felt abrute 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 fatherthinks of him, though he never says much about it."

  "What, that child?" said the Mole lightly. "Well, suppose he is; whyworry about it? He's always straying off and getting lost, and turningup again; he's so adventurous. But no harm ever happens to him.Everybody hereabouts knows him and likes him, just as they do oldOtter, and you may be sure some animal or other will come across himand 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'sbeen missing for some days now, and the Otters have hunted everywhere,high and low, without finding the slightest trace. And they've askedevery animal, too, for miles around, and no one knows anything abouthim. Otter's evidently more anxious than he'll admit. I got out of himthat young Portly hasn't learnt to swim very well yet, and I can seehe'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 afascination for the child. And then there are--well, traps andthings--_you_ know. Otter's not the fellow to be nervous about anyson of his before it's time. And now he _is_ nervous. When I left, hecame out with me--said he wanted some air, and talked about stretchinghis legs. But I could see it wasn't that, so I drew him out and pumpedhim, and got it all from him at last. He was going to spend the nightwatching by the ford. You know the place where the old ford used tobe, in by-gone days before they built the bridge?"

  "I know it well," said the Mole. "But why should Otter choose to watchthere?"

  "Well, it seems that it was there he gave Portly his firstswimming-lesson," continued the Rat. "From that shallow, gravelly spitnear the bank. And it was there he used to teach him fishing, andthere young Portly caught his first fish, of which he was so veryproud. The child loved the spot, and Otter thinks that if he camewandering 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 ifhe 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--thelonely, 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 bethinking 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 bedone. We'll get the boat out, and paddle upstream. The moon will be upin 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 ofnight for bed anyhow; and daybreak is not so very far off, and then wemay 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 withcaution. Out in mid-stream, there was a clear, narrow track thatfaintly reflected the sky; but wherever shadows fell on the water frombank, bush, or tree, they were as solid to all appearance as the banksthemselves, and the Mole had to steer with judgment accordingly. Darkand deserted as it was, the night was full of small noises, song andchatter and rustling, telling of the busy little population who wereup and about, plying their trades and vocations through the night tillsunshine should fall on them at last and send them off to theirwell-earned repose. The water's own noises, too, were more apparentthan by day, its gurglings and "cloops" more unexpected and near athand; and constantly they started at what seemed a sudden clear callfrom an actual articulate voice.

  The line of the horizon was clear and hard against the sky, and in oneparticular quarter it showed black against a silvery climbingphosphorescence that grew and grew. At last, over the rim of thewaiting earth the moon lifted with slow majesty till it swung clear ofthe horizon and rode off, free of moorings; and once more they beganto see surfaces--meadows wide-spread, and quiet gardens, and the riveritself from bank to bank, all softly disclosed, all washed clean ofmystery and terror, all radiant again as by day, but with a differencethat was tremendous. Their old haunts greeted them again in otherraiment, as if they had slipped away and put on this pure new appareland come quietly back, smiling as they shyly waited to see if theywould 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 streamin this manner, while the moon, serene and detached in a cloudlesssky, did what she could, though so far off, to help them in theirquest; till her hour came and she sank earthwards reluctantly, andleft them, and mystery once more held field and river.

  Then a change began slowly to declare itself. The horizon becameclearer, field and tree came more into sight, and somehow with adifferent look; the mystery began to drop away from them. A bird pipedsuddenly, and was still; and a light breeze sprang up and set thereeds and bulrushes rustling. Rat, who was in the stern of the boat,while Mole sculled, sat up suddenly and listened with a passionateintentness. Mole, who with gentle strokes was just keeping the boatmoving while he scanned the banks with care, looked at him withcuriosity.

  "It's gone!" sighed the Rat, sinking back in his seat again. "Sobeautiful and strange and new! Since it was to end so soon, I almostwish I had never heard it. For it has roused a longing in me that ispain, and nothing seems worth while but just to hear that sound oncemore and go on listening to it for ever. No! There it is again!" hecried, 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, happycall of the distant piping! Such music I never dreamed of, and thecall 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 thingthat caught up his helpless soul and swung and dandled it, a powerlessbut happy infant in a strong sustaining grasp.

