Chapter 1: The Riverbank
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, and 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 gavelled 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 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 spell-bound 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 picture round a frame.
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 forepaw 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.’
‘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 leaned 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 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 ’em 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 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 leaned back blissfully into the soft cushions. ‘WHAT a day I’m having!’ he said. ‘Let us start at once!’
‘Hold hard a minute, there!’ 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; ‘coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscresssandwichespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater–‘
‘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 along steadily 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 someday, 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 isn’t worth having, and what it doesn’t know is not worth knowing. Lord! the times we’ve had together! Whether in winter, 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, kingfishers, dabchicks, moorhens, all of them all 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?’ asked 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’s the 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 just can’t 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 land-locked 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 his forepaws 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 packages 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 today. 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 didn’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 anymore of him today. 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 up 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 with a flourish, and made a great dig at the water. He missed the surface altogether, his legs flew up over 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 while. 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 as the Mole’s spirits revived again, 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 parlor, 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 fuller 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.
“I am dreadfully afraid it WILL be mouse!” said Duchess to herself-“I really couldn’t, COULDN’T eat mouse pie. And I shall have to eat it, because it is a party. And MY pie was going to be veal and ham. A pink and white pie-dish! and so is mine; just like Ribby’s dishes; they were both bought at Tabitha Twitchit’s.”Duchess went into her larder and took the pie off a shelf and looked at it. “Oh what a good idea! Why shouldn’t I rush along and put my pie into Ribby’s oven when Ribby isn’t there?”
Ribby in the meantime had received Duchess’s answer, and as soon as she was sure that the little dog would come-she popped her pie into the oven. There were two ovens, one above the other; some other knobs and handles were only ornamental and not intended to open. Ribby put the pie into the lower oven; the door was very stiff.
“The top oven bakes too quickly,” said Ribby to herself. Ribby put on some coal and swept up the hearth. Then she went out with a can to the well, for water to fill up the kettle. Then she began to set the room in order, for it was the sitting-room as well as the kitchen. When Ribby had laid the table she went out down the field to the farm, to fetch milk and butter.
When she came back, she peeped into the bottom oven; the pie looked very comfortable. Ribby put on her shawl and bonnet and went out again with a basket, to the village shop to buy a packet of tea, a pound of lump sugar, and a pot of marmalade.And just at the same time, Duchess came out of her house, at the other end of the village.
Ribby met Duchess half-way down the street, also carrying a basket, covered with a cloth. They only bowed to one another; they did not speak, because they were going to have a party.As soon as Duchess had got round the corner out of sight-she simply ran! Straight away to Ribby’s house!
Ribby went into the shop and bought what she required, and came out, after a pleasant gossip with Cousin Tabitha Twitchit. Ribby went on to Timothy Baker’s and bought the muffins. Then she went home. There seemed to be a sort of scuffling noise in the back passage, as she was coming in at the front door. But there was nobody there.
Duchess in the meantime, had slipped out at the back door. “It is a very odd thing that Ribby’s pie was not in the oven when I put mine in! And I can’t find it anywhere; I have looked all over the house. I put my pie into a nice hot oven at the top. I could not turn any of the other handles; I think that they are all shams,” said Duchess, “but I wish I could have removed the pie made of mouse! I cannot think what she has done with it? I heard Ribby coming and I had to run out by the back door!” Duchess went home and brushed her beautiful black coat; and then she picked a bunch of flowers in her garden as a present for Ribby; and passed the time until the clock struck four.
Ribby-having assured herself by careful search that there was really no one hiding in the cupboard or in the larder-went upstairs to change her dress.She came downstairs again, and made the tea, and put the teapot on the hob. She peeped again into the bottom oven, the pie had become a lovely brown, and it was steaming hot. She sat down before the fire to wait for the little dog. “I am glad I used the bottom oven,” said Ribby, “the top one would certainly have been very much too hot.”
Very punctually at four o’clock, Duchess started to go to the party.
At a quarter past four to the minute, there came a most genteel little tap-tappity. “Is Mrs. Ribston at home?” inquired Duchess in the porch.”Come in! and how do you do, my dear Duchess?” cried Ribby. “I hope I see you well?””Quite well, I thank you, and how do YOU do, my dear Ribby?” said Duchess. “I’ve brought you some flowers; what a delicious smell of pie!”
