The Water Rat was restless, and he did not exactly know why. To
all appearance the summer's pomp was still at fullest height, and
although in the tilled acres green had given way to gold, though
rowans were reddening, and the woods were dashed here and there
with a tawny fierceness, yet light and warmth and colour were
still present in undiminished measure, clean of any chilly
premonitions of the passing year. But the constant chorus of the
orchards and hedges had shrunk to a casual evensong from a few
yet unwearied performers; the robin was beginning to assert
himself once more; and there was a feeling in the air of change
and departure. The cuckoo, of course, had long been silent; but
many another feathered friend, for months a part of the familiar
landscape and its small society, was missing too and it
seemed that the ranks thinned steadily day by day. Rat, ever
observant of all winged movement, saw that it was taking daily a
southing tendency; and even as he lay in bed at night he thought
he could make out, passing in the darkness overhead, the beat and
quiver of impatient pinions, obedient to the peremptory call.
Nature's Grand Hotel has its Season, like the others. As the
guests one by one pack, pay, and depart, and the seats at the
table-d'hote shrink pitifully at each succeeding meal; as
suites of rooms are closed, carpets taken up, and waiters sent
away; those boarders who are staying on, en pension, until the
next year's full re-opening, cannot help being somewhat affected
by all these flittings and farewells, this eager discussion of
plans, routes, and fresh quarters, this daily shrinkage in the
stream of comradeship. One gets unsettled, depressed, and
inclined to be 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, and what fun we have among ourselves, we
fellows who remain and see the whole interesting year out. All
very true, no doubt the others always reply; we quite envy
you--and some other year perhaps--but just now we have
engagements--and there's the bus at the door--our time is up! So
they depart, with a smile and a nod, and we miss them, and feel
resentful. The Rat was a self-sufficing sort of animal, rooted
to the land, and, whoever went, 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
this flitting going on. Leaving the water-side, where rushes
stood thick and tall in a stream that was becoming sluggish and
low, he wandered country-wards, crossed a field or two of
pasturage already looking dusty and parched, and thrust into the
great sea of wheat, yellow, wavy, and murmurous, full of quiet
motion and small whisperings. Here he often loved to wander,
through the forest of stiff strong stalks that carried their own
golden sky away over his head--a sky that was always dancing,
shimmering, softly talking; or swaying strongly to the 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. Today,
however, though they were civil enough, the field-mice and
harvest-mice seemed preoccupied. Many were digging and
tunnelling busily; others, gathered together in small groups,
examined plans and drawings of small flats, stated to be
desirable and compact, and situated conveniently near the Stores.
Some were hauling out dusty trunks and dress-baskets, others were
already elbow-deep packing their belongings; while everywhere
piles and bundles of wheat, oats, barley, beech-mast and nuts,
lay about ready for transport.
‘Here's old Ratty!' they cried as soon as they saw him. ‘Come
and bear a hand, Rat, and don't stand about idle!'
‘What sort of games are you up to?' said the Water Rat severely.
‘You know it isn't time to be thinking of winter quarters yet, by
a long way!'
‘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 this before those horrid machines begin
clicking round the fields; and then, you know, the best flats get
picked up so quickly nowadays, and if you're late you have to put
up with ANYTHING; and they want such a 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 a row, or a stroll along the hedges, or a picnic in the
woods, or something.'
‘Well, I THINK not TO-DAY, thank you,' replied the field-
mouse hurriedly. ‘Perhaps some OTHER day--when we've more
TIME----'
The Rat, with a snort of contempt, swung round to go, tripped
over a hat-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--and forget themselves. Mind that hold-all, Rat!
You'd better sit down somewhere. 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, I can see that,' retorted the Rat grumpily, as he
picked his way out of the field.
He returned somewhat despondently to his river again--his
faithful, steady-going old river, which never packed up, flitted,
or went into winter 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 the
birds, fidgeting restlessly on their bough, talked together
earnestly and low.
‘What, ALREADY,' said the Rat, strolling up to them. ‘What's
the hurry? I call it simply ridiculous.'
‘O, we're not off yet, if that's what you mean,' replied the
first swallow. ‘We're only making plans and arranging things.
Talking it over, you know--what route we're taking this year, and
where we'll stop, and so on. That's half the fun!'