  In sile
nce Mole rowed steadily, and soon they came to a point where theriver divided, a long backwater branching off to one side. With a slightmovement of his head Rat, who had long dropped the rudder-lines,directed the rower to take the backwater. The creeping tide of lightgained and gained, and now they could see the colour of the flowers thatgemmed the water's edge.

  "Clearer and nearer still," cried the Rat joyously. "Now you mustsurely hear it! Ah--at last--I see you do!"

  Breathless and transfixed, the Mole stopped rowing as the liquid runof that glad piping broke on him like a wave, caught him up, andpossessed him utterly. He saw the tears on his comrade's cheeks, andbowed his head and understood. For a space they hung there, brushed bythe purple loosestrife that fringed the bank; then the clear imperioussummons that marched hand-in-hand with the intoxicating melody imposedits will on Mole, and mechanically he bent to his oars again. And thelight grew steadily stronger, but no birds sang as they were wont todo at the approach of dawn; and but for the heavenly music all wasmarvellously still.

  On either side of them, as they glided onwards, the rich meadow-grassseemed 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 theapproaching weir began to hold the air, and they felt a consciousnessthat they were nearing the end, whatever it might be, that surelyawaited their expedition.

  A wide half-circle of foam and glinting lights and shining shouldersof green water, the great weir closed the backwater from bank to bank,troubled all the quiet surface with twirling eddies and floatingfoam-streaks, and deadened all other sounds with its solemn andsoothing rumble. In midmost of the stream, embraced in the weir'sshimmering arm-spread, a small island lay anchored, fringed close withwillow and silver birch and alder. Reserved, shy, but full ofsignificance, it hid whatever it might hold behind a veil, keeping ittill the hour should come, and, with the hour, those who were calledand chosen.

  Slowly, but with no doubt or hesitation whatever, and in something ofa solemn expectancy, the two animals passed through the broken,tumultuous water and moored their boat at the flowery margin of theisland. In silence they landed, and pushed through the blossom andscented herbage and undergrowth that led up to the level ground, tillthey stood on a little lawn of a marvellous green, set round withNature's own orchard-trees--crab-apple, wild cherry, and sloe.

  "This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played tome," 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 thatturned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet tothe ground. It was no panic terror--indeed he felt wonderfully atpeace and happy--but it was an awe that smote and held him and,without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presencewas very, very near. With difficulty he turned to look for his friend,and saw him at his side, cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. Andstill there was utter silence in the populous bird-haunted branchesaround them; and still the light grew and grew.

  Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, thoughthe piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed stilldominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himselfwaiting to strike him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye onthings rightly kept hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humblehead; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, whileNature, flushed with fulness of incredible colour, seemed to hold herbreath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend andHelper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in thegrowing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyesthat were looking down on them humorously, while the bearded mouthbroke into a half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles onthe arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple hand stillholding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; sawthe splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease onthe 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 onemoment 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 amafraid!"

  Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads anddid worship.

  Sudden and magnificent, the sun's broad golden disc showed itself overthe horizon facing them; and the first rays, shooting across the levelwater-meadows, took the animals full in the eyes and dazzled them.When they were able to look once more, the Vision had vanished, andthe air was full of the carol of birds that hailed the dawn.

  As they stared blankly, in dumb misery deepening as they slowly realisedall they had seen and all they had lost, a capricious little breeze,dancing up from the surface of the water, tossed the aspens, shook thedewy roses, and blew lightly and caressingly in their faces; and withits soft touch came instant oblivion. For this is the last best giftthat the kindly demi-god is careful to bestow on those to whom he hasrevealed himself in their helping: the gift of forgetfulness. Lest theawful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth andpleasure, and the great haunting memory should spoil all the after-livesof little animals helped out of difficulties, in order that they shouldbe happy and light-hearted as before.

  Mole rubbed his eyes and stared at Rat, who was looking about him in apuzzled sort of way. "I beg your pardon; what did you say, Rat?" heasked.

