THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS - VII. THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN

THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS

By Kenneth Grahame

Author Of “The Golden Age,” “Dream Days,” Etc.

VII. THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN

The Willow-Wren was twittering his thin little song, hidden himself in
the dark selvedge of the river bank. Though it was past ten o’clock
at night, the sky still clung to and retained some lingering skirts
of light from the departed day; and the sullen heats of the torrid
afternoon broke up and rolled away at the dispersing touch of the cool
fingers of the short midsummer night. Mole lay stretched on the bank,
still panting from the stress of the fierce day that had been cloudless
from dawn to late sunset, and waited for his friend to return. He had
been on the river with some companions, leaving the Water Rat free to
keep a engagement of long standing with Otter; and he had come back to
find the house dark and deserted, and no sign of Rat, who was doubtless
keeping it up late with his old comrade. It was still too hot to think
of staying indoors, so he lay on some cool dock-leaves, and thought over
the past day and its doings, and how very good they all had been.

The Rat’s light footfall was presently heard approaching over the
parched grass. ‘O, the blessed coolness!’ he said, and sat down, gazing
thoughtfully into the river, silent and pre-occupied.

‘You stayed to supper, of course?’ said the Mole presently.

‘Simply had to,’ said the Rat. ‘They wouldn’t hear of my going before.
You know how kind they always are. And they made things as jolly for me
as ever they could, right up to the moment I left. But I felt a brute
all the time, as it was clear to me they were very unhappy, though they
tried to hide it. Mole, I’m afraid they’re in trouble. Little Portly is
missing again; and you know what a lot his father thinks of him, though
he never says much about it.’

‘What, that child?’ said the Mole lightly. ‘Well, suppose he is; why
worry about it? He’s always straying off and getting lost, and turning
up again; he’s so adventurous. But no harm ever happens to him.
Everybody hereabouts knows him and likes him, just as they do old Otter,
and you may be sure some animal or other will come across him and bring
him back again all right. Why, we’ve found him ourselves, miles from
home, and quite self-possessed and cheerful!’

‘Yes; but this time it’s more serious,’ said the Rat gravely. ‘He’s been
missing for some days now, and the Otters have hunted everywhere, high
and low, without finding the slightest trace. And they’ve asked every
animal, too, for miles around, and no one knows anything about him.
Otter’s evidently more anxious than he’ll admit. I got out of him that
young Portly hasn’t learnt to swim very well yet, and I can see
he’s thinking of the weir. There’s a lot of water coming down still,
considering the time of the year, and the place always had a fascination
for the child. And then there are--well, traps and things--YOU know.
Otter’s not the fellow to be nervous about any son of his before it’s
time. And now he IS nervous. When I left, he came out with me--said he
wanted some air, and talked about stretching his legs. But I could see
it wasn’t that, so I drew him out and pumped him, and got it all from
him at last. He was going to spend the night watching by the ford. You
know the place where the old ford used to be, in by-gone days before
they built the bridge?’

‘I know it well,’ said the Mole. ‘But why should Otter choose to watch
there?’

‘Well, it seems that it was there he gave Portly his first
swimming-lesson,’ continued the Rat. ‘From that shallow, gravelly spit
near the bank. And it was there he used to teach him fishing, and there
young Portly caught his first fish, of which he was so very proud. The
child loved the spot, and Otter thinks that if he came wandering
back from wherever he is--if he IS anywhere by this time, poor little
chap--he might make for the ford he was so fond of; or if he came across
it he’d remember it well, and stop there and play, perhaps. So Otter
goes there every night and watches--on the chance, you know, just on the
chance!’

They were silent for a time, both thinking of the same thing--the
lonely, heart-sore animal, crouched by the ford, watching and waiting,
the long night through--on the chance.

‘Well, well,’ said the Rat presently, ‘I suppose we ought to be thinking
about turning in.’ But he never offered to move.

‘Rat,’ said the Mole, ‘I simply can’t go and turn in, and go to sleep,
and DO nothing, even though there doesn’t seem to be anything to be
done. We’ll get the boat out, and paddle up stream. The moon will be up
in an hour or so, and then we will search as well as we can--anyhow, it
will be better than going to bed and doing NOTHING.’

‘Just what I was thinking myself,’ said the Rat. ‘It’s not the sort of
night for bed anyhow; and daybreak is not so very far off, and then we
may pick up some news of him from early risers as we go along.’

