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!"

Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that
turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to
the ground. It was no panic terror--indeed he felt wonderfully at
peace and happy--but it was an awe that smote and held him and,
without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presence
was very, very near. With difficulty he turned to look for his friend,
and saw him at his side, cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. And
still there was utter silence in the populous bird-haunted branches
around them; and still the light grew and grew.

Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though
the piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still
dominant and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself
waiting to strike him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on
things rightly kept hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble
head; and then, in that utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while
Nature, flushed with fulness of incredible colour, seemed to hold her
breath for the event, he looked in the very eyes of the Friend and
Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, gleaming in the
growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly eyes
that were looking down on them humorously, while the bearded mouth
broke into a half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on
the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple hand still
holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips; saw
the splendid curves of the shaggy limb