The Willows in Winter (11 page)

Then, before the Rat could say a thing, or even
think what he
might
say in so hopeless a circumstance, the world turned
slowly upside down before him, quite unaccountably, it seemed, and he felt
himself falling out of his seat into cold air.

“O!” was all he had time to say as the machine,
with Toad hanging upside down inside it and looking as ridiculous as the Rat
had ever seen him look, appeared to shoot away above him and was gone.

Then, with the roaring of wind in his ears, the
Rat, as if in a dream, felt himself turning in the air and found he was gazing
down at the ground far below, and at the River, his beloved River, and the very
stretch he knew best of all.

He knew it at once: the bridge, Toad’s estate
beyond it, which looked large to the Rat even from so high above the ground,
the dark trees of the Wild Wood, and softer woods and meadows where Mole End
was, and the river, shining below him in the winter light. And —”That’s my boat
loose on the water!” he said crossly to himself, as if it was the most natural
thing to make such an observation as he plummeted towards the ground. But it
was
loose; the little rowing boat he loved so much, which he remembered in a
flash he had failed to moor properly because the sound of Toad’s machine had
distracted him and had now been floated off the bank by the flooding river and
was drifting rapidly downstream.

“Drat!” said the Rat to
himself
.
For his boat was turning and turning about on itself, and from where he saw it
now it was as plain as could be that once it had passed one side or the other
of the island it would be sucked down over the weir and smashed to bits.

Then, another surprise.
Above him a by now all too familiar
roaring came to him through the steadier sound of the wind in his ears as he
fell, and he looked up in time to see Toad’s machine righting itself as it
turned back his way and, though he could not quite see properly, the engine
once more coming to life.

Toad, he presumed — he did not exactly hope —
was still inside it. The machine wobbled a couple of times above him and then
was gone off eastwards and lost in the bright light of the sky.

All this seemed to take a very long time
indeed, and the Rat was beginning to think that falling through air was not
unlike swimming underwater. He reached out his arms and legs, much as he did
sometimes on a hot day when a little dive in the river served to cool him off,
and turned to face the ground once more. As he did so, and tried to fix his
gaze once more on the river below him, he saw to his surprise that it had moved
a little away from directly below him, or appeared to have done, and that he
was now above the Wild Wood. The adjustment was slight, but enough to make him
shift his gaze from what he knew to what he did not, which was a place that was
not part of the Wide World, but which he instinctively knew was that other
place — Beyond.

He looked first downstream, past the weir
towards which his boat was drifting so rapidly, and he saw all the great
panoply of life — roads, towns, and railway lines, smoke, and people.

Then he looked upstream, past the island, past
his own home, past the bridge and Toad Hall, on and on to a place he had only
ever imagined might exist. Pale winter sun shone upon it, and it alone, so that
in a dull grey roaring world that uncharted part which he felt must be
Beyond
, the bit he had only ever imagined before, seemed
special and separate.

What he saw quite took his breath away. The
river wound its way into it, its meanders growing smaller one by one, and where
they went was all green and hazy blue, and in parts still white with snow
In
some parts too there was a golden sheen where the sun
shone down and reflected in his eyes. And there were what seemed mountain
heights.

“O!” he whispered, for in all his life he had
never seen anything so beautiful. “O!”

Then, as if he had glimpsed a world he should
not have seen, and that too long, there was a violent jerk at his shoulders,
and that secret lost forbidden place, that ethereal place, was snatched from
him and he saw it no more.

Above him, with a great
Whoosh!
and
Crack!
the
parachute
opened and the roaring in his ears fell away to silence once more. “O dear!” he
said aloud, for suddenly there seemed no time to think.

The trees came nearer and nearer as he was
carried across them, right over the Wild Wood towards its farthest edge.

“Must keep an eye on the river so I know in
which direction to go back,” said the ever resourceful Rat as the trees came
nearer still and the river disappeared rapidly behind him — over — round — and
then with a scrape and a bump, a rise once more into the air, and then a final
branchy, scratchy,
tangly
descent, he landed
somewhere on the far side of the Wild Wood.

Meanwhile, distant calls — shouts would be far too strong a word —
finally brought the Mole out of the strange
beshadowed
world he had been in, and he opened his eyes onto a cold and dusky sky.

He had some notion that within the long dream
in which he had been lost there had been a great fierce bird flying in the sky,
rumbling and roaring, and this had been what had finally urged him towards
consciousness. But it was the calling of his name that truly caused him to
wake.

Where he was he had no idea, and that he was in
the real world of earth and river, tree and weather he rather doubted. Where he
had been, well now, that was a different thing again.

He closed his eyes and pondered the question.
But he soon gave it up because the strange and comforting images of gentle
hands that had caught him and pulled him from the icy silent world of the river
into which he had fallen, and strong arms that held him as he was carried and
placed him in a soft, warm sweet-smelling bed of reeds and grass, were very
hard to retain for long, and they slipped away into the shadows of his mind as
those calls summoned him back once more into the waking world.