“Oh, what lovely flowers! Yes, it is mouse and bacon! I think it wants another five minutes,” said Ribby. “Just a shade longer; I will pour out the tea, while we wait. Do you take sugar, my dear Duchess?””Oh yes, please! my dear Ribby; and may I have a lump upon my nose?””With pleasure, my dear Duchess.”Duchess sat up with the sugar on her nose and sniffed-
“How good that pie smells! I do love veal and ham-I mean to say mouse and bacon-“She dropped the sugar in confusion, and had to go hunting under the tea-table, so did not see which oven Ribby opened in order to get out the pie.
Ribby set the pie upon the table; there was a very savory smell.Duchess came out from under the table-cloth munching sugar, and sat up on a chair.”I will first cut the pie for you; I am going to have muffin and marmalade,” said Ribby.
“I think”-(thought Duchess to herself)-“I think it would be wiser if I helped myself to pie; though Ribby did not seem to notice anything when she was cutting it. What very small fine pieces it has cooked into! I did not remember that I had minced it up so fine; I suppose this is a quicker oven than my own.”The pie-dish was emptying rapidly! Duchess had had four helps already, and was fumbling with the spoon.
“A little more bacon, my dear Duchess?” said Ribby.
“Thank you, my dear Ribby; I was only feeling for the patty-pan.””The patty-pan? my dear Duchess?””The patty pan that held up the pie-crust,” said Duchess, blushing under her black coat.
“Oh, I didn’t put one in, my dear Duchess,” said Ribby; “I don’t think that it is necessary in pies made of mouse.”Duchess fumbled with the spoon-“I can’t find it!” she said anxiously.”There isn’t a patty-pan,” said Ribby, looking perplexed.”Yes, indeed, my dear Ribby; where can it have gone to?” said Duchess. Duchess looked very much alarmed, and continued to scoop the inside of the pie-dish.
“I have only four patty-pans, and they are all in the cupboard.”Duchess set up a howl. “I shall die! I shall die! I have swallowed a patty-pan! Oh, my dear Ribby, I do feel so ill!””It is impossible, my dear Duchess; there was not a patty-pan.””Yes there was, my dear Ribby, I am sure I have swallowed it!””Let me prop you up with a pillow, my dear Duchess; where do you think you feel it?””Oh I do feel so ill all over me, my dear Ribby.”
“Shall I run for the doctor?””Oh yes, yes! fetch Dr. Maggotty, my dear Ribby: he is a Pie himself, he will certainly understand.”Ribby settled Duchess in an armchair before the fire, and went out and hurried to the village to look for the doctor.She found him at the smithy.Ribby explained that her guest had swallowed a patty-pan.Dr. Maggotty hopped so fast that Ribby had to run. It was most conspicuous. All the village could see that Ribby was fetching the doctor.
But while Ribby had been hunting for the doctor-a curious thing had happened to Duchess, who had been left by herself, sitting before the fire, sighing and groaning and feeling very unhappy. “How could I have swallowed it! such a large thing as a patty-pan!”
She sat down again, and stared mournfully at the grate. The fire crackled and danced, and something sizz-z-zled! Duchess started! She opened the door of the TOP oven;-out came a rich steamy flavor of veal and ham, and there stood a fine brown pie,- and through a hole in the top of the pie-crust there was a glimpse of a little tin patty-pan!Duchess drew a long breath-“Then I must have been eating mouse! . . . No wonder I feel ill. . . . But perhaps I should feel worse if I had really swallowed a patty-pan!” Duchess reflected-“What a very awkward thing to have to explain to Ribby! I think I will put MY pie in the back-yard and say nothing about it. When I go home, I will run round and take it away.” She put it outside the back-door, and sat down again by the fire, and shut her eyes; when Ribby arrived with the doctor, she seemed fast asleep.