‘Fun?' said the Rat; ‘now that's just what I don't understand.
If you've GOT to leave this pleasant place, and your friends
who will miss you, and your snug homes that you've just settled
into, why, when the hour strikes I've no doubt you'll go
bravely, and face all the trouble and discomfort and change and
newness, and make believe that you're not very unhappy. But to
want to talk about it, or even think about 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
come the recollections one by one, like homing pigeons. They
flutter through our dreams at night, they fly with us in our
wheelings and circlings by day. We hunger to inquire of each
other, to compare notes and assure ourselves that it was all
really true, as one by one the scents and sounds and names of
long-forgotten places come gradually back 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 no idea what good times we have here, while you are far
away.'
‘I tried "stopping on" one year,' said the third swallow. ‘I had
grown so fond of the place that when the time came I hung back
and let the others go on without me. For a few weeks it was all
well enough, but afterwards, O the weary length of the
nights! The shivering, sunless days! 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 night I took wing,
flying well inland on account of the strong easterly gales. It
was snowing hard as I beat through the passes of the great
mountains, and I had a stiff fight to win through; but never
shall I forget the blissful feeling of the hot sun again on my
back as I sped down to the lakes that lay so blue and placid
below me, and the taste of my first fat insect! The past was
like a bad dream; the future was all happy holiday as I moved
southwards week by week, easily, lazily, lingering as long as I
dared, but always heeding the call! No, I had had my warning;
never again did I think of disobedience.'
‘Ah, yes, the call of the South, of the South!' twittered the
other two dreamily. ‘Its songs its hues, its radiant air! O, do
you remember----' and, forgetting the Rat, they slid into
passionate reminiscence, while he listened fascinated, and his
heart burned within him. In himself, too, he knew that it was
vibrating at last, that chord hitherto dormant and
unsuspected. The mere chatter of these southern-bound
birds, their pale and second-hand reports, had yet power to
awaken this wild new sensation and thrill him through and through
with it; what would one moment of the real thing work in him--one
passionate touch of the real southern sun, one waft of the
authentic odor? With closed eyes he dared to dream a moment in
full abandonment, and when he looked again the river seemed
steely and chill, the green fields grey and lightless. Then his
loyal heart seemed to cry out on his weaker self for its
treachery.
‘Why do you ever come back, then, at all?' he demanded of the
swallows jealously. ‘What do you find to attract you in this
poor drab little country?'
‘And do you think,' said the first swallow, ‘that the other call
is not for us too, in its due season? The call of lush meadow-
grass, wet orchards, warm, insect-haunted ponds, of browsing
cattle, of haymaking, and all the farm-buildings clustering round
the House of the perfect Eaves?'
‘Do you suppose,' asked the second one, that you are the only
living thing that craves with a hungry longing to hear the
cuckoo's note again?'
‘In due time,' said the third, ‘we shall be home-sick once more
for quiet water-lilies swaying on the surface of an English
stream. But to-day all that seems pale and thin and very far
away. Just now our blood dances to other music.'
They fell a-twittering among themselves once more, and this time
their intoxicating babble was of violet seas, tawny sands, and
lizard-haunted walls.
Restlessly the Rat wandered off once more, climbed the slope that
rose gently from the north bank of the river, and lay looking out
towards the great ring of Downs that barred his vision further
southwards--his simple horizon hitherto, his Mountains of the
Moon, his limit behind which lay nothing he had cared to see or
to know. To-day, to him gazing South with a new-born need
stirring in his heart, the clear sky over their long low outline
seemed to pulsate with promise; to-day, the unseen was
everything, the unknown the only real fact of life. On this side
of the hills was now the real blank, on the other lay the crowded
and coloured panorama that his inner eye was seeing so
clearly. What seas lay beyond, green, leaping, and crested!
What sun-bathed coasts, along which the white villas glittered
against the olive woods! What quiet harbours, thronged with
gallant shipping bound for purple islands of wine and spice,
islands set low in languorous waters!
He rose and descended river-wards once more; then changed his
mind and sought the side of the dusty lane. There, lying half-
buried in the thick, cool under-hedge tangle that bordered it, he
could muse on the metalled road and all the wondrous world that
it led to; on all the wayfarers, too, that might have trodden it,
and the fortunes and adventures they had gone to seek or found
unseeking--out there, beyond--beyond!