“Mole!
Mo—ole!” they came, drifting out of
the dusk, from far
far
away, yet he did not want to
listen to them; he wanted only to slip away into the place he had been and
never leave it more.

“I remember —” he whispered to himself, “it was
so warm and He —”

Mole felt tears well up in his eyes, and he
sniffed, and he cried, for he was waking up despite himself, and he knew that
wherever he had been, and
Whoever
had been with him
there, was leaving him now and he could not return.

“I don’t want —”

“Mole!” cried the strange sharp voices, further
off now, and moving further away.

Mole tried to wiggle his toes, and they
did
wiggle.
Then he tried to move his paws, and they
did
move, and he said to
himself
, “These toes must be mine, and these paws too. I am
alive!”

He
whiffled
his snout
and opened his eyes once more and saw the sky was growing darker by the moment,
and felt the air growing colder.

“Mole!”

Now their voices were further off still and the
Mole was suddenly wide awake. He sat up with a jolt and promptly sank back
again into —”Grass.
Reeds.
Water nearby My, I do not
feel well.

But they — they are calling my name — they —”

Mole sat up again, shook his head, and looked
about him.
Definitely grass, and beyond it reeds.

“Mo —”

But now their voices were the barest whisper.

“It’s me!” called the Mole, his voice so weak
and hoarse that it was not even a whisper.

“It’s me, Mole! I’m here!”

He got up, feeling very weak indeed, and poked
about amongst the vegetation and saw he was near the river and that he could
just see across it. It seemed wide and flowed fast and he did not like the look
of it at all.

“Over here!” a voice cried. “This way back,
lads!” The Mole peered across-river, saw some shapes flitting through the dark
— thin, narrow
weaselly
shapes,
stoaty
shapes, the kind of shapes the Mole did not like, and yet it seemed it had been
they who had been calling him.

Badger! He had got them out and searching! That
was it. Why else would weasels and stoats stray so far from their miserable
lairs in the Wild Wood?

The Mole broke through the reeds, teetered on
the very edge of the fast-flowing water and tried to attract their attention.

“It’s me! I’m here!
Mole is here!”

But he seemed to have no voice at all, for they
did not hear what little he had, but faded away into shadows, into darkness,
and then were gone.

“I’m here!” said the Mole finally,
only then realizing that he seemed unable to speak at all.
Or rather, he spoke but no real
sound came forth.

He had never felt so ill, so thirsty, so woozy,
so strange, and so lonely and forlorn in his whole life. That world he had come
out of felt gone forever, and he missed it already; and the real world into
which he had come did not seem to want him at all.

“Where am I?” he wondered, and began to
flounder about, splashing in the well-
puddled
ground,
unable even to find that warm dry place where he had been before.

“O dear! O dear! I am lost and lonely, and
miserable and — and I shall make a hole, and hide away into it till day
returns.”

He snuffled about, scented at the gloaming,
turned back the way he had just come, saw to his alarm that the water was
nearer to him than before and was rising, and finally, completely awake now,
made his way to slightly higher ground. There he found some willows and beyond
them drier ground, and then some ash trees. Beyond them the ground dropped away
towards the rising river again.

“I’m on an island, and on it I shall have to
stay!” he said aloud.
“For tonight at least.”

The Mole went back to the highest point he
could find, made a serviceable scrape and, covering himself with what old
leaf-litter and dried grass he could find, settled down to sleep.

If he saw that Being who had saved him beckon
him once more, if he journeyed back to that place wherein he had almost melded
and become part of something far greater than himself or anything he knew, and
if now he was only able to observe it as if he was but a temporary visitor
whose time had not yet come to be a resident — he did not quite remember it
when he awoke the following dawn to the soft chucking of mallard ducks, and the
rustle and chirp of coots down by the river, whose flow he could hear nearby as
a sure and purposeful rippling, but further off as a torrential roar.

“That must be the weir,” he said to himself,
“and I must be on the island. O dear! O my! How
will
I ever get off?”

He did not move, indeed he did not open his
eyes for more than a moment, but lay where he was, snug yet apprehensive,
hungry yet just a little bit excited. It was the excitement of the survivor for
whom the worst is over, who though he feels his life is no longer threatened
knows he still has some way to go.

He knew he had fallen through the ice, and that
he had somehow managed to get — or be helped — onto the island. Now, alone but
safe, he must somehow get back to his friends and his home. He had not
forgotten that his original intention had been to try to find Rat and Otter,
who were in trouble.

“Some help I have been to them!” he scolded
himself. “I am a foolish mole to have tried to do so much alone. Now they may
well still be in trouble — or worse!
worse
! —
and
I myself seem to be the subject of a search — or a hunt!
not
a hunt! —
by
the weasels
and the stoats. I must up and away from here!”

With such purposeful thoughts as these the Mole
rose to his feet and set off to explore his new domain. It was many years since
he had been there, and that only when Portly was very young and had got lost
and found his way here just as he had now done. The island was a place animals
tended not to go, not that they were afraid so much that they felt a certain
awe and respect when near it, sensing that if ever help and succour were truly
needed, it was here that He who could provide them might surely be found.