“I am feeling very much better,” said Duchess, waking up with a jump.”I am truly glad to hear it! He has brought you a pill, my dear Duchess!””I think I should feel quite well if he only felt my pulse,” said Duchess, backing away from the magpie, who sidled up with something in his beak.”It is only a bread pill, you had much better take it; drink a little milk, my dear Duchess!”
“I am feeling very much better, my dear Ribby,” said Duchess. “Do you not think that I had better go home before it gets dark?””Perhaps it might be wise, my dear Duchess.”Ribby and Duchess said goodbye affectionately, and Duchess started home. Half-way up the lane she stopped and looked back; Ribby had gone in and shut her door. Duchess slipped through the fence, and ran round to the back of Ribby’s house, and peeped into the yard.Upon the roof of the pigsty sat Dr. Maggotty and three jackdaws. The jackdaws were eating piecrust, and the magpie was drinking gravy out of a patty-pan.Duchess ran home feeling uncommonly silly!When Ribby came out for a pailful of water to wash up the tea-things, she found a pink and white pie-dish lying smashed in the middle of the yard.Ribby stared with amazement- “Did you ever see the like! so there really WAS a patty-pan? . . . But MY patty-pans are all in the kitchen cupboard. Well I never did! . . . Next time I want to give a party-I will invite Cousin Tabitha Twitchit!”
One day little Lucie came into the farmyard crying-oh, she did cry so! “I’ve lost my pocket-handkin! Three handkins and a pinny! Have you seen them, Tabby Kitten?” The Kitten went on washing her white paws; so Lucie asked a speckled hen-“Sally Henny-penny, have YOU found three pocket-handkins?”But the speckled hen ran into a barn, clucking-“I go barefoot, barefoot, barefoot!”
And then Lucie asked Cock Robin sitting on a twig. Cock Robin looked sideways at Lucie with his bright black eye, and he flew over a stile and away.
Lucie climbed upon the stile and looked up at the hill behind Little-town-a hill that goes up-up-into the clouds as though it had no top! And a great way up the hillside she thought she saw some white things spread upon the grass.
Lucie scrambled up the hill as fast as her short legs would carry her; she ran along a steep path-way-up and up-until Little-town was right away down below-she could have dropped a pebble down the chimney! Presently she came to a spring, bubbling out from the hillside.
Someone had stood a tin can upon a stone to catch the water-but the water was already running over, for the can was no bigger than an egg cup! And where the sand upon the path was wet-there were footmarks of a very small person.
Lucie ran on, and on. The path ended under a big rock. The grass was short and green, and there were clothes-props cut from bracken stems, with lines of plaited rushes, and a heap of tiny clothes pins-but no pocket-handkerchiefs!But there was something else-a door! straight into the hill; and inside it someone was singing-“Lily-white and clean, oh!With little frills between, oh!Smooth and hot-red rusty spotNever here be seen, oh!”Lucie knocked-once-twice, and interrupted the song. A little frightened voice called out “Who’s that?”Lucie opened the door: and what do you think there was inside the hill?-a nice clean kitchen with a flagged floor and wooden beams-just like any other farm kitchen. Only the ceiling was so low that Lucie’s head nearly touched it; and the pots and pans were small, and so was everything there.
There was a nice hot singey smell; and at the table, with an iron in her hand, stood a very stout short person staring anxiously at Lucie.
Her print gown was tucked up, and she was wearing a large apron over her striped petticoat. Her little black nose went sniffle, sniffle, snuffle, and her eyes went twinkle, twinkle; and underneath her cap-where Lucie had yellow curls-that little person had prickles!
“Who are you?” said Lucie. “Have you seen my pocket-handkins?”The little person made a bob- curtsey-“Oh yes, if you please’m; my name is Mrs. Tiggy-winkle; oh yes if you please’m, I’m an excellent clear-starcher!” And she took something out of the clothesbasket, and spread it on the ironing-blanket.
“What’s that thing?” said Lucie- “that’s not my pocket-handkin?””Oh no, if you please’m; that’s a little scarlet waist-coat belonging to Cock Robin!” And she ironed it and folded it, and put it on one side.Then she took something else off a clothes-horse-“That isn’t my pinny?” said Lucie.
