The Willows in Winter (5 page)

It was a route that the Rat had taken many
times before — though never in such an apprehensive frame of mind. The way
seemed longer than it really
was,
the hedges and
meadows gloomier, despite the snow that lightened their way.

“These are definitely the tracks of Mole’s
Nephew!” said the Otter, but they were the only words the two spoke almost the
whole way there.

The gloaming was already with them, and the
trees losing their colour and turning into silhouettes, and the snow all about
becoming more violet than white, as they came in sight of the river.

As they did so they saw a figure running wildly
towards them out of the dark, shouting and gesticulating. For a moment they
thought it was the Mole himself, but it was his Nephew, and in a state of
considerable alarm. Indeed, so incoherent was he that the Otter thought the
worst and said, “Mole’s not —?”

“Worse,” said his Nephew “O, far, far worse!”

“Better show us what you’ve found,” said the
Rat, eyes narrowing, as he led the way down to the bank.

“Mole’s lamp!” he cried out, pointing out where
it stood so conspicuously on the path by the bank.

“But no Mole,” said his Nephew “Gone — gone forever!”

Then he pointed mutely towards the willow tree
roots where Mole had left his message before trying to cross the river.

“There are words there; he’s scribed words,”
said his Nephew.

The Rat and the Otter peered at the roots, but
the light was now too poor to make anything out.

“Otter,” said the Rat grimly, “give me the
candle and flint and that jam jar and let us read what Mole has written here.
Mole is no fool, you see. He guessed we might come looking for him, though why
he didn’t go straight back home after seeing the state of the river I can’t — I
mean — he couldn’t have — he —”

Rat turned to look at the river and the ice
that still covered a good part of it, and a thought too terrible to think came
to him, and he shook his head and turned back to the tree.

But as the Otter struggled to light the candle
in the cold night breeze it seemed to the Rat that the River was speaking to
him again, and that what she had to say was bad news indeed. He had never known
her splashes so — sonorous; her meanders so — miserable; her normally majestic
flow so — final!

“There you are, Rat,” said the Otter, giving
him the flickering light,
“you
read it, for I’ve never had much time to
learn that sort of thing.”

The Rat peered about, looked closer, and was
suddenly very still indeed; then, clearly shaken, he put the jam jar down on
the nearest flattest root he could find.

“‘What does it say, Rat?”

“I shall read it aloud,” said the Rat in a
terrible voice, which he clearly had great difficulty controlling.

“It is headed ‘Mole’s Last ‘Will and Testament’
and this is what it says: ‘Before crossing the River, and Knowing I may not
return alive, I, Mole, of Mole End, hereby ‘Wish to make the following
Bequests: First, my Garden Seat is for Ratty, in memory of the many happy hours
we had on it sitting and talking; Second, my Brass Candle Stick is for Mr
Badger, as a token of my respect for him and since he needs one, along with
those of my books he might choose to take; Thirdly, my bust of Garibaldi is to
inspire Mr Toad to better things and remind him of his friend Mole; lastly, but
by no means the Least important, I leave Mole End to my Nephew to whom I may
not always have been as pleasant and welcoming as I should, but of whom I am
very proud. I know my good friends will take his future education in hand till
the day comes when he will be a most worthy Mole. Finally, I ask that Portly be
kept well clear of my Sloe and Blackberry wine as it goes to his head somewhat.
Now —’“

And that was all, nothing more. Not even
“Mole”.

As Mole’s Nephew wept at the unexpected
generosity and sentiments of his uncle, the Water Rat read the writing through
again and then went down to the river. He peered across and saw the jagged gap
where the ice had broken, and the black deep waters of the river that rushed
and flowed so cruelly there.

“My friends,” he said at last, “I greatly fear
that we may not see Mole alive again. He must have been trying to get across
the river to help me. He knew how dangerous that would be and yet — and yet he
tried. No doubt he went carefully, but Mole was never a river animal and did
not understand that of all the River’s moods her worst and meanest is when she
is covered in ice. Yet alone as he was, and no doubt afraid, on he went in the
cause of his friends. Not just for me, Otter, but for you as well.”

The Otter sniffed, and a great big tear rolled
down his face in the dusk.

“He was the bravest mole I ever knew,” he said.
“He was the truest friend I ever had,” said the Rat. “My uncle was the greatest
mole who ever lived,” said his Nephew.

For a long time they stood in silence as the
night gathered about them, the flickering light on the willow root a beacon to
light a friend on a journey they could never be part of.

“But isn’t it possible he climbed back out onto
the bank?” said his Nephew much later.

“Or that he never fell in
in
the first place but is somewhere on the other side and the ice broke later?”
said the Otter hopefully.

“In short, that we have jumped to the wrong
conclusion?” said the ‘Water Rat.

The others nodded in the dark.

“Unlikely,” said the Rat finally, as he stared
at the river, utterly still, his grief total and complete.

