The Willows in Winter (21 page)

“Mole, you are trying my patience too far. Of
course he flew it — if he crashed it I wouldn’t be here, would I? Or if he
did
crash it, and some of us might think that is the very least he deserved, he
did not do so till the machine and I had parted company at altitude.”

Mole’s eyes widened in astonishment, and his
mouth silently opened and closed, words utterly failing him.

“Yes,” continued the Rat rather more slowly,
glad to see that his report was finally having a properly sobering effect on
the Mole, “I fell out of the machine, high above the ground,
very
high.”

“But
Ratty
!” exclaimed
the bewildered Mole. “Are you all right? You
look
all right. Have you broken
bones, perhaps, or bruises I cannot see?”

“Broken bones!
Bruises.
My dear Mole, if I had fallen to the ground from that height without being
slowed down I would have a lot of broken bones, and a great many bruises.
Too many, in fact.”

“Yes,” said the Mole weakly, “I suppose you
would have.”

“I had a parachute.”

“Ah!” said the Mole with relief, not quite sure
what a parachute was. “That was just as well then. You think of everything,
Ratty!”

Patiently the Water Rat explained the workings
of a parachute, and how he came to have one, and how he now rather regretted
securing Toad’s parachute, for it might mean that he too survived that dreadful
flight!

The Rat described how he had come out of the
machine, dropped like a stone for what seemed a very long time, and then had
his descent suddenly arrested when the parachute opened.

“And then — and then, Mole —”

Mole saw immediately that a change had come
over his friend. Till that moment his account had been straightforward enough,
if occasionally rather inclined to irritation and annoyance, but now it became
something else. There was a curious distance in his voice, and a far-off gaze
in his eyes which settled, as the Mole’s had earlier, into the ever moving and
mysterious depths of the fire.

“Why, what is it, Ratty?!” exclaimed the Mole.
“What happened to you up there?”

“It was not what happened to me,” said the Rat
quietly, “it was what I saw on the way down.”

“A very long way, I should think,” said the
Mole matter-of-factly, not yet quite understanding the extent of the Rat’s
wonderment.

“Mole,” said the Rat, turning his gaze slowly
to the eyes of his friend, who saw a look of awe, and a touch of loss, on his
face, “I saw more than a long way I saw
Beyond
.”

“Beyond!” whispered the Mole.

The Water Rat slowly nodded his head, his eyes
very serious, and then turned his gaze back to the fire.

“I tell you, Mole, I saw
Beyond
.”

“But what was it like?” asked the Mole.

“It was not unlike a description you gave
earlier —there was the river, stretching on and on, curving one way and then
another, first between the fields beyond Toad Hall, and then beyond the Wild
Wood, and then ever further, on and on till the landscape was strange greens
and blues, reds and pinks, and there were hills that were more than hills, Mole
—”

“More than hills!” echoed the Mole.

“— and mountains that were far more than mountains,
where the river seemed to reach up into the sky to the place which was Beyond
—”

“— up into the sky!” said the Mole
breathlessly.

“And I knew, Mole, I
knew,
that it was
there waiting, as it always was and always will be, waiting for —”

“— waiting for us all —” said the Mole very
quietly and dreamily.

“I’m not sure, but I think so’ said the Rat in
a very subdued way “But from the moment I saw it I knew, or I felt, all sorts
of things, strange, vague things that
seemed
unconnected and yet are not
at all. One thing I knew was that you would be all right. I
knew
it. And
I was very surprised when Badger, who has always been so wise, did not know it,
or want to believe it. Then, for another — for another —”

“What is it, Ratty?” asked the Mole, for his
friend seemed almost as moved now as he
himself
had
been much earlier.

“For another,” said the Rat, “I knew I would
one day go there. Since then I have thought of almost nothing else. Indeed,
were it not for you being lost, and the winter upon us and travelling foolish
and dangerous, I would have long since left to go up-river to find Beyond.”

“Well then,” said the Mole firmly, “I’m glad I
was lost! And I’m very glad it is winter!”

“But I’ve got this hankering, this restlessness
—”

“Ratty, you’ve always been like that, you know
you have. Don’t you remember once how after you met a relative of yours, the
Sea
Rat,
it was all I could do to get you to stay here
with us? I had to be quite firm about it, and that’s not something I’m good
at.”

“I remember very well indeed,” said the Water
Rat, “but this was different. You see, Mole, though you and I have talked of
Beyond
from time to time, Badger has often warned against even
thinking about it. That’s why I couldn’t tell him what I had seen. But you — I
knew you’d understand.”

“‘Beyond’,” repeated the Mole slowly, finding
as he did so that all kinds of curious half-memories came into his mind, of
summer days when he and the Rat had talked and mused, of that time long ago
when they had gone in search of Portly and somehow they had found him on the
island, but quite where, or how or — and his own recent experience with the
river and the memory of He that saved him. Was that
Beyond
as well?

“Yes,” said the Mole at last, “I think I
understand. Well, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens, Rat. Perhaps
you did see something, and perhaps it will ache in your heart for a time, and
perhaps it’s as well that such sights and memories fade with time, and become
less irksome. Why, the spring will be with us
soon,
and the sooner the better with the severe winter we’re having. When it comes
we’ll forget all those dreams again in the excitement of going out and about
once more.

