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.