The Willows in Winter Page 4

  Before he knew what he was doing he had slipped quietly out of the front door without a word to anyone. Then he was off, off down the same path up which he had led the others so dolefully the night before, off towards his beloved River, whose scent was a siren call to him, which, without once looking back, he set off to answer.

  III

  Toad’s First Flight

  “Couldn’t we just see if he’s stirring?” asked Portly, whose mouth was watering at the sight of the breakfast they had cooked.

  “‘Well —” began the Otter, whose good intentions to let the Rat sleep were weakening before the scent of food.

  It was enough, and Portly and Mole’s Nephew were out of the kitchen in a flash, and gently pulling the blankets from the bed where Rat had slept.

  “He’s not here!” said Portly. “The door’s open and he’s gone.”

  “Gone?” cried the poor Otter. “Gone?”

  The briefest of examinations of the Mole’s quarters and the open door showed it to be true, and with beating heart and a terrible feeling of apprehension the Otter rushed outside, the others following him.

  “O dear! O dear!” he said, pointing at the Rat’s unmistakable tracks in the melting snow. “He’s gone back to the river.”

  “But why? And why didn’t he tell us?”

  “I fear the worst, the very worst!” said the Otter in an anguished voice. “I should have watched over him! I should have thought! Over-wrought by Mole’s passing, troubled by nightmares and dark thoughts, there can be no doubt that he has gone back to the river —”

  “Well, at least he can swim!” said Nephew practically. “I think we should follow him as fast as we can!”

  “That’s sensible!” said the Otter, brought back a little way towards reality. “That’s intelligent! That’s Mole-like! That’s what we’ll do.”

  With that all three made their way down towards the river as fast as they could go, slushing through the melting snow and mud underfoot, and looking earnestly ahead as if that might help bring the river into sight all the sooner.

  As it was the journey seemed to be endless, but there finally was the bank before them, with the river beyond it, now almost clear of ice.

  “Rat’s not here!” cried out the Otter. “Too distressed to live without his friend, Ratty has —”

  Otter fell silent as Mole’s Nephew pointed down the steep bank to the river’s edge itself where, among the sedges and detritus of winter, they saw a most remarkable sight.

  It was the Water Rat, sitting with his hind paws dangling in the icy water, though he did not seem to notice that at all. His head was high and his eyes were closed and he seemed to be scenting at the air. Then he bent his head sideways and a little lower as if he was listening to the river’s sounds; whilst his front paws were gesticulating gently, in little fits and starts.

  “What’s he doing?” asked Portly.

  The Otter stared dumbfounded, signalling to the others to be very quiet. All three sat down to watch and wait in silence, and as they did so the beauty of the clear winter morning, and the gentle gurgle and murmur of the river, running now with snow thaw, and higher than normal, though not yet dangerous or violent, overtook them all.

  “I’ve only seen him doing this once before, and it is a rare privilege for us to be witness to it,” whispered the Otter. “This is something you’ll be able to tell your children and your grandchildren you saw — Water Rat is communing with the River. She’s talking to him and he is talking to her, and I have no doubt at all that it is about Mole they are speaking. Now, however long it takes, we shall stay here very quietly, so as not to disturb either of them.”

  The sun rose slowly; small white clouds appeared high in the sky; water dripped from the branches of trees high and low all through the wood and, falling in the secret places of grass and fern, withered twig and hidden lichen, turned into a thousand jewels of light which glistened and shone like lights of hope.

  At last the Rat’s eyes opened and his front paws stilled and stretched up towards the sky. He yawned, shivered, withdrew his hind paws from the water and looked about as if in a daze and uncertain where he was.

  For a long time he stared at the flowing water, so dark and dreadful the night before, now filled with the bright winter light of the sky above. He looked upstream to the right and downstream to the left and slowly scratched his head. Then he turned and looked up at the bank where Otter and the others sat so silently.

