The Willows in Winter, Page 2

  “Who told you to come?” the Mole almost shouted.

  “Rat did because he said — he said —he must — he was going — my fa —”

  But whatever the Rat had said, Portly was not now going to be able to report, because with a final weak yawn, and a little shiver, and a smile on his face, he fell into a sleep so deep that nothing the Mole said or did could wake him up.

  “What are we going to do?” asked Mole’s Nephew.

  “Do?” said the Mole with a look of determination and resolve on his face. “Do? We are going to do something, of course. Or, rather, I am. You are going to stay here and wait till this wretched and unreliable animal wakes up. Then, if it’s not too late, we can find out what he was meant to tell us. Meanwhile I know what I must do!”

  The Mole went to the peg behind his front door and took down his warmest, longest, snuggest coat, and a warm, long, snug scarf to match, and put them on.

  “Uncle.”

  Then the Mole pulled on his galoshes, frowned and took up the cudgel and slipped it through the stout belt he had buckled round his waist to keep the coat tight against the wind.

  “If you’re going out, Uncle, I —”

  But the Mole was silent with determination, and deaf to all entreaties not to go. He wrapped up what little of the bread and butter pudding was left in some greaseproof paper and popped it in his coat pocket. Then he took down the storm lantern that hung by the door, lit it, closed the shutter to the tiniest crack, and checked he had all he needed.

  Finally, when he was ready, he took one last look around his comfortable, warm home, shook his head with a look of regret, and opened the front door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To Rat’s,” he said, “where else? Something’s badly wrong and I must go and find out what it is since Portly is unable to tell us.”

  “But the weather — couldn’t you wait till the morning?”

  “Wait? Wait? Would Rat ‘wait till the morning’, as you blithely put it, if you came tottering in and said, ‘Mole sent me’? He would not, Nephew. Would Badger? Of course not — even in the winter when we all like to stay snug in our homes. Would Mr Toad!?”

  “Well, he might, especially in winter’ faltered his Nephew.

  “Yes, well, he might’ conceded the Mole. “On the other hand he might not. No — if any of my friends thought I was in trouble they would forsake all comfort and sleep and rush to my side to see what they could do! So shall I now rush to Rat’s! And if it’s not him who’s in trouble but Otter, then two’s better than one in an emergency!”

  With that he pulled the door open, only to have the violent wind blast it open still more, sending him reeling backwards. Nothing daunted he drew his cudgel and cried out in a loud voice, “To Rat’s!”

  With that he battled his way out into the blizzard and the pitch-black night.

  “But —” said his Nephew, staring after him with a mixture of astonishment, awe and familial pride, “but, Uncle!”

  But his uncle, the renowned hero Mole, known up and down the river and far beyond, had gone.

  “Cloash the door, thersh a draught,” mumbled Portly from the fireside, curling up even more irrevocably in Mole’s armchair, and beginning to snore.

  The Mole was almost deafened by the blast of wind about him in the wood, and blinded by the stinging snow that drove into his face. To make matters worse, the snow was getting deeper all the time, so that it was a struggle getting his galoshes in and out of it, and harder still to make out the path ahead.

  The trees swayed and creaked about him in the night, and if the wind was not trying to rip his coat off his back, the brambles and branches were, grasping and clutching and scratching him as he struggled on. And it was dark, dreadfully dark.

  His storm lantern was at least some help, for it cast a useful beam of light ahead, and enabled him to avoid veering too much off the path.

  “I will not give up!” he muttered to himself, puffing his belt tighter, hunching his head lower, pushing his feet harder, and gripping the lantern ever more firmly “If it’s not Rat himself who’s in trouble then it’s Otter. What else could Portly’s words have meant? Either way, Rat will need help!”

  With bold brave words such as these the Mole kept himself going, grateful for being able to make out the old oak tree, and the rabbit warren, which he recognized as being on the way to Rat’s house. He sheltered for a short time near the rabbit warren, and even shouted down to see if anyone was about — but, of course, rabbits can never be relied on, especially when they are most needed, and there was no reply.