They got the boat out, and the Rat took the sculls, paddling with
caution. Out in midstream, there was a clear, narrow track that faintly
reflected the sky; but wherever shadows fell on the water from bank,
bush, or tree, they were as solid to all appearance as the banks
themselves, and the Mole had to steer with judgment accordingly. Dark
and deserted as it was, the night was full of small noises, song and
chatter and rustling, telling of the busy little population who were
up and about, plying their trades and vocations through the night
till sunshine should fall on them at last and send them off to their
well-earned repose. The water’s own noises, too, were more apparent than
by day, its gurglings and ‘cloops’ more unexpected and near at hand;
and constantly they started at what seemed a sudden clear call from an
actual articulate voice.

The line of the horizon was clear and hard against the sky, and in
one particular quarter it showed black against a silvery climbing
phosphorescence that grew and grew. At last, over the rim of the waiting
earth the moon lifted with slow majesty till it swung clear of the
horizon and rode off, free of moorings; and once more they began to see
surfaces--meadows wide-spread, and quiet gardens, and the river itself
from bank to bank, all softly disclosed, all washed clean of mystery
and terror, all radiant again as by day, but with a difference that was
tremendous. Their old haunts greeted them again in other raiment, as if
they had slipped away and put on this pure new apparel and come quietly
back, smiling as they shyly waited to see if they would be recognised
again under it.

Fastening their boat to a willow, the friends landed in this silent,
silver kingdom, and patiently explored the hedges, the hollow trees,
the runnels and their little culverts, the ditches and dry water-ways.
Embarking again and crossing over, they worked their way up the stream
in this manner, while the moon, serene and detached in a cloudless sky,
did what she could, though so far off, to help them in their quest; till
her hour came and she sank earthwards reluctantly, and left them, and
mystery once more held field and river.

Then a change began slowly to declare itself. The horizon became
clearer, field and tree came more into sight, and somehow with a
different look; the mystery began to drop away from them. A bird piped
suddenly, and was still; and a light breeze sprang up and set the reeds
and bulrushes rustling. Rat, who was in the stern of the boat, while
Mole sculled, sat up suddenly and listened with a passionate intentness.
Mole, who with gentle strokes was just keeping the boat moving while he
scanned the banks with care, looked at him with curiosity.

‘It’s gone!’ sighed the Rat, sinking back in his seat again. ‘So
beautiful and strange and new. Since it was to end so soon, I almost
wish I had never heard it. For it has roused a longing in me that is
pain, and nothing seems worth while but just to hear that sound once
more and go on listening to it for ever. No! There it is again!’ he
cried, alert once more. Entranced, he was silent for a long space,
spellbound.

‘Now it passes on and I begin to lose it,’ he said presently. ‘O Mole!
the beauty of it! The merry bubble and joy, the thin, clear, happy call
of the distant piping! Such music I never dreamed of, and the call in
it is stronger even than the music is sweet! Row on, Mole, row! For the
music and the call must be for us.’

The Mole, greatly wondering, obeyed. ‘I hear nothing myself,’ he said,
‘but the wind playing in the reeds and rushes and osiers.’

The Rat never answered, if indeed he heard. Rapt, transported,
trembling, he was possessed in all his senses by this new divine thing
that caught up his helpless soul and swung and dandled it, a powerless
but happy infant in a strong sustaining grasp.

In silence Mole rowed steadily, and soon they came to a point where the
river divided, a long backwater branching off to one side. With a
slight movement of his head Rat, who had long dropped the rudder-lines,
directed the rower to take the backwater. The creeping tide of light
gained and gained, and now they could see the colour of the flowers that
gemmed the water’s edge.

‘Clearer and nearer still,’ cried the Rat joyously. ‘Now you must surely
hear it! Ah--at last--I see you do!’

Breathless and transfixed the Mole stopped rowing as the liquid run of
that glad piping broke on him like a wave, caught him up, and possessed
him utterly. He saw the tears on his comrade’s cheeks, and bowed his
head and understood. For a space they hung there, brushed by the purple
loose-strife that fringed the bank; then the clear imperious summons
that marched hand-in-hand with the intoxicating melody imposed its will
on Mole, and mechanically he bent to his oars again. And the light grew
steadily stronger, but no birds sang as they were wont to do at the
approach of dawn; and but for the heavenly music all was marvellously
still.

