Hague, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, 1980
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!'
Kenneth Grahame, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn," from Wind in the Willows
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