Footsteps fell on his ear, and the figure of one that walked
somewhat wearily came into view; and he saw that it was a Rat,
and a very dusty one. The wayfarer, as he reached him, saluted
with a gesture of courtesy that had something foreign about it--
hesitated a moment--then with a pleasant smile turned from the
track and sat down by his side in the cool herbage. He seemed
tired, and the Rat let him rest unquestioned, understanding
something of what was in his thoughts; knowing, too, the value
all animals attach at times to mere silent companionship, when
the weary muscles slacken and the mind marks time.
The wayfarer was lean and keen-featured, and somewhat bowed at
the shoulders; his paws were thin and long, his eyes much
wrinkled at the corners, and he wore small gold ear rings in his
neatly-set well-shaped ears. His knitted jersey was of a faded
blue, his breeches, patched and stained, were based on a blue
foundation, and his small belongings that he carried were tied up
in a blue cotton handkerchief.
When he had rested awhile the stranger sighed, snuffed the air,
and looked about him.
‘That was clover, that warm whiff on the breeze,' he remarked;
‘and those are cows we hear cropping the grass behind us and
blowing softly between mouthfuls. There is a sound of distant
reapers, and yonder rises a blue line of cottage smoke against
the woodland. The river runs somewhere close by, for I hear the
call of a moorhen, and I see by your build that you're a
freshwater mariner. Everything seems asleep, and yet going
on all the time. It is a goodly life that you lead, friend; no
doubt the best in the world, if only you are strong enough to
lead it!'
‘Yes, it's THE life, the only life, to live,' responded the
Water Rat dreamily, and without his usual whole-hearted
conviction.
‘I did not say exactly that,' replied the stranger cautiously;
‘but no doubt it's the best. I've tried it, and I know. And
because I've just tried it--six months of it--and know it's the
best, here am I, footsore and hungry, tramping away from it,
tramping southward, following the old call, back to the old life,
THE life which is mine and which will not let me go.'
‘Is this, then, yet another of them?' mused the Rat. ‘And where
have you just come from?' he asked. He hardly dared to ask where
he was bound for; he seemed to know the answer only too well.
‘Nice little farm,' replied the wayfarer, briefly. ‘Upalong in
that direction'--he nodded northwards. ‘Never mind about it. I
had everything 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, glad to be here! So many miles further on the road,
so many hours nearer to my heart's desire!'
His shining eyes held fast to the horizon, and he seemed to be
listening 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; nor even, I should judge, of this country.'
‘Right,' replied the stranger. ‘I'm a seafaring rat, I am, and
the port I originally hail from is Constantinople, though I'm a
sort of a foreigner there too, in a manner of speaking. You will
have heard of Constantinople, friend? A fair city, and an
ancient and glorious one. And you may have heard, too, of
Sigurd, King of Norway, and how he sailed thither with sixty
ships, and how he and his men rode up through streets all
canopied in their honour with purple and gold; and how the
Emperor and Empress came down and banqueted with him on board his
ship. When Sigurd returned home, many of his Northmen remained
behind and entered the Emperor's body-guard, and my
ancestor, a Norwegian born, stayed behind too, with the ships
that Sigurd gave the 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 between there and the London River. I
know them all, and they know me. Set me down on any of their
quays or foreshores, and I am home again.'
‘I suppose you go great voyages,' said the Water Rat with growing
interest. ‘Months and months out of sight of land, and
provisions running short, and allowanced as to water, and your
mind communing with the mighty ocean, and all that sort of
thing?'
‘By no means,' said the Sea Rat frankly. ‘Such a life as you
describe would not suit me at all. I'm in the coasting trade,
and rarely out of sight of land. It's the jolly times on shore
that appeal to me, as much 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, if you have a mind to, and what sort of harvest an
animal of spirit might hope to bring home from it to warm his
latter days with gallant memories by the fireside; for my life, I
confess to you, feels to me to-day somewhat narrow and
circumscribed.'