“Oh no, if you please’m; that’s a damask table-cloth belonging to Jenny Wren; look how it’s stained with currant wine! It’s very bad to wash!” said Mrs. Tiggy-winkle.Mrs. Tiggy-winkle’s nose went sniffle sniffle snuffle, and her eyes went twinkle twinkle; and she fetched another hot iron from the fire.
“There’s one of my pocket-handkins!” cried Lucie-“and there’s my pinny!”
Mrs. Tiggy-winkle ironed it, and goffered it, and shook out the frills.”Oh that is lovely!” said Lucie. “And what are those long yellow things with fingers like gloves?”
“Oh that’s a pair of stockings belonging to Sally Henny-penny-look how she’s worn the heels out with scratching in the yard! She’ll very soon go barefoot!” said Mrs. Tiggy-winkle.”Why, there’s another hankersniff- but it isn’t mine; it’s red?”
“Oh no, if you please’m; that one belongs to old Mrs. Rabbit; and it did so smell of onions! I’ve had to wash it separately, I can’t get out that smell.””There’s another one of mine,” said Lucie. “What are those funny little white things?”
“That’s a pair of mittens belonging to Tabby Kitten; I only have to iron them; she washes them herself.””There’s my last pocket-handkin!” said Lucie. “And what are you dipping into the basin of starch?”
“They’re little dicky shirt-fronts belonging to Tom Titmouse-most terrible particular!” said Mrs. Tiggy- winkle. “Now I’ve finished my ironing; I’m going to air some clothes.”
“What are these dear soft fluffy things?” said Lucie.”Oh those are woolly coats belonging to the little lambs at Skelghyl.””Will their jackets take off?” asked Lucie.”Oh yes, if you please’m; look at the sheep-mark on the shoulder. And here’s one marked for Gatesgarth, and three that come from Little-town. They’re always marked at washing!” said Mrs. Tiggy-winkle.And she hung up all sorts and sizes of clothes-small brown coats of mice; and one velvety black moleskin waist-coat; and a red tail-coat with no tail belonging to Squirrel Nutkin; and a very much shrunk blue jacket belonging to Peter Rabbit; and a petticoat, not marked, that had gone lost in the washing-and at last the basket was empty!
Then Mrs. Tiggy-winkle made tea-a cup for herself and a cup for Lucie. They sat before the fire on a bench and looked sideways at one another. Mrs. Tiggy-winkle’s hand, holding the tea-cup, was very very brown, and very very wrinkly with soap-suds; and all through her gown and her cap, there were hairpins sticking wrong end out; so that Lucie didn’t like to sit too near her.
When they had finished tea, they tied up the clothes in bundles; and Lucie’s pocket-handkerchiefs were folded up inside her clean pinny, and fastened with a silver safety pin. And then they made up the fire with turf, and came out and locked the door, and hid the key under the doorsill.
Then away down the hill trotted Lucie and Mrs. Tiggy-winkle with the bundles of clothes! All the way down the path little animals came out of the fern to meet them; the very first that they met were Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny!
And she gave them their nice clean clothes; and all the little animals and birds were so very much obliged to dear Mrs. Tiggy-winkle.
So that at the bottom of the hill when they came to the stile, there was nothing left to carry except Lucie’s one little bundle. Lucie scrambled up the stile with the bundle in her hand; and then she turned to say “Good-night,” and to thank the washer-woman.-But what a very odd thing! Mrs. Tiggy-winkle had not waited either for thanks or for the washing bill!
She was running running running up the hill-and where was her white frilled cap? and her shawl? and her gown-and her petticoat?
And how small she had grown- and how brown-and covered with prickles!Why! Mrs. Tiggy-winkle was nothing but a hedgehog!
(Now some people say that little Lucie had been asleep upon the stile-but then how could she have found three clean pocket-handkins and a pinny, pinned with a silver safety-pin?And besides-I have seen that door into the back of the hill called Cat Bells-and besides I am very well acquainted with dear Mrs. Tiggy-winkle!)
It belonged to two Dolls called Lucinda and Jane; at least it belonged to Lucinda, but she never ordered meals.
