“That’s all right, bless you!” responded the Rat cheerily. “What’s a little wet to a Water Rat? I’m more in the water than out of it most days. Don’t you think any more about it; and look here! I really think you had better come and stop with me for a little time. It’s very plain and rough, you know—not like Toad’s house at all—but you haven’t seen that yet; still, I can make you comfortable. And I’ll teach you to row and to swim, and you’ll soon be as handy on the water as any of us.”
The Mole was so touched by his kind manner of speaking that he could find no voice to answer him; and he had to brush away a tear or two with the back of his paw. But the Rat kindly looked in another direction, and presently the Mole’s spirits revived again, and he was even able to give some straight backtalk to a couple of moorhens who were sniggering to each other about his bedraggled appearance.
When they got home, the Rat made a bright fire in the parlour, and planted the Mole in an armchair in front of it, having fetched down a dressing-gown and slippers for him, and told him river stories till suppertime. Very thrilling stories they were, too, to an earth-dwelling animal like Mole. Stories about weirs, and sudden floods, and leaping pike, and steamers that flung hard bottles—at least bottles were certainly flung, and from steamers, so presumably by them; and about herons, and how particular they were whom they spoke to; and about adventures down drains, and night-fishings with Otter, or excursions far afield with Badger. Supper was a most cheerful meal; but very shortly afterwards a terribly sleepy Mole had to be escorted upstairs by his considerate host, to the best bedroom, where he soon laid his head on his pillow in great peace and contentment, knowing that his newfound friend, the River, was lapping the sill of his window.
This day was only the first of many similar ones for the emancipated Mole, each of them longer and full of interest as the ripening summer moved onward. He learnt to swim and to row, and entered into the joy of running water; and with his ear to the reed-stems he caught, at intervals, something of what the wind went whispering so constantly among them.
II
The Open Road
“Ratty,” said the Mole suddenly, one bright summer morning, “if you please, I want to ask you a favour.”
The Rat was sitting on the river bank, singing a little song. He had just composed it himself, so he was very taken up with it, and would not pay proper attention to Mole or anything else. Since early morning he had been swimming in the river, in company with his friends, the ducks. And when the ducks stood on their heads suddenly, as ducks will, he would dive down and tickle their necks, just under where their chins would be if ducks had chins, till they were forced to come to the surface again in a hurry, spluttering and angry and shaking their feathers at him, for it is impossible to say quite all you feel when your head is under water. At last they implored him to go away and attend to his own affairs and leave them to mind theirs. So the Rat went away, and sat on the river bank in the sun, and made up a song about them, which he called:
“Ducks’ Ditty.”
All along the backwater,
Through the rushes tall,
Ducks are a-dabbling,
Up tails all!Ducks’ tails, drakes’ tails,
Yellow feet a-quiver,
Yellow bills all out of sight
Busy in the river!Slushy green undergrowth
Where the roach swim—
Here we keep our larder,
Cool and full and dim.Everyone for what he likes!
We like to be
Heads down, tails up,
Dabbling free!High in the blue above
Swifts whirl and call—
We are down a-dabbling
Up tails all!
“I don’t know that I think so very much of that little song, Rat,” observed the Mole cautiously. He was no poet himself and didn’t care who knew it; and he had a candid nature.
“Nor don’t the ducks neither,” replied the Rat cheerfully. “They say, ‘Why can’t fellows be allowed to do what they like when they like and as they like, instead of other fellows sitting on banks and watching them all the time and making remarks and poetry and things about them? What nonsense it all is!’ That’s what the ducks say.”
“So it is, so it is,” said the Mole, with great heartiness.
“No, it isn’t!” cried the Rat indignantly.
“Well then, it isn’t, it isn’t,” replied the Mole soothingly. “But what I wanted to ask you was, won’t you take me to call on Mr. Toad? I’ve heard so much about him, and I do so want to make his acquaintance.”
“Why, certainly,” said the good-natured Rat, jumping to his feet and dismissing poetry from his mind for the day. “Get the boat out, and we’ll paddle up there at once. It’s never the wrong time to call on Toad. Early or late, he’s always the same fellow. Always good-tempered, always glad to see you, always sorry when you go!”
“He must be a very nice animal,” observed the Mole, as he got into the boat and took the sculls, while the Rat settled himself comfortably in the stern.
“He is indeed the best of animals,” replied Rat. “So simple, so good-natured, and so affectionate. Perhaps he’s not very clever—we can’t all be geniuses; and it may be that he is both boastful and conceited. But he has got some great qualities, has Toady.”
Rounding a bend in the river, they came in sight of a handsome, dignified