‘My last voyage,' began the Sea Rat, ‘that landed me eventually
in this country, bound with high hopes for my inland farm, will
serve as a good example of any of them, and, indeed, as an
epitome of my highly-coloured life. Family troubles, as usual,
began it. The domestic storm-cone was hoisted, and I shipped
myself on board a small trading vessel bound from Constantinople,
by classic seas whose every wave throbs with a deathless memory,
to the Grecian Islands and the Levant. Those were golden days
and balmy nights! In and out of harbour all the time--old
friends everywhere--sleeping in some cool temple or ruined
cistern during the heat of the day--feasting and song after
sundown, under great stars set in a velvet sky! Thence we turned
and coasted up the Adriatic, its shores swimming in an atmosphere
of amber, rose, and aquamarine; we lay in wide land-locked
harbours, we roamed through ancient and noble cities, until
at last one morning, as the sun rose royally behind us, we rode
into Venice down a path of gold. O, Venice is a fine city,
wherein a rat can wander at his ease and take his pleasure! Or,
when weary of wandering, can sit at the edge of the Grand Canal
at night, feasting with his friends, when the air is full of
music and the sky full of stars, and the lights flash and shimmer
on the polished steel prows of the swaying gondolas, packed so
that you could walk across the canal on them from side to side!
And then the food--do you like shellfish? Well, well, we won't
linger 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 between vaporous grey wave-lapped walls.
‘Southwards we sailed again at last,' continued the Sea Rat,
‘coasting down the Italian shore, till finally we made Palermo,
and there I quitted for a long, happy spell on shore. I never
stick too long to one ship; one gets narrow-minded and
prejudiced. Besides, Sicily is one of my happy hunting-grounds.
I know everybody there, and their ways just suit me. I
spent many jolly weeks in the island, staying with friends up
country. When I grew restless again I took advantage of a ship
that was trading to Sardinia and Corsica; and very glad I was to
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
call it?' asked the Water Rat.
The seafarer looked at him with the suspicion go a wink. ‘I'm an
old hand,' he remarked with much simplicity. ‘The captain's
cabin's good enough for me.'
‘It's a hard life, by all accounts,' murmured the Rat, sunk in
deep thought.
‘For the crew it is,' replied the seafarer gravely, again with
the ghost of a wink.
‘From Corsica,' he went on, ‘I made use of a ship that was taking
wine to the mainland. We made Alassio in the evening, lay to,
hauled up our wine-casks, and hove them overboard, tied one to
the other by a long line. Then the crew took to the boats and
rowed shorewards, singing as they went, and drawing after them
the long bobbing procession of casks, like a mile of
porpoises. On the sands they had horses waiting, which dragged
the casks up the steep street of the little town with a fine rush
and clatter and scramble. When the last cask was in, we went and
refreshed and rested, and sat late into the night, drinking with
our friends, and next morning I took to the great olive-woods for
a spell and a rest. For now I had done with islands for the
time, and ports and shipping were plentiful; so I led a lazy life
among the peasants, lying and watching them work, or stretched
high on the hillside with the blue Mediterranean far below me.
And so at length, by easy stages, and partly on foot, partly by
sea, to Marseilles, and the meeting of old shipmates, and the
visiting of great ocean-bound vessels, and feasting once more.
Talk of shell-fish! Why, sometimes I dream of the shell-fish of
Marseilles, and wake up crying!'
‘That reminds me,' said the polite Water Rat; ‘you happened to
mention that you were hungry, and I ought to have spoken earlier.
Of course, you will stop and take your midday meal with me? My
hole is close by; it is some time past noon, and you are very
welcome to whatever there is.'
‘Now I call that kind and brotherly of you,' said the Sea Rat.
‘I was indeed hungry when I sat down, and ever since I
inadvertently happened to mention shell-fish, my pangs have been
extreme. But couldn't you fetch 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 more concerning my voyages and the
pleasant life I lead--at least, it is very pleasant to me, and by
your attention I judge it commends itself to you; whereas if we
go indoors it is a hundred to one that I shall presently fall
asleep.'
‘That is indeed an excellent suggestion,' said the Water Rat, and
hurried off home. There he got out the luncheon-basket and
packed a simple meal, in which, remembering the stranger's origin
and preferences, he took care to include a yard of long French
bread, a sausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which
lay down and cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask wherein
lay bottled sunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes.