  Out of the wind, away from the driving snow, he felt his will to go on weakening rapidly, and if it had been any other animal than his dear friend Rat who he felt needed him, he might have taken heed . of his Nephew’s advice, and sheltered till daylight in the hope that the blizzard might abate.

  “I must go on and I shall!” he cried out suddenly, charging out into the blizzard once more, and battling on.

  It was only much later, when the dark of night had grown darker still, and the blizzard even more bitter, that a horrible thought occurred to the Mole, stopping him dead in his tracks. Or rather, in his disappearing tracks, for peering behind him through the murk he saw that the snow was now settling so fast that tracks made but moments before had all but gone.

  The horrible thought, which would surely have been obvious to a practical animal like the Rat, was this:

  Rat’s house was on the far side of the river, so how was he going to get over to it? The bridge was a long way off, and, of course, Rat’s boat was on the far side of the river too.

  The answer was that he had no answer, but having got so far, he decided to press on all the same, convinced that it was what Rat himself would have done.

  “A solution will come to me!” he told himself.

  So it was that, feeling more dead than alive, and with his face-fur all iced up, and his whiskers clogged with snow, the Mole arrived at the river bank. He peered out across the river itself, and though he could not see across to where the Rat lived, in the lurid light of the night he was astonished to see that the river seemed all frozen over. It was smooth and white where snow had settled on the ice.

  “Perhaps if I call to Rat he might hear,” said the Mole to himself, though without much hope.

  “Rat! Ratty! O Rat, please hear me!” he called out as loudly as he could, holding up his lantern as he did so, and waving it about. But the wind rushed and roared around him even more, and snatched his weak words away the moment they were uttered, and scattered them as wildly and uselessly as if they were flakes of snow.

  Even worse, the light of the lantern began to gutter, and then, quite suddenly, an extra strong gust of wind blew it out.

  “Well then,” said the daunted but resolute Mole, putting the spent lantern on the ground, “there’s nothing else for it! Frozen rivers are dangerous things, no doubt, but I must try to cross, despite the dangers.”

  He peered out into the night again, trying to establish if the river was frozen all the way across.

  “I could venture out a little way’ he thought, “and then I could see the dangers ahead better. Yes, that’s what I shall do!”

  But no sooner had he scrambled down the bank — O! such a gentle blissful place in summer, but so graspy and slidy and difficult now! — and put his front paws on the ice, than another horrible thought occurred to him. He turned round, clambered back up the bank to a sheltered spot among the surface roots of one of the willows, and scratched his head.

  “I must be prudent. I must think of others. It is possible that in trying to cross the river I shall — well, that I shall not return. I must therefore leave my affairs in order and write a message, so that those who come after me will know what my intentions were — so that —O dear! O my!”

  The Mole suddenly felt very alone indeed, and tears came to his eyes and rolled down his face, where they began to freeze in his already frozen fur.

 
; “I don’t have much to leave behind’ he said, “but what I have I like, and I would take comfort as I — as I —slip away,” (he could not bring himself to use a more precise expression) “to know that my worldly goods and possessions are not only in good hands, but in the right hands.”

  He had no paper in his pockets, except for the grease-proof paper around the pudding, and that was no good. So, finding a suitably large surface root of a willow tree, he did his best in the darkness to scratch a last message for his friends.

  It took him some time, but when he had at last finished he felt much better, and stepped back into the storm to admire his handiwork, whispering the words he had written aloud, nodding his head, and feeling that he was now ready to — to slip away, if that’s how it must be.

  Finally he placed the spent lantern prominently on the path, its handle tilted towards the tree where his message was written, in the hope that whoever found it would look in the right direction, and turned back down the bank once more.