On either side of them, as they glided onwards, the rich meadow-grass
seemed that morning of a freshness and a greenness unsurpassable. Never
had they noticed the roses so vivid, the willow-herb so riotous,
the meadow-sweet so odorous and pervading. Then the murmur of the
approaching weir began to hold the air, and they felt a consciousness
that they were nearing the end, whatever it might be, that surely
awaited their expedition.

A wide half-circle of foam and glinting lights and shining shoulders
of green water, the great weir closed the backwater from bank to
bank, troubled all the quiet surface with twirling eddies and floating
foam-streaks, and deadened all other sounds with its solemn and soothing
rumble. In midmost of the stream, embraced in the weir’s shimmering
arm-spread, a small island lay anchored, fringed close with willow and
silver birch and alder. Reserved, shy, but full of significance, it hid
whatever it might hold behind a veil, keeping it till the hour should
come, and, with the hour, those who were called and chosen.

Slowly, but with no doubt or hesitation whatever, and in something of a
solemn expectancy, the two animals passed through the broken tumultuous
water and moored their boat at the flowery margin of the island. In
silence they landed, and pushed through the blossom and scented herbage
and undergrowth that led up to the level ground, till they stood on
a little lawn of a marvellous green, set round with Nature’s own
orchard-trees--crab-apple, wild cherry, and sloe.

‘This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to me,’
whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. ‘Here, in this holy place, here if
anywhere, surely we shall find Him!’

Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that
turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the
ground. It was no panic terror--indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and
happy--but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he
knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near.
With difficulty he turned to look for his friend and saw him at his
side cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. And still there was utter
silence in the populous bird-haunted branches around them; and still the
light grew and grew.

Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though
the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still
dominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting
to strike him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on things
rightly kept hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head;
and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature,
flushed with fullness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath
for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and Helper;
saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the growing
daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes that were
looking down on them humourously, while the bearded mouth broke into a
half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay
across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes
only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of
the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last of
all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in entire peace
and contentment, the little, round, podgy, childish form of the baby
otter. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid
on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he
lived, he wondered.

‘Rat!’ he found breath to whisper, shaking. ‘Are you afraid?’

‘Afraid?’ murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love.
‘Afraid! Of HIM? O, never, never! And yet--and yet--O, Mole, I am
afraid!’

Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did
worship.

Sudden and magnificent, the sun’s broad golden disc showed itself over
the horizon facing them; and the first rays, shooting across the level
water-meadows, took the animals full in the eyes and dazzled them. When
they were able to look once more, the Vision had vanished, and the air
was full of the carol of birds that hailed the dawn.

As they stared blankly in dumb misery deepening as they slowly realised
all they had seen and all they had lost, a capricious little breeze,
dancing up from the surface of the water, tossed the aspens, shook the
dewy roses and blew lightly and caressingly in their faces; and with its
soft touch came instant oblivion. For this is the last best gift
that the kindly demi-god is careful to bestow on those to whom he has
revealed himself in their helping: the gift of forgetfulness. Lest
the awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and
pleasure, and the great haunting memory should spoil all the after-lives
of little animals helped out of difficulties, in order that they should
be happy and lighthearted as before.

Mole rubbed his eyes and stared at Rat, who was looking about him in
a puzzled sort of way. ‘I beg your pardon; what did you say, Rat?’ he
asked.

‘I think I was only remarking,’ said Rat slowly, ‘that this was the
right sort of place, and that here, if anywhere, we should find him. And
look! Why, there he is, the little fellow!’ And with a cry of delight he
ran towards the slumbering Portly.

But Mole stood still a moment, held in thought. As one wakened suddenly
from a beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, and can re-capture
nothing but a dim sense of the beauty of it, the beauty! Till that, too,
fades away in its turn, and the dreamer bitterly accepts the hard, cold
waking and all its penalties; so Mole, after struggling with his memory
for a brief space, shook his head sadly and followed the Rat.

Portly woke up with a joyous squeak, and wriggled with pleasure at the
sight of his father’s friends, who had played with him so often in past
days. In a moment, however, his face grew blank, and he fell to hunting
round in a circle with pleading whine. As a child that has fallen
happily asleep in its nurse’s arms, and wakes to find itself alone and
laid in a strange place, and searches corners and cupboards, and runs
from room to room, despair growing silently in its heart, even so Portly
searched the island and searched, dogged and unwearying, till at last
the black moment came for giving it up, and sitting down and crying
bitterly.