  He nodded and smiled as if to say that he had known they were there, and was grateful they had not interrupted him, yet on his face there was also a look of concern.

  “It’s Mole,” he said at last, “I know now that he’s alive, for the River has told me so. But he’s not well, and may need our help, so we must try to find him. Now listen, Otter: I think I know what we must do. We must search for him and leave no place along the bank unturned downstream from here to the weir. Beyond that, well — beyond that is the Wide World, and though it may be that is where he is, for that I cannot tell, it is too far for us to search. Now this is what we’re going to do.”

  A new look had come to Rat’s face now, a familiar look, a look which told all who saw it that this was the Water Rat Who Got Things Done.

  “This is not a task we can hope to do all by ourselves.

  We need help and a lot of it. Otter, you and Portly will stay this side of the river and rouse the rabbits, who though foolish owe much to Mole and are his friends. You can get them to begin searching along the bank, starting here and working their way slowly down towards the island.” He said this last reverentially, for all knew the island as a holy place.

  “Meanwhile, Mole’s Nephew and I will go to Badger’s house in the Wild Wood, for the time has come to seek his help. Like most animals, he does not like being disturbed in winter, but I am sure that he will not object in such dire circumstances as these. In any case we’ll need his help if the weasels and stoats —”

  “Weasels and stoats!” declared Portly, frowning in consternation.

  “Yes, them,” said the Rat without remorse. “Badger will order those miserable, conniving animals to help, and though I expect they’ll do it reluctantly they’ll do it all the same.”

  “How will we get to Badger?” asked Mole’s Nephew. “Leave that to me,” said the Rat. “Off you go, Otter, and remember that though Mole’s safe for now he might not always be.”

  “What about Mr Toad?” said the Otter. “We could send someone up to Toad Hall and ask —”

  “Toad?” said the Rat dubiously “Toad is the last person we need in this kind of crisis. I know he is much improved from the bad old days, but he would perhaps favour us best by staying securely in Toad Hall. So get going you two, and you stay here.”

  With that Rat skipped down to the water’s edge, broke off the last lingering piece of ice, and disappeared beneath the surface of the water, his passage to the other side marked only by a few bubbles that surfaced and were swept off downstream.

  He reappeared for a moment to catch his breath and then was gone again till, a short time later, he climbed swiftly up the other side. Then, with barely a pause, he had gone up to his own home, untied his boat and hauled it upstream a little more before pushing it out into the water and sculling it expertly across to where Mole’s Nephew stood.

  “Catch this rope and hold it fast!” he cried.

  Then, without a pause, Mole’s Nephew was hauled unceremoniously into the boat and they were off upstream.

  “I would have had to move the boat to its winter mooring anyway’ said the Rat, panting as he rowed, for the current was strong, “so doing it now makes sense. I’ll moor it up by Otter’s house. Not far from there there’s a special way through the Wild Wood direct to Badger’s. He won’t mind us using it, I’m sure.

  It seemed to Mole’s Nephew that it was a long haul and a dangerous one, for the river was growing higher and swifter by the moment, and though the Rat kept them near the bank where the current w
as gentler, the going became ever harder.

  “Not far now!” grunted the Rat. “Not far!”

  But it seemed a very long time before they finally reached Otter’s house, going a good way past it before the Rat risked turning the boat across-stream and then, with strong and purposeful strokes as the boat was caught by the full force of the current, he pulled it through and over to the other side — right to the mooring itself.

  “There!” said Rat with satisfaction. “Now you take the painter and leap out, like a good chap — yes now and quickly!”

  Mole’s Nephew did as he was told, but uneasily, for he was, after all, an earth-bound animal and had not yet discovered the joys of the river of which Mole himself had sometimes spoken.

  Rat followed him out and together they hauled the boat up the bank and well clear of the water for, as the Rat said, “You can never tell with the river how high it will come, or quite where. Now let’s make her fast.”