  This time he hardly noticed the steep descent, so determined was he to get the difficult crossing over with. Out onto the snowy ice he went, his paws slipping and sliding under him as the wind, clear of the trees and bushes of the bank, came at him in an unimpeded rush. His snout ached with cold, his eyes ran, his flanks shivered, but on he went!

  He peered ahead at each step, testing the ice carefully before putting his full weight on it, always checking back to see where he was and that, if need be, he could scramble back to safety. But it was hard to see, what with the swirling, driving snow, and the cold —and he would feel better if he could only catch a glimpse of the bank on the other side. Even better, if he could see the welcome sight of the Rat himself standing there, waving to him.

  As if in answer to his wish, the wind dropped and for a moment he could see the way clear ahead, right across to the other side. Why it seemed hardly any distance at all! He could almost reach out and touch it … and then, for the first time, the Mole forgot to look carefully at the way ahead.

  The first warning he had that something was wrong was that the ice, so solid till then, trembled and shifted, so that the world about him wobbled. The next was that he heard a new sound, the dull, relentless roar of water, just in front. The last and final warning, and by then it was far too late, was a loud crack! somewhere just behind him.

  Desperately he tried to turn back the way he had come, his back paws sliding away from him as he did so. As he fell on his face he reached out for something solid and saw to his horror that where there had once been ice there was now a black chasm, and that the ice he was on was moving and wobbling more and more. As it tilted beneath him he felt himself sliding towards the water. He tried to clamber up the ice and right it, but as he did so it suddenly tilted the other way and he found himself slipping unstoppably towards the implacable black race of the water itself.

  “Help!” cried the terrified Mole. “O my! O my! Help!”

  But this final cry was all in vain. It seemed the night turned blacker still, and then deathly silent, the wind gone, the snow no more, as the cold confusion of icy water was suddenly all about him: below, to right, to left, and he was swept off downstream into the night, clutching at a floe of ice.

  Where the Mole had been, nothing was left but the night, the blizzard wind, the river flowing past broken ice; and the first bleak gleams of a winter dawn, shining on a little painted notice on the side of the bank which the Mole had so bravely been trying to reach.

  “Rat’s House’ it said.

  But no light was there; no Rat; no welcome at all. Only the rattle and rasp of old brambles against each other, and the triumphant howl of the wind.

  II

  Mole’s Last Will and

  Testament

  It was not till the dawn of the third day that the blizzard began to die, and that same, midday that it finally stopped. One moment the sky was grey and the trees all bent against the wind, and the next the sky was blue, the sun shone, and all was bright and shining across the meadows, the river, and the Wild Wood, at whose edge the Otter lived.

  “Rat! Time to rouse yourself! Time to get up!” cried the Otter, scenting at the lovely winter’s day, and feeling in need of fresh air and a jaunt.

  “Not in this wind! Not in this driving snow!” answered the Rat drowsily from beneath the quilt which the Otter had thoughtfully laid on the sofa to make up a bed for his unexpected visitor.

  “My dear fellow!” called out the Otter, “that’s all blown over. The sun is shining fit to bust and it’s time we got up and about once more. It’s as crisp a winter’s day outside as you could wish!”

  The Rat sat up, rubbing his eyes and eyeing without much pleasure the untidy pile of plates and bottles — all there was left to show for the three days of his enforced rest with Otter.

  “All over?” he said sleepily, falling back and curling up again, and remembering what a good time he had had.

  “All finished,” said the Otter, coming and shaking him by the shoulder. “Time to get up and clear this mess away and then we shall go out and see what damage the blizzard’s done. Portly’s out already, for I can’t see him anywhere —”

  “Portly’s out?” said the Rat uneasily. Portly was not the kind of animal to get up early.

  “That’s right’ said Otter casually, “and though it’s not like him to be up and about before me, I suppose we did let ourselves go a little, old chap — I’ll just go and call to him to pop back in again.

