The Willows in Winter (12 page)

Mole soon saw that the island seemed somewhat
smaller compared to his last visit, for the river had flooded and broken its
banks, and made incursions into the little reedy inlets all around it which
were, Mole remembered, secret placid places in the summer and autumn, where
bees buzzed, and flies hovered, and the blue and violet dragonflies flew,
settled, and flew on again.

Now all seemed to be submerged beneath a flood
of muddy water beyond which, where the river raced, dangerous waves and rapids
showed, and no creature, not even the Water Rat, would risk venturing. The sky
was blue in parts, cloudy in others, so that once in a while sun shone down
fleetingly on the island, or over the racing river and across the willows and
meadows beyond. Mole looked for signs of life, or someone to wave to, to show
that he was alive and safe, but all in vain. Nobody was about at all, and he
could only wander about from one side of the island to the other, from top to
bottom, to the water’s edge and back to where he had made his base, in the hope
that he might eventually attract someone’s attention.

He found a little food, just enough to give him
sustenance, though not enough or of quality sufficient to satisfy the gnawing
pangs in his stomach and prevent him suffering all kinds of unwelcome
remembrances of happy fulsome repasts that he had enjoyed at Mole End. Every
time he settled down for a snooze he found himself thinking of plum pudding, or
sizzling sausages, or leek and potato soup laced with a little —”O, but I
mustn’t!” groaned the poor Mole, opening his eyes once more and restlessly
setting off again on his little round to see what, if any, signs of life and
help there were.

Later in the afternoon, with the river showing
no inclination to rise further and Mole, returning from his latest tour,
beginning to feel decidedly better, that the errant sun shone briefly once more
across the island and he caught a glimpse of something through the crowding
sedges beyond one of the inlets.

It was no more than a flash of blue — but of a
colour and at a height that seemed somehow familiar, somehow comforting. He
stopped, peered, negotiated the flooded ground, pulled aside the tall sedge
grasses and there he saw it, plain as could be: the Water Rat’s rowing boat.

“It cannot be!” Mole exclaimed, for none knew
better than he how very careful Rat was with his boat, and how he never ever
left it without mooring it fast, not Rat! Why even when it had once been sunk
while under Toad’s command the Rat had gone to the pain of salvaging it and
then making it as good as new again.

But there it now was
,
its bows thrust in among the sedges, its painter trailing out into the water
towards the open river, rocking gently to and fro. It swung a little,
then
heaved forward as a wave pushed it, and then back, back
towards the river’s flow as the wave retreated.

The weir’s roar assailed the Mole’s ears, and
even as the dreadful thought occurred to him that the Rat might recently have
been
in
the boat but was no longer so, the more immediate danger of the
boat drifting off forever out of his reach, and anyone else’s if it reached the
weir, spurred him to action.

Mole splashed forward through the reeds,
grasped the bows with the same assurance as if he was the Rat himself, and
heaved it a little way onto firmer ground.

“It is Rat’s boat, that’s for sure. O dear! I
hope he did not lose it in search of me! I trust there is some better
explanation of how it comes to be here than the one I fear!”

The Mole peered downstream in the direction of
the weir, whose fall of water he could not see, though a steady rise of spray
and watery haze showed all too clearly how especially dangerous the weir was
when the river was in such spate.

“Well, I shall just have to wait till the water
subsides
a little, as it surely will, and then
consider what to do. At least the sculls are still in the boat, which I take as
a good sign.
Providence
may have sent this boat to me —
indeed,
I shall consider that it has till I learn otherwise.
Meanwhile —”

Mole’s “meanwhile” lasted three days more, during which the only mercy
was that no rain fell, though the sun shone no more after the day of Mole’s
awakening as grey and dreary weather set in. They were miserable days in which
the grumbling of the Mole’s stomach grew worse, and the dreams of food and
drink he might be having, instead of the plain dull fare which was all the
island offered him, tormented him continually.

He had no idea how long he had been on the
island, and his sense of isolation and timelessness was increased by the
complete lack of life on the banks of the river, along which, in spring, summer
and autumn he might have expected to see a great deal of the coming and going
of life.

All now was cold and dull and flooded, and the
only life that showed, and that briefly one morning, was a flock of grey geese
passing through, and a ragged heron, which settled for a time in the meadow
beyond the trees opposite, looking as lost and forlorn as he felt.

The Mole was much concerned about his friends,
for either they were in trouble and needed him, or they were fretting on his
account — and both possibilities sorely troubled him.

“Even Toad!”
Mole told himself. “Even he will be
worried for me, I should think!”

So the sooner he got off the island and was
able to show them that he was alive and well the better.