  But just as he was about to do so they heard the strangest, most ominous of sounds from somewhere further upstream.A rasp and a roar. Then silence. Then a dull chugging sound. Then silence again. Then a distant cough and splutter, and then a sudden brief roar once more.

  “What’s that?” asked Mole’s Nephew.

  “I have no idea,” said the Water Rat, “but whatever it is it’s up to no good.”

  “Yes, but —”

  “You might well say ‘Yes, but —’, considering where that sound comes from!” said the Rat.

  “You mean —”Yes, I do mean,” said the Rat very grimly indeed.

  “That sound, whatever it is, comes from Toad Hall, which means that Toad himself is one way or another the cause of it, which in turn means it ought to be investigated. Toad may be altered these days, but I have never been as hopeful as Badger about that. Temptation is a dreadful thing where the weak-willed are concerned, and I hope that ominous sound does not signal some backsliding or other by Toad. I greatly fear he is up to no good, no good at all, but we have a crisis on our hands and for now it is better that we imagine that we have not heard it, and make our way without more ado to Badger’s house in the hope that Toad will continue to be good.”

  With that, and the matter of Toad having so put him out of countenance that the Water Rat quite forgot to make his boat fast, and instead let the rope slip out of his hand onto the grass, the two animals headed off towards the ‘Wild Wood.

  It was a very long time since the Rat had ventured into one of the passages that Badger’s forebears had made centuries before from what was now his home to the edge of the Wild Wood, so it was no easy task to find where it began.

  “Or rather ends,” muttered the Rat, as he poked about in yet another clump of damp and prickly undergrowth, “for what we’re looking for is really an escape route. Badger said there were several, but the one I’m looking for is the only one I have ever been shown. That was years ago, when I first met Mole.

  “When I first met Mole!” repeated poor Rat to himself, remembering those halcyon days when all had been well. He might have yielded to the tears that wished to flow, but suddenly, from the general direction of Toad Hall, that throaty, unpleasant roaring sound came forth again and put resolve and purpose back into the Rat’s eyes.

  “We shall find the entrance!” he said, frowning and searching all the harder.

  “Couldn’t we go by the surface way?” said Mole’s Nephew.

  “Not in winter, no.Far too dangerous. There’s more than weasels and stoats in the Wild Wood — that’s why Badger keeps his escape routes repaired and ready Anyway, although the snow’s melting fast the last place of all where it thaws is in the ‘Wild Wood itself, so the going would be hard in there. No, no, we’ll find — here it is! Look!”

  He pushed aside some old creepers, dug under some brushwood and dead leaves, and there, well hidden among some ancient tree roots, was the entrance.

  They forced their way through the creepers into the cold and musty air of the passage, then the Rat pulled a candle from his bag, lit it and led them along a damp and airless tunnel, from whose arched roof water dripped most ominously.

  “Bother,” said the Rat, stopping suddenly some time later, “I don’t believe I tied up that boat of mine properly. That’s what comes of talking about Toad. It’s the effect he has on others. Well, we’re too far up the tunnel now and finding Mole is more important.”

  On they stumbled by the flickering light, growing colder by the moment, and soon losing all sense of time and direction. The tunnel seemed to go on forever but at last they reached a stout door with massive hinges set into the enormous roots of an oak, on which the Rat banged as hard as he could.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  How the sound echoed about them, so loud that Mole’s Nephew covered his ears when Rat knocked again, even louder.

  “Perhaps he’s asleep.”

  “Of course he’s asleep,” said the Rat, “but Mr Badger will not mind being woken up to advise us how best to find Mole. Mind you, I don’t expect he’ll be in the best of tempers when he comes, so —Suddenly, loudly, even ferociously, the great door was pulled open and a stream of light quite blinded the two animals. As if that was not enough Mr Badger stood hugely over them, a great wooden cudgel in his right paw, and roared, “How dare anybody use this — or bang on my — and come —

  “It’s us, Badger, Rat and —”

  “— and Mole?” said Badger.