The Mole ran quickly to comfort the little animal; but Rat, lingering,
looked long and doubtfully at certain hoof-marks deep in the sward.

‘Some--great--animal--has been here,’ he murmured slowly and
thoughtfully; and stood musing, musing; his mind strangely stirred.

‘Come along, Rat!’ called the Mole. ‘Think of poor Otter, waiting up
there by the ford!’

Portly had soon been comforted by the promise of a treat--a jaunt on the
river in Mr. Rat’s real boat; and the two animals conducted him to the
water’s side, placed him securely between them in the bottom of the
boat, and paddled off down the backwater. The sun was fully up by now,
and hot on them, birds sang lustily and without restraint, and flowers
smiled and nodded from either bank, but somehow--so thought the
animals--with less of richness and blaze of colour than they seemed to
remember seeing quite recently somewhere--they wondered where.

The main river reached again, they turned the boat’s head upstream,
towards the point where they knew their friend was keeping his lonely
vigil. As they drew near the familiar ford, the Mole took the boat in
to the bank, and they lifted Portly out and set him on his legs on the
tow-path, gave him his marching orders and a friendly farewell pat on
the back, and shoved out into mid-stream. They watched the little animal
as he waddled along the path contentedly and with importance; watched
him till they saw his muzzle suddenly lift and his waddle break into a
clumsy amble as he quickened his pace with shrill whines and wriggles of
recognition. Looking up the river, they could see Otter start up, tense
and rigid, from out of the shallows where he crouched in dumb patience,
and could hear his amazed and joyous bark as he bounded up through the
osiers on to the path. Then the Mole, with a strong pull on one oar,
swung the boat round and let the full stream bear them down again
whither it would, their quest now happily ended.

‘I feel strangely tired, Rat,’ said the Mole, leaning wearily over his
oars as the boat drifted. ‘It’s being up all night, you’ll say, perhaps;
but that’s nothing. We do as much half the nights of the week, at this
time of the year. No; I feel as if I had been through something very
exciting and rather terrible, and it was just over; and yet nothing
particular has happened.’

‘Or something very surprising and splendid and beautiful,’ murmured the
Rat, leaning back and closing his eyes. ‘I feel just as you do, Mole;
simply dead tired, though not body tired. It’s lucky we’ve got the
stream with us, to take us home. Isn’t it jolly to feel the sun again,
soaking into one’s bones! And hark to the wind playing in the reeds!’

‘It’s like music--far away music,’ said the Mole nodding drowsily.

‘So I was thinking,’ murmured the Rat, dreamful and languid.
‘Dance-music--the lilting sort that runs on without a stop--but with
words in it, too--it passes into words and out of them again--I catch
them at intervals--then it is dance-music once more, and then nothing
but the reeds’ soft thin whispering.’

‘You hear better than I,’ said the Mole sadly. ‘I cannot catch the
words.’

‘Let me try and give you them,’ said the Rat softly, his eyes still
closed. ‘Now it is turning into words again--faint but clear--Lest the
awe should dwell--And turn your frolic to fret--You shall look on my
power at the helping hour--But then you shall forget! Now the reeds take
it up--forget, forget, they sigh, and it dies away in a rustle and a
whisper. Then the voice returns--

‘Lest limbs be reddened and rent--I spring the trap that is set--As I
loose the snare you may glimpse me there--For surely you shall forget!
Row nearer, Mole, nearer to the reeds! It is hard to catch, and grows
each minute fainter.

‘Helper and healer, I cheer--Small waifs in the woodland wet--Strays I
find in it, wounds I bind in it--Bidding them all forget! Nearer, Mole,
nearer! No, it is no good; the song has died away into reed-talk.’

‘But what do the words mean?’ asked the wondering Mole.

‘That I do not know,’ said the Rat simply. ‘I passed them on to you
as they reached me. Ah! now they return again, and this time full and
clear! This time, at last, it is the real, the unmistakable thing,
simple--passionate--perfect----’

‘Well, let’s have it, then,’ said the Mole, after he had waited
patiently for a few minutes, half-dozing in the hot sun.

But no answer came. He looked, and understood the silence. With a smile
of much happiness on his face, and something of a listening look still
lingering there, the weary Rat was fast asleep.

Posted in: ***English Literature***