Chapter: The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning
his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders
and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he
had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over
his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in
the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even
his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent
and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down
his brush on the floor, said, "Bother!" and "O blow!" and also "Hang
spring-cleaning!" and bolted out of the house without even waiting to
put on his coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously, and
he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the
gravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer
to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and
scrooged, and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and
scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself,
"Up we go! Up we go!" till at last, pop! his snout came out into the
sunlight and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great
meadow.

"This is fine!" he said to himself. "This is better than whitewashing!"
The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes caressed his heated
brow, and after the seclusion of the cellarage he had lived in so long
the carol of happy birds fell on his dulled hearing almost like a shout.
Jumping off all his four legs at once, in the joy of living and the
delight of spring without its cleaning, he pursued his way across the
meadow till he reached the hedge on the further side.

"Hold up!" said an elderly rabbit at the gap. "Sixpence for the
privilege of passing by the private road!" He was bowled over in an
instant by the impatient and contemptuous Mole, who trotted along the
side of the hedge chaffing the other rabbits as they peeped hurriedly
from their holes to see what the row was about. "Onion-sauce!
Onion-sauce!" he remarked jeeringly, and was gone before they could
think of a thoroughly satisfactory reply. Then they all started
grumbling at each other. "How _stupid_ you are! Why didn't you tell
him--" "Well, why didn't _you_ say--" "You might have reminded him--"
and so on, in the usual way; but, of course, it was then much too
late, as is always the case.

It all seemed too good to be true. Hither and thither through the meadows
he rambled busily, along the hedgerows, across the copses, finding
everywhere birds building, flowers budding, leaves thrusting--everything
happy, and progressive, and occupied. And instead of having an uneasy
conscience pricking him and whispering "whitewash!" he somehow could only
feel how jolly it was to be the only idle dog among all these busy
citizens. After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much
to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.

He thought his happiness was complete when, as he meandered aimlessly
along, suddenly he stood by the edge of a full-fed river. Never in his
life had he seen a river before--this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied
animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and
leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that
shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake
and a-shiver--glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl,
chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By
the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the
side of a man who holds one spellbound by exciting stories; and when
tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on
to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent
from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.

As he sat on the grass and looked across the river, a dark hole in the
bank opposite, just above the water's edge, caught his eye, and
dreamily he fell to considering what a nice, snug dwelling-place it
would make for an animal with few wants and fond of a bijou riverside
residence, above flood level and remote from noise and dust. As he
gazed, something bright and small seemed to twinkle down in the heart
of it, vanished, then twinkled once more like a tiny star. But it
could hardly be a star in such an unlikely situation; and it was too
glittering and small for a glow-worm. Then, as he looked, it winked at
him, and so declared itself to be an eye; and a small face began
gradually to grow up round it, like a frame round a picture.

A brown little face, with whiskers.

A grave round face, with the same twinkle in its eye that had first
attracted his notice.

Small neat ears and thick silky hair.

It was the Water Rat!

Then the two animals stood and regarded each other cautiously.

"Hullo, Mole!" said the Water Rat.

"Hullo, Rat!" said the Mole.

"Would you like to come over?" enquired the Rat presently.

"Oh, it's all very well to _talk_," said the Mole rather pettishly, he
being new to a river and riverside life and its ways.

The Rat said nothing, but stooped and unfastened a rope and hauled on
it; then lightly stepped into a little boat which the Mole had not
observed. It was painted blue outside and white within, and was just
the size for two animals; and the Mole's whole heart went out to it at
once, even though he did not yet fully understand its uses.

The Rat sculled smartly across and made fast. Then he held up his
fore-paw as the Mole stepped gingerly down. "Lean on that!" he said.
"Now then, step lively!" and the Mole to his surprise and rapture
found himself actually seated in the stern of a real boat.

"This has been a wonderful day!" said he, as the Rat shoved off and
took to the sculls again. "Do you know, I've never been in a boat
before in all my life."

[Illustration: _It was the Water Rat_]

"What?" cried the Rat, open-mouthed: "Never been in a--you never--well
I--what have you been doing, then?"

"Is it so nice as all that?" asked the Mole shyly, though he was quite
prepared to believe it as he leant back in his seat and surveyed the
cushions, the oars, the rowlocks, and all the fascinating fittings,
and felt the boat sway lightly under him.

"Nice? It's the _only_ thing," said the Water Rat solemnly as he leant
forward for his stroke. "Believe me, my young friend, there is
_nothing_--absolute nothing--half so much worth doing as simply
messing about in boats. Simply messing," he went on dreamily:
"messing--about--in--boats; messing--"

"Look ahead, Rat!" cried the Mole suddenly.