“I’ll never forget!” declared the Rat. “And nor
will you!”

“Perhaps not,” agreed the Mole finally; “now
tell me what happened
after
that!”

But the Rat had lost interest in the rest of
his tale, and finished it in no time at all, ending with how the Badger had found
him, and how the Badger had behaved most peculiarly and had seemed in a great
hurry to bury Mole into memory and be done with it all.

“Then you appeared from the river, and you know
the rest —”

“Not all of the
rest,”
said the Mole, “for there’s Toad to worry about.”

“You mean there’s Toad
not
to worry
about any more.

Mole laughed.

“Old Toad will come back, just as I did,” said
the Mole. “I was saying to my Nephew only the other day that life wouldn’t be
the same without Toad. I’m sure Badger will forgive him, as he always does — as
you yourself have surely begun to do already”

“If he does return then I pity him, for Badger
will be ready and waiting, and so will I. And so should you be. Badger may
forgive him as you say, but not
too
easily, I hope!”

“He’ll still come back, and we’ll be glad when
he does,” said the Mole finally.

“
Hmmph
!” said the
Water Rat, and that was the last thing either of them said before sleep finally
overtook both right where they were, and the candles guttered about them, and
the fire died, and they fell into the deepest, kindest, most blissful of
slumberings
, which lasted all the longer that they had both
been through so much, and needed time to rest and recuperate, just as wise
Badger had guessed they would.

IX

Rack and Ruin

The Mole was right to warn his Nephew about that winter. It was a hard
and savage one, so much so that the high tea the Badger had promised to hold
for the weasels and stoats was first delayed for a few days, and then postponed
“till the weather grew more clement”.

The Water Rat spent a few more days at Mole End
before he sensed that the time had come for the Mole to be left alone again,
while he himself wished to get back to his own house and make any repairs
necessary following the flooding of the river.

Such matters, so tiresome and difficult to the
Mole, were as nothing to the Water Rat, for he enjoyed the vicissitudes that
living so near the river brought him, and without them so restless an animal
might easily have grown bored.

A good many days passed, and finally became
some weeks, during which the winter storms raged, bringing rain and hail, and
wind and sleet of a kind and variety that made Mole and Badger and Rat, in
their different homes, feel grateful that they were as safe and snug as they
wished to be.

The Rat was the most active of them all, and
once in a while he would cross the river, if it was safe to do so, and make his
way up to Mole End to make sure his friend was all right. He had been more
troubled than he cared to admit by the Mole’s misadventure and now, with a new
relish, he was glad to have him as a friend and neighbour to call upon, and
looked forward more than ever to sharing the coming busy days of spring, and
the lazy days of summer.

Then too, when the weather looked settled and a
little less cold and wet for a time, if only for a few hours, the Rat would
stroll along the bank by way of Otter’s home, casting an expert eye on the
river’s flow, and the clarity or otherwise of the water, before going on into
the Wild Wood to see if the Badger had decided on a date for the tea he had so
rashly agreed to host.

“Can’t keep putting it off forever, Badger,” he
observed during one such visit, “and the sooner you get it over the better.
Some of the weasels are beginning to complain, and as for the stoats, well, you
know how awkward they can be if they get irritated.”

“I’ll decide about it tomorrow, or the next
day,” grumbled the Badger, who rarely had guests in his home, which was what
had made his invitation so appealing in the first place.

“After all, they did help as they said they
would,” prompted the Rat.

“They did, they did,” continued the Badger,
fixing Mole’s Nephew with a frowning stare as if it was all
his
fault,
though in fact he was enjoying the youngster’s company, “but it’s not easy,
what with the weather being unpredictable, and me being not quite ready to
mount a feast, the winter being a poor time for such affairs —”

“Just a cup of tea will do, I’m sure,” said the
Rat. “And some scones,” added Mole’s Nephew who, like his uncle, was fond of
his food.

“And clotted cream, no doubt, and strawberry
jam!” exclaimed the exasperated Badger. “Where am I to find such things, as
well
as plates and saucers and teaspoons? My dear Rat, you are a very
unreasonable fellow if you think my larder and cupboards are packed ready and
waiting for such an occasion!”

The Rat looked about the Badger’s modest
quarters amiably, and without feeling in the least put out by the Badger’s
plaints. He looked at the worn elbows of the Badger’s old dressing gown, which
he habitually wore all day at that time of year to keep himself warm. He
glanced at the threadbare armchairs ranged about the Badger’s fireplace,
reflecting that they would look a lot more threadbare had not Nephew taken it
upon himself to cover the worn parts with some lace doilies he had found in the
recesses of the dresser; and yet more forlorn, perhaps, had not Nephew also
taken it upon himself to keep the Badger’s fire ablaze, for that was something
he was inclined to forget about from time to time.

The Rat looked too at the kitchen table, upon
which were spread some of the learned Badger’s books and papers, which it might
be difficult, even unkind, to disturb and tidy away for something so
uncharacteristic of his home as a tea party.