Thus laden, he returned with all speed, and blushed for pleasure
at the old seaman's commendations of his taste and judgment, as
together they unpacked the basket and laid out the contents
on the grass by the roadside.
The Sea Rat, as soon as his hunger was somewhat assuaged,
continued the history of his latest voyage, conducting his simple
hearer from port to port of Spain, landing him at Lisbon, Oporto,
and Bordeaux, introducing him to the pleasant harbours of
Cornwall and Devon, and so up the Channel to that final quayside,
where, landing after winds long contrary, storm-driven and
weather-beaten, he had caught the first magical hints and
heraldings of another Spring, and, fired by these, had sped on a
long tramp inland, hungry for the experiment of life on some
quiet farmstead, very far from the weary beating of any sea.
Spell-bound and quivering with excitement, the Water Rat followed
the Adventurer league by league, over stormy bays, through
crowded roadsteads, across harbour bars on a racing tide, up
winding rivers that hid their busy little towns round a sudden
turn; and left him with a regretful sigh planted at his dull
inland farm, about which he desired to hear nothing.
By this time their meal was over, and the Seafarer, refreshed and
strengthened, his voice more vibrant, his eye lit with a
brightness that seemed caught from some far-away sea-beacon,
filled his glass with the red and glowing vintage of the South,
and, leaning towards the Water Rat, compelled his gaze and held
him, body and soul, while he talked. Those eyes were of the
changing foam-streaked grey-green of leaping Northern seas; in
the glass shone a hot ruby that seemed the very heart of the
South, beating for him who had courage to respond to its
pulsation. The twin lights, the shifting grey and the steadfast
red, mastered the Water Rat and held him bound, fascinated,
powerless. The quiet world outside their rays receded far away
and ceased to be. And the talk, the wonderful talk flowed on--or
was it speech entirely, or did it pass at times into song--chanty
of the sailors weighing the dripping anchor, sonorous hum of the
shrouds in a tearing North-Easter, ballad of the fisherman
hauling his nets at sundown against an apricot sky, chords of
guitar and mandoline from gondola or caique? Did it change into
the cry of the wind, plaintive at first, angrily shrill as it
freshened, rising to a tearing whistle, sinking to a musical
trickle of air from the leech of the bellying sail? All
these sounds the spell-bound listener seemed to hear, and
with them the hungry complaint of the gulls and the sea-mews, the
soft thunder of the breaking wave, the cry of the protesting
shingle. Back into speech again it passed, and with beating
heart he was following the adventures of a dozen seaports, the
fights, the escapes, the rallies, the comradeships, the gallant
undertakings; or he searched islands for treasure, fished in
still lagoons and dozed day-long on warm white sand. Of deep-sea
fishings he heard tell, and mighty silver gatherings of the mile-
long net; of sudden perils, noise of breakers on a moonless
night, or the tall bows of the great liner taking shape overhead
through the fog; of the merry home-coming, the headland rounded,
the harbour lights opened out; the groups seen dimly on the quay,
the cheery hail, the splash of the hawser; the trudge up the
steep little street towards the comforting glow of red-curtained
windows.
Lastly, in his waking dream it seemed to him that the Adventurer
had risen to his feet, but was still speaking, still holding him
fast with his sea-grey eyes.
‘And now,' he was softly saying, ‘I take to the road again,
holding on southwestwards for many a long and dusty day; till at
last I reach the little grey sea town I know so well, that clings
along one steep side of the harbour. There through dark doorways
you look down flights of stone steps, overhung by great pink
tufts of valerian and ending in a patch of sparkling blue water.
The little boats that lie tethered to the rings and stanchions of
the old sea-wall are gaily painted as those I clambered in and
out of in my own childhood; the salmon leap on the flood tide,
schools of mackerel flash and play past quay-sides and
foreshores, and by the windows the great vessels glide, night and
day, up to their moorings or forth to the open sea. There,
sooner or later, the ships of all seafaring nations arrive; and
there, at its destined hour, the ship of my choice will let go
its anchor. I shall take my time, I shall tarry and bide, till
at last the right one lies waiting for me, warped out into
midstream, loaded low, her bowsprit pointing 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 the sailors, the
clink of the capstan, and the rattle of the anchor-chain
coming merrily in. We shall break out the jib and the
foresail, the white houses on the harbour side will glide slowly
past us as she gathers steering-way, and the voyage will have
begun! As she forges towards the headland she will clothe
herself with canvas; and then, once outside, the sounding slap of
great green seas as she heels to the wind, pointing South!