Much later still, speaking in a low voice, he
said this:

“All my life I have lived by the River and I
have known her in all her moods. I have shared with her good times and bad. One
thing she has never failed to do is to talk to me, though sometimes I found it
hard to listen and understand what she said. Today she has been speaking to me
but I did not want to hear what she said. You know what I mean, Otter, it
sometimes just isn’t possible to —”To make sense of things,” said Otter.

“Exactly Now, we are all tired and over-wrought
and if Mole
is
still alive there is little good we can do floundering
around in the dark. We shall go back to Mole End. We shall sleep. Then tomorrow
we shall call on Mr Badger and institute a search for Mole, for I shall not be
satisfied till I know what has happened to him one way or the other. Perhaps
tomorrow I can try listening to the River once more — by myself — and perhaps
it will all make more sense.

“Now we shall put a new candle in Mole’s
lantern, we shall light it, and we shall leave it here in the hope that somehow
or other he will see its light, and know how much he is loved, and how much
missed; and how much we want him back again!”

They did this with all due ceremony, standing
again in silence with the light flickering on their sombre faces before the Rat
led them silently away from the river bank, back through the night to Mole End.

The ‘Water Rat knew a night of shadows and half-dreams in which, try as
he might, he could not get out of his head memories of Mole sitting so
comfortably on the garden seat in the hot afternoon sun of the summer,
reflecting upon life or, more often than not, upon something better still:
nothing at all.

“Mole, dear friend,” Rat remembered himself
saying many a time, “this place is too comfortable, too pleasant, and I feel
once more a yearning to get into my boat.”

“Ratty, I am not at all surprised,” Mole would
reply, “and it would be pleasant, very pleasant, to sit in your boat once more,
with you sculling, which you do so much better than I, trailing a paw in the
placid water, which I do so much better than you.

“Trouble is, we have to get there, and that
means getting out of this very comfortable seat.”

“It does,” the Rat replied sleepily, “it
doeszzzzzzz
.” Of course, there had been many other
occasions when after a day or two of such inactivity, Rat had declared, “If we
don’t go now we never will, and therefore, Mole, I shall not sit down in that
garden seat of yours. No! I shall help you prepare a hamper of food and drink
sufficient to last us the whole day through.”

“And halfway into the evening, if it
stays as warm as this!”

“Exactly!
So let’s press on!”

And on they had pressed, and off they had gone,
though always Mole had cast a backward glance at his delightful nook, knowing
that when the time came, when he tired of the river and longed once more for
the shade of the trees, and the hum and buzz of the secret fields, it would
always be there, waiting for him and his friend.

Such thoughts and remembrances tormented the
poor Rat all that night, till dawn came once more, when at last, as often
happens after such a night, he fell into a deep sleep.

“‘We’ll not disturb him till he wakes of his
own accord,” said the Otter later, “for I doubt that he got much sleep in the
night at all, poor fellow The loss of Mole will hit him hard, very hard indeed,
and we should let him get what rest he can.”

“If Mole
is
lost,” said Mole’s Nephew.

“It’s certainly not like the Water Rat to give
up so easily,” said Portly.

“
Hmmph
!” said the
Otter. “Make breakfast for us all, you two, and do it quietly!”

So it was that the Rat woke to the pleasant
scent of bacon and sausages sizzling on the hob, and the alluring aroma of
camomile tea, which sent his spirits soaring and had him sitting up and asking,
“‘Where am I?” before he looked about and saw only too clearly where he was: in
Mole’s home without Mole, and with no hope that he would ever be here again.

“O!” cried out the Rat, falling back on the
pillow —the comfortable pillow it must be said, for it was Mole’s own, and in
Mole’s bed in which Rat lay — “O dear!”

He stared bleakly out of the window, tears
slowly trickling down his face, and listened to the quiet bustle of the other
three round the corner in the kitchen, and Portly saying, “Do you think he’s
woken up yet? I’m very hungry and we can’t wait forever.”

“We’ll wait for as long as it takes,” Rat heard
Otter growl.

The Rat drifted away into a muse, staring at
the blue sky — for it was another lovely winter day — and at the drip
drip
drip
of water from the ledge
above the window.

“The thaw’s set in,” he said to himself, “the
thaw —”‘What was it about that drip of water that had him wide awake in moments
and opening the window, and peering outside and all about and scenting at the
air? ‘What was it that sent his whiskers buzzing, and made his snout tremble
with — with the sense of
things happening?

He peered out still
more,
he looked down from the dripping of the water and the trees, down towards —why,
towards the very garden seat that Mole had left him in his will. It was
glistening with damp, it was waiting, it was —
But
before Rat could decide what it was, something else caught his attention, the
very thing perhaps that had made him open the window in the first place. His
snout had trembled — now it thrilled to the scent of the River come alive once
more, too distant for any other creature to notice it.
His
River, across the meadows, through the wood, down the track, beyond the
bank, alive and calling to him.

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