tronger 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 loosestrife 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