  The Rat lay listening to his calls, and then to his sudden scurrying about, no doubt to see what signs of Portly there were, till he came back rather faster than he had left.

  “No answer and no sign of him,” said the Otter with concern, “and no tracks in the snow, as there ought to be!”

  The Rat came frilly awake with a start. A dark and troubling memory had come to him.

  “I know that Portly went out three days ago,” he said slowly, staring at Otter in alarm. “Or was it four?”

  “But he came back,” said the Otter, not yet quite fully troubled. “At least I thought he did. Didn’t he come back?”

  “No, Otter, he didn’t come back! Don’t you remember? I happened by here just as the first snow fell, and you invited me in for some food and drink, and very hospitable of you that was. We got somewhat merry and suggested that it would be nice if Mole were here to join the fun. That — that — that errant son of yours suddenly upped and went off saying ‘I’ll fetch him!’ and then, well, he never quite seemed to come back.”

  “But if he didn’t come back we would have gone to search for him,” said the Otter confidently. “We would not have come back till we found him. Therefore, as we are here he must have been here this morning. ‘When, waking before us, he very sensibly — and he has been growing up a bit — went out to enjoy the winter sun.

  “Except, as you said, there are no tracks.”

  “None,” said the Otter sombrely, his voice trailing away as he looked about his home and saw that Portly’s bed had not been slept in.

  “No, Otter’ continued the Water Rat, “you thought he had come back, because, well, not to put too fine a point on it, we all know that you and your family are rather too partial to that sloe and blackberry drink that Mole makes so well. When I suggested that Portly was not here you said, ‘If he isn’t he soon will be, which is as good as being here now!’ or words to that effect. Since when we have both been more or less asleep.”

  “So Portly’s not here now, and you think he has not been here for three days?” said the Otter blankly.

  “Three days and three nights.Three very blizzardy days and nights.”

  “Hmmph!” declared the Otter as the two animals went out onto the bank and looked despondently about.

  “Till we know where he is,” said the Otter, who was now feeling a lot less bright and breezy than before, “we must conclude that he is missing.”

  “I hate to disagree, Otter, but I would prefer it if you said ‘He is missin
g again’. He’s always missing, is Portly. But, as usual, we’ll find him before long, and when we do I would wager my rowing boat and sculls that he is somewhere very comfortable indeed.”

  “Yes,” said the Otter, “very probably you’re right. Perhaps I ought to just —” He wandered off calling “Portly! Are you there!” rather quietly at first. Then, as he came back, having wandered one way up the bank and then the other, the Rat heard him shout rather more forcibly, “Portly! Portly!”

  “Well,” Otter said rather tersely when he reached the entrance to his home again, “he’s not anywhere.”

  “And there are no tracks in the snow further off?”

  “None,” said the Otter.

  “Which means he did leave some time ago,” said the Rat darkly, adding, with considerable misgiving, “and, look, the river’s almost frozen over.

  “You don’t think — ?” began the Otter with real alarm.

  “I think Portly is capable of almost any foolishness,” said the Rat grimly. “The number of times — I mean the trouble he has caused — and not wishing to be hard, but, well, let us be frank. A sensible animal, if he went out looking for Mole, would not try to cross that river. No, he would come straight home. But Portly is not sensible. So — having reached the river, I greatly fear he said to himself, ‘Across it I shall go!’

  “We must search for him!” cried the Otter.

  “Yes,” said the Rat, “I’m afraid we must. He will, of course, be absolutely safe but our minds must be put to rest. It seems to me, Otter, that this must be the last time, and positively the last, that we animals should go searching for your son. He will never become a sensible otter if every time he is scatter-brained we come to the rescue.

  “I have spoilt him,” said the Otter miserably, “and that is the truth. But bringing him up alone as I was forced to do, struggling to find food enough for both of us, striving to teach him manners and common sense, well, it was not easy. Bachelors like you and Mole and Mr Badger have it easy compared to those of us who bear the full responsibility of—”