  “Not Mole proper, no,” said the Rat. “His —”

  “Well, Rat and not Mole then! Don’t you know I’m asleep? I’m not to be woken. I’m Not at Home. It’s winter, and —”

  “Please, Badger, don’t shut the door on us!” said the Rat, for the Badger was in the process of doing so, having held his bright lantern in their faces and peered at them severely.

  “Can you give me one good reason why I should not close the door and send you packing?” growled the Badger, opening it wider again, and looking at them just a shade more kindly.

  “I can and I will,” said the Rat stoutly. “It’s Mole. He’s lost, and perhaps lost forever. He fell through the ice on the river. He — Badger — we — we need your help!”

  It was the best that the Rat could do before the tears he had fought back for so long overtook him.

  “Badger — I — we —“

  “My dear Ratty,” said Badger in a very different voice, “and you too,” he added to Mole’s Nephew, “you come out of that cold tunnel — I must say it was very clever of you to remember how to find it — and tell me what’s happened. Come on!”

  He guided them into his warm chambers, closed the door and, putting a huge paw on their shoulders, led them into his large untidy parlour where a huge log fire, scented with crab apple wood, burned merrily away.

  “Now in a moment I’ll get you a drink, but first tell me quickly what’s happened so that I can think about it as I put on the kettle.”

  They told him what they could and then, as they drank the warming drink he made and their teeth stopped chattering, they answered the many careful questions he asked.

  “But to me,” he said finally, “the most important thing of all that you’ve said is that you think that the river was trying to tell you that Mole’s alive. Every creature hereabouts knows how well you understand the river and would believe as I do that if you say it tells you Mole is alive, then Mole is alive.”

  “Only just alive,” corrected the Water Rat.

  “We shall institute a search for Mole forthwith, and all the animals of the Wild Wood, yes even the weasels and the stoats shall help!”

  “But, Badger, I know we need them as well for so great an undertaking,” said the Rat, who felt much better for talking to Badger, and hearing all that the wise animal had said, “but they have never been very co-operative and lately —”

  “And lately,” interrupted Badger, “they have been getting above themselves once more. It is no good relying on their good nature, for they have none that I have ever seen.
No, we must threaten them! ‘We must intimidate them!”

  Badger banged a gong that stood near the fireside and in no time at all a couple of hedgehogs appeared.

  “Go and get the weasel, you know the one I mean, and while you’re at it summon that wretched stoat!

  “Leave ‘this to me, Water Rat, and in no time at all they’ll be as servile as rabbits and a lot more use! But don’t be weak with them, not for a moment. No, take as your example the splendid way Mole himself dealt with them in those days when we had to wrest Toad Hall back from their miserable paws. Do you remember?”

  “I do, Badger.”

  Whatever the hedgehogs said to the chiefs among the weasels and stoats must have been very frightening, for very soon several weasels and more than enough stoats were knocking at Badger’s door and only too eager to help.

  “Now listen!” said Badger. “This is an emergency, and although the fearsome Water Rat and myself know very well that there are some of you who have reason not to like us, and even less the mighty Mole, remember that we treated you fairly in times gone by, when we might have been a great deal more harsh. Now the Mole is in trouble, and the chance has come for you finally to redeem yourselves. The first one of you who succeeds in finding Mole alive and well and brings him to my home — or to Rat’s or Otter’s, whichever is nearest — that first one, and a friend of his choosing —”

  The greedy weasels and acquisitive stoats slid their snouts nearer, all the better to hear what the Badger would offer them as reward. But Badger was rather stuck for words, for he lived but modestly, and had little in the way of goods or chattels which were worth parting with.

  The ever-resourceful Water Rat came to his rescue and said, “— that weasel, or that stoat, and his friend shall, as reward, have that which very few creatures in the ‘Wild Wood have ever had —”