It was too late. The boat struck the bank full tilt. The dreamer, the
joyous oarsman, lay on his back at the bottom of the boat, his heels
in the air.

"--about in boats--or _with_ boats," the Rat went on composedly,
picking himself up with a pleasant laugh. "In or out of 'em, it
doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of
it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at
your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you
never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do
anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always
something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much
better not. Look here! If you've really nothing else on hand this
morning, supposing we drop down the river together, and have a long
day of it?"

The Mole waggled his toes from sheer happiness, spread his chest with
a sigh of full contentment, and leant back blissfully into the soft
cushions. "_What_ a day I'm having!" he said. "Let us start at once!"

"Hold hard a minute, then!" said the Rat. He looped the painter
through a ring in his landing-stage, climbed up into his hole above,
and after a short interval reappeared staggering under a fat wicker
luncheon-basket.

"Shove that under your feet," he observed to the Mole, as he passed it
down into the boat. Then he untied the painter and took the sculls
again.

"What's inside it?" asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosity.

"There's cold chicken inside it," replied the Rat briefly:
"coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscresssandwiches
pottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater--"

"O stop, stop!" cried the Mole in ecstasies. "This is too much!"

"Do you really think so?" enquired the Rat seriously. "It's only what
I always take on these little excursions; and the other animals are
always telling me that I'm a mean beast and cut it _very_ fine!"

The Mole never heard a word he was saying. Absorbed in the new life he
was entering upon, intoxicated with the sparkle, the ripple, the
scents and the sounds and the sunlight, he trailed a paw in the water
and dreamed long waking dreams. The Water Rat, like the good little
fellow he was, sculled steadily on and forbore to disturb him.

"I like your clothes awfully, old chap," he remarked after some half
an hour or so had passed. "I'm going to get a black velvet smoking-suit
myself some day, as soon as I can afford it."

"I beg your pardon," said the Mole, pulling himself together with an
effort. "You must think me very rude; but all this is so new to me.
So--this--is--a--River!"

"_The_ River," corrected the Rat.

"And you really live by the river? What a jolly life!"

"By it and with it and on it and in it," said the Rat. "It's brother
and sister to me, and aunts, and company, and food and drink, and
(naturally) washing. It's my world, and I don't want any other. What
it hasn't got is not worth having, and what it doesn't know is not
worth knowing. Lord! the times we've had together! Whether in winter
or summer, spring or autumn, it's always got its fun and its
excitements. When the floods are on in February, and my cellars and
basement are brimming with drink that's no good to me, and the brown
water runs by my best bedroom window; or again when it all drops away
and shows patches of mud that smells like plum-cake, and the rushes
and weed clog the channels, and I can potter about dry shod over most
of the bed of it and find fresh food to eat, and things careless
people have dropped out of boats!"

"But isn't it a bit dull at times?" the Mole ventured to ask. "Just
you and the river, and no one else to pass a word with?"

"No one else to--well, I mustn't be hard on you," said the Rat with
forbearance. "You're new to it, and of course you don't know. The bank
is so crowded nowadays that many people are moving away altogether. O
no, it isn't what it used to be, at all. Otters, king-fishers,
dabchicks, moorhens, all of them about all day long and always wanting
you to _do_ something--as if a fellow had no business of his own to
attend to!"

"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 the 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
gets 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 the Mole. So, of course, the Rat let him.

Packing the basket was not quite such pleasant work as unpacking the
basket. It never is. But the Mole was bent on enjoying everything,
and although just when he had got the basket packed and strapped up
tightly he saw a plate staring up at him from the grass, and when the
job had been done again the Rat pointed out a fork which anybody ought
to have seen, and last of all, behold! the mustard pot, which he had
been sitting on without knowing it--still, somehow, the thing got
finished at last, without much loss of temper.

The afternoon sun was getting low as the Rat sculled gently homewards
in a dreamy mood, murmuring poetry-things over to himself, and not
paying much attention to Mole. But the Mole was very full of lunch,
and self-satisfaction, and pride, and already quite at home in a boat
(so he thought), and was getting a bit restless besides: and presently
he said, "Ratty! Please, _I_ want to row, now!"

The Rat shook his head with a smile. "Not yet, my young friend," he
said; "wait till you've had a few lessons. It's not so easy as it
looks."