“But I shall try nothing till the river has
subsided and I have regained the strength I shall undoubtedly need if I am to
scull the boat against the river’s current and onto proper land once more. I
have made one mistake — I shall not make another! Then, when I am able to reach
home again, and trusting that my friends are safe and well, I shall invite them
to a feast, the greatest feast I have ever given! There will be —”

Once more the Mole suffered himself to
enumerate the many things he would like to eat as he contemplated the miserable
berry or two which was all his latest foraging had thrown up.

“
Hmmph
!” he declared
finally, making his way to Rat’s boat, the same boat in which he had so often
in summers past sat with a wicker luncheon-basket overflowing with good things
as his friend rowed them to some quiet and shady nook.
“
Hmmph
!”

Almost without thinking the Mole climbed into
the boat and sat in the little seat he knew so well, as if, thereby, he might
get just a little closer to those fond memories of better days.
Closer, even, to a full stomach, despite the darkening afternoon
and the chill winter wind.
But sitting thus gave him cold comfort for a
time.

Three more long days, with longer nights to
accompany them, passed by before the water began to recede and the river began
to look and sound like
itself
once more. Mole had long
hoped for that moment, and remembering some of the boating lore the Water Rat
had taught him, had pushed the boat back towards the river as the water
receded, lest it was left high and dry and he unable to shift it, and therefore
to use it.

Practical matters such as these, and a routine
tour of the island every hour or so to see if any animal was about to whom he
could signal his existence, kept him preoccupied through those days, though the
ache in his stomach grew no better, and the dreams of food had long since
turned into hallucinations of great feasts just out of reach over the water.

But sleep and time are healers, and somehow the
Mole got through his long wait, regaining his strength, and gaining in
confidence so that when the time came, and if help had not come already, he
would venture forth in Rat’s boat and try to scull upstream and deliver himself
home once more.

But it was not till a full week had passed, and
the water was almost back to normal, the river nearly placid again though
discoloured by the mud and rubbish that a flooding brings, that a day came when
it looked as if he might try to get the boat afloat. The sky had dawned clear
and bright, and the day frosty, so that the leafless willows on the island and
across on the bank hung still and white with rime, and the meadows beyond were
all covered in white as well.

“I could
try”
Mole told himself many
times to give himself courage, “I could have a go at least!”

But dawn had passed to morning, morning to
midday
,
midday
to a dulling afternoon, and still
he did not quite dare, though he eased the boat into the water, and readied the
sculls for himself several times, till each time his nerve failed him. Then the
sky clouded strangely, and the air grew still and heavy.

The Mole might easily have let the moment pass,
and stayed where he was for another
night,
had not a
few tiny flecks drifted down and told him that snow might soon be on the way
once more. The threat of which put a greater fear in him than venturing onto
the river, for the snow might turn heavy, and it might settle, and it might
continue and then, eventually, it would melt.

“And that could mean — no, it
would
mean
— that the river would rise once more and then —” And then the poor Mole had
visions of more days and nights, more weeks even, stranded on the island, his
whereabouts unknown, missed by his friends for a little longer and then
forgotten.

“O Ratty, I wish you were here to advise me! I
wish I knew what to do for the best. The weir seems so near, though it
is
much
quieter than it was. But supposing I drop a scull into the water, or lose my
strength, or — or —“

There seemed then to come a scent with the
evening breeze that was beginning to stir the willow boughs, a scent which was
of many things, but most particularly of the cheerful burning of a fire in his
hearth, of rice pudding in a bowl held in his own hand, and of some warm and
potent brew set down on the little table close by his armchair.

“O my!” he sighed.

More than that, that scent contained something
of the Rat’s very best tobacco, and, magical scent that it was, seemed almost
to conjure up the Rat’s voice, telling him some tale or other of his doings on
the river.

“I shall!” he declared. “I shall push this boat
out, so! I shall ready the sculls, just so! And I shall turn the bows to the
current exactly, so! And finally I shall leap aboard as Ratty would, with
confidence and style — so!”

Then, Mole was aboard, and the boat drifting
out into the river, and before he knew what he was doing he had grasped the
sculls as if he were the Rat himself grasping them, and was sculling up-river
against the current, slowly but steadily.

“And not a moment too soon!” he declared with
satisfaction as the weir receded downstream, and the island as well, and as the
little flecks of snow turned into bigger flakes, and the sky turned stranger
and heavier still, and the snow settled in the boat, and upon his black fur.

“This is all right!” said the Mole, panting
with effort. “Imagining that I am Ratty, I shall conserve my strength by
staying close to the bank; I shall press on upstream! I shall not give up! And
when I feel my strength sapping, or my purpose failing, I shall think of all
the food that Ratty and I shall have when we are together once again! I shall!
Mole End, here I come!”

With this most heartening cry — which would
certainly have been heard had there been anybody along the banks nearby — the
Mole pressed on against the current, determined not to give up till he reached
his destination.

VI

In Memoriam