‘What lies over there?’ asked the Mole, waving a paw towards a background of woodland that darkly framed the water-meadows on one side of the river.
‘That? O, that’s just the Wild Wood,’ said the Rat shortly. ‘We don’t go there very much, we river bankers.’
‘Aren’t they – aren’t they very nice people in there?’ said the Mole a trifle nervously.
‘W-e-ll,’ replied the Rat, ‘let me see. The squirrels are all right. And the rabbits – some of ’em, but rabbits are a mixed lot. And then there’s Badger, of course. He lives right in the heart of it; wouldn’t live anywhere else, either, if you paid him to do it. Dear old Badger! Nobody interferes with him. They’d better not,’ he added significantly.
‘Why, who should interfere with him?’ asked the Mole.
‘Well, of course – there – are others,’ explained the Rat in a hesitating sort of way. ‘Weasels – and stoats – and foxes – and so on. They’re all right in a way – I’m very good friends with them – pass the time of day when we meet, and all that – but they break out sometimes, there’s no denying it, and then – well, you can’t really trust them, and that’s the fact.’
The Mole knew well that it is quite against animal- etiquette to dwell on possible trouble ahead, or even to allude to it; so he dropped the subject.
‘And beyond the Wild Wood again?’ he asked: ‘Where it’s all blue and dim, and one sees what may be hills or perhaps they mayn’t, and something like the smoke of towns, or is it only cloud-drift?’
‘Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,’ said the Rat. ‘And that’s something that doesn’t matter, either to you or me. I’ve never been there, and I’m never going, nor you either, if you’ve got any sense at all. Don’t ever refer to it again, please. Now then! Here’s our backwater at last, where we’re going to lunch.’
Leaving the main stream, they now passed into what seemed at first sight like a little landlocked lake. Green turf sloped down to either edge, brown snaky tree-roots gleamed below the surface of the quiet water, while ahead of them the silvery shoulder and foamy tumble of a weir, arm-in-arm with a restless dripping mill-wheel, that held up in its turn a grey-gabled mill-house, filled the air with a soothing murmur of sound, dull and smothery, yet with little clear voices speaking up cheerfully out of it at intervals. It was so very beautiful that the Mole could only hold up both fore-paws and gasp, ‘O my! O my! O my!’
The Rat brought that boat alongside the bank, made her fast, helped the still awkward Mole safely ashore, and swung out the luncheon-basket. The Mole begged as a favour to be allowed to unpack it all by himself; and the Rat was very pleased to indulge him, and to sprawl at full length on the grass and rest, while his excited friend shook out the table-cloth and spread it, took out all the mysterious packets one by one and arranged their contents in due order, still gasping, ‘O my! O my!’ at each fresh revelation. When all was ready, the Rat said, ‘Now, pitch in, old fellow!’ and the Mole was indeed very glad to obey, for he had started his spring-cleaning at a very early hour that morning, as people will do, and had not paused for bite or sup; and he had been through a very great deal since that distant time which now seemed so many days ago.
‘What are you looking at?’ said the Rat presently, when the edge of their hunger was somewhat dulled, and the Mole’s eyes were able to wander off the table-cloth a little.
‘I am looking,’ said the Mole, ‘at a streak of bubbles that I see travelling along the surface of the water. That is a thing that strikes me as funny.’
‘Bubbles? Oho!’ said the Rat, and chirruped cheerily in an inviting sort of way.
A broad glistening muzzle showed itself above the edge of the bank, and the Otter hauled himself out and shook the water from his coat.
‘Greedy beggars!’ he observed, making for the provender. ‘Why didn’t you invite me, Ratty?’
‘This was an impromptu affair,’ explained the Rat. ‘By the way – my friend, Mr Mole.’
‘Proud, I’m sure,’ said the Otter, and the two animals were friends forthwith.
‘Such a rumpus everywhere!’ continued the Otter. ‘All the world seems out on the river to-day. I came up this backwater to try and get a moment’s peace, and then stumble upon you fellows! At least – I beg pardon – I don’t exactly mean that, you know.’
There was a rustle behind them, proceeding from a hedge wherein last year’s leaves still clung thick, and a stripy head, with high shoulders behind it, peered forth on them.
‘Come on, old Badger!’ shouted the Rat.
The Badger trotted forward a pace or two; then grunted, ‘H’m! Company,’ and turned his back and disappeared from view.
‘That’s just the sort of fellow he is!’ observed the disappointed Rat. ‘Simply hates Society! Now we shan’t see any more of him to-day. Well, tell us who’s out on the river?’
‘Toad’s out, for one,’ replied the Otter. ‘In his brand- new wager-boat; new togs, new everything!’
The two animals looked at each other and laughed.
‘Once, it was nothing but sailing,’ said the Rat. ‘Then he tired of that and took to punting. Nothing would please him but to punt all day and every day, and a nice mess he made of it. Last year it was house-boating, and we all had to go and stay with him in his house-boat, and pretend we liked it. He was going to spend the rest of his life in a house-boat. It’s all the same, whatever he takes up; he get tired of it, and starts on something fresh.’
‘Such a good fellow, too,’ remarked the Otter reflectively. ‘But no stability – especially in a boat!’
From where they sat they could get a glimpse of the main stream across the island that separated them; and just then a wager-boat flashed into view, the rower – a short, stout figure – splashing badly and rolling a good deal, but working his hardest. The Rat stood up and hailed him, but Toad – for it was he – shook his head and settled sternly to his work.
‘He’ll be out of the boat in a minute if he rolls like that,’ said the Rat, sitting down again.
‘Of course he will,’ chuckled the Otter. ‘Did I ever tell you that good story about Toad and the lock-keeper? It happened this way. Toad …’
An errant May-fly swerved unsteadily athwart the current in the intoxicated fashion affected by young bloods of May-flies seeing life. A swirl of water and a ‘cloop!’ and the May-fly was visible no more.
Neither was the Otter.
The Mole looked down. The voice was still in his ears, but the turf whereon he had sprawled was clearly vacant. Not an Otter to be seen, as far as the distant horizon.
But again there was a streak of bubbles on the surface of the river.
The Rat hummed a tune, and the Mole recollected that animal-etiquette forbade any sort of comment on the sudden disappearance of one’s friends at any moment, for any reason or no reason whatever.
‘Well, well,’ said the Rat, ‘I suppose we ought to be moving. I wonder which of us had better pack the luncheon-basket?’ He did not speak as if he was frightfully eager for the treat.
‘O, please let me,’ said