The Mole was quiet for a minute or two. But he began to feel more and
more jealous of Rat, sculling so strongly and so easily along, and his
pride began to whisper that he could do it every bit as well. He
jumped up and seized the sculls so suddenly that the Rat, who was
gazing out over the water and saying more poetry-things to himself,
was taken by surprise and fell backwards off his seat with his legs in
the air for the second time, while the triumphant Mole took his place
and grabbed the sculls with entire confidence.

"Stop it, you _silly_ ass!" cried the Rat, from the bottom of the
boat. "You can't do it! You'll have us over!"

The Mole flung his sculls back with a flourish, and made a great dig
at the water. He missed the surface altogether, his legs flew up above
his head, and he found himself lying on the top of the prostrate Rat.
Greatly alarmed, he made a grab at the side of the boat, and the next
moment--Sploosh!

Over went the boat, and he found himself struggling in the river.

O my, how cold the water was, and O, how _very_ wet it felt! How it
sang in his ears as he went down, down, down! How bright and welcome
the sun looked as he rose to the surface coughing and spluttering! How
black was his despair when he felt himself sinking again! Then a firm
paw gripped him by the back of his neck. It was the Rat, and he was
evidently laughing--the Mole could _feel_ him laughing, right down his
arm and through his paw, and so into his--the Mole's--neck.

The Rat got hold of a scull and shoved it under the Mole's arm; then
he did the same by the other side of him and, swimming behind,
propelled the helpless animal to shore, hauled him out, and set him
down on the bank, a squashy, pulpy lump of misery.

When the Rat had rubbed him down a bit, and wrung some of the wet out
of him, he said, "Now then, old fellow! Trot up and down the
towing-path as hard as you can, till you're warm and dry again, while
I dive for the luncheon-basket."

So the dismal Mole, wet without and ashamed within, trotted about till
he was fairly dry, while the Rat plunged into the water again,
recovered the boat, righted her and made her fast, fetched his
floating property to shore by degrees, and finally dived successfully
for the luncheon-basket and struggled to land with it.

When all was ready for a start once more, the Mole, limp and dejected,
took his seat in the stern of the boat; and as they set off, he said
in a low voice, broken with emotion, "Ratty, my generous friend! I am
very sorry indeed for my foolish and ungrateful conduct. My heart
quite fails me when I think how I might have lost that beautiful
luncheon-basket. Indeed, I have been a complete ass, and I know it.
Will you overlook it this once and forgive me, and let things go on as
before?"

"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 back-talk 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 arm-chair in front of it, having fetched down a
dressing-gown and slippers for him, and told him river stories till
supper-time. 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
a-field 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 new-found
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.

 "The River Bank" The novel opens during springtime, while Mole is conducting his annual spring cleaning around his underground burrow home. Suddenly, he is struck by a feeling of discontent, and immediately tunnels his way out of the earth and up into the middle of a field. Hearing the birds chirp and feeling the sunshine on his fur, he realizes that he has spent too much time underground, especially during this recent good weather. He decides to explore his surroundings, and soon arrives at a hedge. Several rabbits block the pathway, and demand he pay money in order to pass through to their private path. Mole, however, barrels through the rabbits with brute force, muttering to himself about the absurdity of their request. He keeps traveling farther and farther away from home, across meadows and fields, until he finally reaches a wide river. Mole has never seen a river before, and is awe-struck by its depth and beauty. Something on the opposite riverbank catches Mole's eye, and he discerns a small hole just above the waterline. He wonders about living in that hole, but then Water Rat pops out. Being a friendly animal, Rat brings his personal rowboat to Mole, and invites him for a picnic on the river. Mole is excited, having never been in a boat, and joins Rat down the stream to a small clearing. After Mole unpacks the basket, they discuss life on the river, which Rat loves above all else. Suddenly, Otter comes into the clearing, slightly upset that he had not been invited to the picnic. He settles down quickly, though, and he and Rat begin talking about Toad and Badger, two other animals in their circle. Mole listens to their information about the community with great interest. Once Otter leaves to chase a mayfly, Rat ends the picnic. Mole insists on packing the basket himself, but fails to do it correctly. After a few tries, he and Rat finally get in the boat and head back to Rat's home. Mole asks Rat if he can try steering the boat. Amused, Rat insists it is harder than it looks, and promises to later give Mole lessons. Mole is upset by Rat's refusal, and tries to prove his strength by pushing Rat out of the way so he can steer the boat himself. Rat was correct about the difficulty, though, and the boat flips over. Mole drags himself to land, embarrassed of how rudely he acted towards his new friend. However, after diving to fetch all his supplies, Rat forgives the younger animal, and invites Mole to live with him as long as he likes.