Jane was the Cook; but she never did any cooking, because the dinner had been bought ready-made, in a box full of shavings. There were two red lobsters and a ham, a fish, a pudding, and some pears and oranges. They would not come off the plates, but they were extremely beautiful.
One morning Lucinda and Jane had gone out for a drive in the doll’s perambulator. There was no one in the nursery, and it was very quiet. Presently there was a little scuffling, scratching noise in a corner near the fireplace, where there was a hole under the skirting-board.Tom Thumb put out his head for a moment, and then popped it in again. Tom Thumb was a mouse.
A minute afterwards, Hunca Munca, his wife, put her head out, too; and when she saw that there was no one in the nursery, she ventured out on the oilcloth under the coal-box.
The doll’s-house stood at the other side of the fireplace. Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca went cautiously across the hearthrug. They pushed the front door-it was not fast.
Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca went upstairs and peeped into the dining room. Then they squeaked with joy!Such a lovely dinner was laid out upon the table! There were tin spoons, and lead knives and forks, and two dolly-chairs-all so convenient!
Tom Thumb set to work at once to carve the ham. It was a beautiful shiny yellow, streaked with red.The knife crumpled up and hurt him; he put his finger in his mouth.”It is not boiled enough; it is hard. You have a try, Hunca Munca.”
Hunca Munca stood up in her chair, and chopped at the ham with another lead knife.”It’s as hard as the hams at the cheesemonger’s,” said Hunca Munca.
The ham broke off the plate with a jerk, and rolled under the table.”Let it alone,” said Tom Thumb; “give me some fish, Hunca Munca!”
Hunca Munca tried every tin spoon in turn; the fish was glued to the dish.Then Tom Thumb lost his temper. He put the ham in the middle of the floor, and hit it with the tongs and with the shovel-bang, bang, smash, smash!The ham flew all into pieces, for underneath the shiny paint it was made of nothing but plaster!
Then there was no end to the rage and disappointment of Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca. They broke up the pudding, the lobsters, the pears and the oranges.As the fish would not come off the plate, they put it into the red-hot crinkly paper fire in the kitchen; but it would not burn either.
Tom Thumb went up the kitchen chimney and looked out at the top-there was no soot.
While Tom Thumb was up the chimney, Hunca Munca had another disappointment. She found some tiny canisters upon the dresser, labelled- Rice-Coffee-Sago-but when she turned them upside down, there was nothing inside except red and blue beads.
Then those mice set to work to do all the mischief they could-especially Tom Thumb! He took Jane’s clothes out of the chest of drawers in her bedroom, and he threw them out of the top floor window.But Hunca Munca had a frugal mind. After pulling half the feathers out of Lucinda’s bolster, she remembered that she herself was in want of a feather bed.
With Tom Thumbs’ assistance she carried the bolster downstairs, and across the hearth rug. It was difficult to squeeze the bolster into the mouse hole; but they managed it somehow.
Then Hunca Munca went back and fetched a chair, a bookcase, a birdcage, and several small odds and ends. The bookcase and the birdcage refused to go into the mouse hole.
Hunca Munca left them behind the coal-box, and went to fetch a cradle.
Hunca Munca was just returning with another chair, when suddenly there was a noise of talking outside upon the landing. The mice rushed back to their hole, and the dolls came into the nursery.
What a sight met the eyes of Jane and Lucinda! Lucinda sat upon the upset kitchen stove and stared; and Jane leant against the kitchen dresser and smiled-but neither of them made any remark.
The bookcase and the birdcage were rescued from under the coalbox-but Hunca Munca has got the cradle, and some of Lucinda’s clothes.
She also has some useful pots and pans, and several other things.
The little girl that the doll’s-house belonged to, said, “I will get a doll dressed like a policeman!”
But the nurse said, “I will set a mousetrap!”
So that is the story of the two Bad Mice,-but they were not so very very naughty after all, because Tom Thumb paid for everything he broke.He found a crooked sixpence under the hearth-rug; and upon Christmas Eve, he and Hunca Munca stuffed it into one of the stockings of Lucinda and Jane.
And very early every morning- before anybody is awake-Hunca Munca comes with her dust-pan and her broom to sweep the Dollies’ house!
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