It was difficult to settle down to anything seriously,with all this flitting going on.Leaving the water-side,where rushes stood thick and tall in a stream that was becoming sluggish and low, he wandered country-wards, crossed a field or two of pasturage already looking dusty and parched, and thrust into the great sea of wheat, yellow, wavy, and murmurous, full of quiet motion and small whisperings. Here he often loved to wander, through the forest of stiff strong stalks that carried their own golden sky away over his head--a sky that was always dancing, shimmering, softly talking; or swaying strongly to the passing wind and recovering itself with a toss and a merry laugh. Here, too, he had many small friends, a society complete in itself, leading full and busy lives, but always with a spare moment to gossip, and exchange news with a visitor. To-day, however, though they were civil enough, the field-mice and harvest mice seemed pre-occupied. Many were digging and tunnelling busily; others, gathered together in small groups, examined plans and drawings of small flats, stated to be desirable and compact, and situated conveniently near the Stores. Some were hauling out dusty trunks and dress-baskets, others were already elbow-deep packing their belongings; while everywhere piles and bundles of wheat, oats, barley, beech-mast and nuts, lay about ready for transport.
"Here's old Ratty!" they cried as soon as they saw him."Come and bear a hand, Rat, and don't stand about idle!"
"What sort of games are you up to?" said the Water Rat severely."You know it isn't time to be thinking of winter quarters yet, by a long way!"
"O yes, we know that," explained a field-mouse rather shamefacedly;"but it's always as well to be in good time, isn't it?We really _must_ get all the furniture and baggage and stores moved out of this before those horrid machines begin clicking round the fields; and then, you know, the best flats get picked up so quickly nowadays, and if you're late you have to put up with _anything_; and they want such a lot of doing up, too, before they're fit to move into. Of course, we're early, we know that; but we're only just making a start."
"O, bother _starts_," said the Rat."It's a splendid day. Come for a row,or a stroll along the hedges, or a picnic in the woods, or something."
"Well, I _think_ not _to-day_, thank you," replied the field-mouse hurriedly."Perhaps some _other_ day--when we've more _time_--"
The Rat, with a snort of contempt, swung round to go,tripped over a hat-box, and fell,with undignified remarks.
"If people would be more careful," said a field-mouse rather stiffly,"and look where they're going,people wouldn't hurt themselves--and forget themselves.Mind that hold-all, Rat!You'd better sit down somewhere.In an hour or two we may be more free to attend to you. "
"You won't be 'free' as you call it,much this side of Christmas, I can see that," retorted the Rat grumpily,as he picked his way out of the field.
He returned somewhat despondently to his river again--his faithful,steady-going old river, which never packed up, flitted,or went into winter quarters.
In the osiers which fringed the bank he spied a swallow sitting.Presently it was joined by another,and then by a third; and the birds,fidgeting restlessly on their bough,talked together earnestly and low.
"What, _already_," said the Rat, strolling up to them. "What's the hurry?I call it simply ridiculous."
"O, we're not off yet, if that's what you mean," replied the first swallow."We're only making plans and arranging things.Talking it over, you know--what route we're taking this year,and where we'll stop, and so on. That's half the fun!"
"Fun?" said the Rat; "now that's just what I don't understand.If you've _got_ to leave this pleasant place,and your friends who will miss you,and your snug homes that you've just settled into, why,when the hour strikes I've no doubt you'll go bravely,and face all the trouble and discomfort and change and newness,and make believe that you're not very unhappy.But to want to talk about it, or even think about it,till you really need--"
"No, you don't understand, naturally," said the second swallow."First,we feel it stirring within us, a sweet unrest;then back come the recollections one by one,like homing pigeons.They flutter through our dreams at night,they fly with us in our wheelings and circlings by day.We hunger to inquire of each other,to compare notes and assure ourselves that it was all really true,as one by one the scents and sounds and names of long-forgotten places come gradually back and beckon to us."
"Couldn't you stop on for just this year?" suggested the Water Rat, wistfully."We'll all do our best to make you feel at home.You've no idea what good times we have here,while you are far away."
"I tried 'stopping on' one year," said the third swallow."I had grown so fond of the place that when the time came I hung back and let the others go on without me. For a few weeks it was all well enough, but afterwards, O the weary length of the nights!The shivering, sunless days!The air so clammy and chill,and not an insect in an acre of it!No, it was no good; my courage broke down, and one cold,stormy night I took wing,flying well inland on account of the strong easterly gales.It was snowing hard as I beat through the passes of the great mountains,and I had a stiff fight to win through;but never shall I forget the blissful feeling of the hot sun again on my back as I sped down to the lakes that lay so blue and placid below me, and the taste of my first fat insect!The past was like a bad dream;the future was all happy holiday as I moved southwards week by week,easily, lazily, lingering as long as I dared,but always heeding the call!No, I had had my warning;never again did I think of disobedience."
"Ah, yes, the call of the South, of the South!" twittered the other two dreamily. "Its songs,its hues, its radiant air!O, do you remember--" and, forgetting the Rat,they slid into passionate reminiscence,while he listened fascinated,and his heart burned within him. In himself, too,he knew that it was vibrating at last,that chord hitherto dormant and unsuspected.The mere chatter of these southern-bound birds,their pale and second-hand reports,had yet power to awaken this wild new sensation and thrill him through and through with it; what would one moment of the real thing work in him--one passionate touch of the real southern sun, one waft of the authentic odour?With closed eyes he dared to dream a moment in full abandonment,and when he looked again the river seemed steely and chill,the green fields grey and lightless.Then his loyal heart seemed to cry out on his weaker self for its treachery.
"Why do you ever come back, then, at all?" he demanded of the swallows jealously."What do you find to attract you in this poor drab little country?"
"And do you think," said the first swallow,"that the other call is not for us too, in its due season?The call of lush meadow-grass, wet orchards, warm,insect-haunted ponds, of browsing cattle, of haymaking,and all the farm-buildings clustering round the House of the perfect Eaves?"
"Do you suppose," asked the second one,"that you are the only living thing that craves with a hungry longing to hear the cuckoo's note again?"
"In due time," said the third,"we shall be home-sick once more for quiet water-lilies swaying on the surface of an English stream. But to-day all that seems pale and thin and very far away. Just now our blood dances to other music."
They fell a-twittering among themselves once more,and this time their intoxicating babble was of violet seas,tawny sands, and lizard-haunted walls.