‘And you, you will come too, young brother; for the days pass,
and never return, and the South still waits for you. Take the
Adventure, heed the call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes!'
'Tis but a banging of the door behind you, a blithesome step
forward, and you are out of the old life and into the new! Then
some day, some day long hence, jog home here if you will, when
the cup has been drained and the play has been played, and sit
down by your quiet river with a store of goodly memories for
company. You can easily overtake me on the road, for you are
young, and I am ageing and go softly. I will linger, and look
back; and at last I will surely see you coming, eager and light-
hearted, with all the South in your face!'
The voice died away and ceased as an insect's tiny trumpet
dwindles swiftly into silence; and the Water Rat, paralysed
and staring, saw at last 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,
gathered together a few small necessaries and special treasures
he was fond of, and put them in a satchel; acting with slow
deliberation, moving about the room like a sleep-walker;
listening ever with parted lips. He swung the satchel over his
shoulder, carefully selected a stout stick for 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
dreamy monotone, 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
dogged fixity of purpose; but the Mole, now thoroughly
alarmed, placed himself in front of him, and looking into his
eyes saw that they were glazed and set and turned a streaked and
shifting grey--not his friend's eyes, but the eyes of some other
animal! Grappling with him strongly he dragged him inside, threw
him down, and held him.
The Rat struggled desperately for a few moments, and then his
strength seemed suddenly to leave him, and he lay still and
exhausted, with closed eyes, trembling. Presently the Mole
assisted him to rise and placed him in a chair, where he sat
collapsed and shrunken into himself, his body shaken by a violent
shivering, passing in time into an hysterical fit of dry sobbing.
Mole made the door fast, threw the satchel into a drawer and
locked it, and sat down quietly on the table by his friend,
waiting for the strange seizure to pass. Gradually the Rat sank
into a troubled doze, broken by starts and confused murmurings of
things strange and wild and foreign to the unenlightened Mole;
and from that he passed into a deep slumber.
Very anxious in mind, the Mole left him for a time and busied
himself with household matters; and it was getting dark when
he returned to the parlour and found the Rat where he had left
him, wide awake indeed, but listless, silent, and dejected. He
took one hasty glance at his eyes; found them, to his great
gratification, clear and dark and brown again as before; and then
sat down and tried to cheer him up and help him to relate what
had happened to him.
Poor Ratty did his best, by degrees, to explain things; but how
could he 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 hundred reminiscences? Even to himself, now the spell
was broken and the glamour 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 he had 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
the reaction. But he seemed to have lost all interest for
the time in the things that went to make up his daily life, as
well as in all pleasant forecastings of the altered days and
doings that the changing season was surely bringing.
Casually, then, and with seeming indifference, the Mole turned
his talk to the harvest that was being gathered in, the towering
wagons and their straining teams, the growing ricks, and the
large moon rising over bare acres dotted with sheaves. He talked
of the reddening apples around, of the browning nuts, of jams and
preserves and the distilling of cordials; till by easy stages
such as these he reached midwinter, its hearty joys and its snug
home life, and then he became simply lyrical.
By degrees the Rat began to sit up and to join in. His dull eye
brightened, and he lost some of his listening air.
Presently the tactful Mole slipped away and returned with a
pencil and a few half-sheets of paper, which he placed on the
table at his friend's elbow.
‘It's quite a long time since you did any poetry,' he remarked.
‘You might have a try at it this evening, instead of--well,
brooding over things so much. I've an idea that you'll feel
a lot better when you've got something jotted down--if it's only
just the rhymes.'
The Rat pushed the paper away from him wearily, but the discreet
Mole took occasion to leave the room, and when he peeped in again
some time later, the Rat was absorbed and deaf to the world;
alternately scribbling and sucking the top of his pencil. It is
true that he sucked a good deal more than he scribbled; but it
was joy to the Mole to know that the cure had at least begun.