  "I think I was only remarking," said Rat slowly, "that this was theright 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 ofdelight he ran towards the slumbering Portly.

  But Mole stood still a moment, held in thought. As one wakenedsuddenly from a beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, and canrecapture nothing but a dim sense of the beauty of it, the beauty!Till that, too, fades away in its turn, and the dreamer bitterlyaccepts the hard, cold waking and all its penalties; so Mole, afterstruggling with his memory for a brief space, shook his head sadly andfollowed the Rat.

  Portly woke up with a joyous squeak, and wriggled with pleasure at thesight of his father's friends, who had played with him so often in pastdays. In a moment, however, his face grew blank, and he fell to huntinground in a circle with pleading whine. As a child that has fallenhappily asleep in its nurse's arms, and wakes to find itself alone andlaid in a strange place, and searches corners and cupboards, and runsfrom room to room, despair growing silently in its heart, even so Portlysearched the island and searched, dogged and unwearying, till at lastthe black moment came for giving it up, and sitting down and cryingbitterly.

  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 andthoughtfully; and stood musing, musing; his mind strangely stirred.

  "Come along, Rat!" called the Mole. "Think of poor Otter, waiting upthere by the ford!"

  Portly had soon been comforted by the promise of a treat--a jaunt onthe river in Mr. Rat's real boat; and the two animals conducted him tothe water's side, placed him securely between them in the bottom ofthe boat, and paddled off down the backwater. The sun was fully up bynow, and hot on them, birds sang lustily and without restraint, andflowers smiled and nodded from either bank, but somehow--so thoughtthe animals--with less of richness and blaze of colour than theyseemed to remember seeing quite recently somewhere--they wonderedwhere.

  The main river reached again, they turned the boat's head upstream,towards the point where they knew their friend was keeping his lonelyvigil. As they drew near the familiar ford, the Mole
took the boat into the bank, and they lifted Portly out and set him on his legs onthe tow-path, gave him his marching orders and a friendly farewell paton the back, and shoved out into mid-stream. They watched the littleanimal as he waddled along the path contentedly and with importance;watched him till they saw his muzzle suddenly lift and his waddlebreak into a clumsy amble as he quickened his pace with shrill whinesand wriggles of recognition. Looking up the river, they could seeOtter start up, tense and rigid, from out of the shallows where hecrouched in dumb patience, and could hear his amazed and joyous barkas 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 fullstream bear them down again whither it would, their quest now happilyended.

  "I feel strangely tired, Rat," said the Mole, leaning wearily over hisoars, 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 theweek, at this time of the year. No; I feel as if I had been throughsomething very exciting and rather terrible, and it was just over;and yet nothing particular has happened."

  "Or something very surprising and splendid and beautiful," murmuredthe 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 gotthe stream with us, to take us home. Isn't it jolly to feel the sunagain, soaking into one's bones! And hark to the wind playing in thereeds!"

  "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 withwords in it, too--it passes into words and out of them again--I catchthem at intervals--then it is dance-music once more, and then nothingbut the reeds' soft thin whispering."

  "You hear better than I," said the Mole sadly. "I cannot catch thewords."

  "Let me try and give you them," said the Rat softly, his eyes stillclosed. "Now it is turning into words again--faint but clear--_Lestthe awe should dwell--And turn your frolic to fret--You shall look onmy power at the helping hour--But then you shall forget!_ Now thereeds take it up--_forget, forget_, they sigh, and it dies away in arustle and a whisper. Then the voice returns--

  "_Lest limbs be reddened and rent--I spring the trap that is set--As Iloose the snare you may glimpse me there--For surely you shallforget!_ 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--StraysI 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 intoreed-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 asthey reached me. Ah! now they return again, and this time full andclear! 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 waitedpatiently for a few minutes, half-dozing in the hot sun.

  But no answer came. He looked, and understood the silence. With asmile of much happiness on his face, and something of a listening lookstill lingering there, the weary Rat was fast asleep.