‘For Pan’s sake,’ called Dodder, ‘keep her out; or we’ll be down the weir! Here!’ he said savagely to Squirrel. ‘Give me the wheel.’

  The dull roar of waters was loudening every second, and as if under some dreadful hypnotic power, the ship and her trembling crew were swept with ever increasing velocity towards that fatal lip.

  Dodder was shouting something in Squirrel’s ear but now the drum of the weir was the master sound.

  Faster, faster, sped the ship, until she seemed to be flying along. Her puny screws still revolved but they had no effect, and all Dodder’s efforts were useless. ‘We’re going over!’ yelled Dodder to the frightened Squirrel, but only his mouth moved, no words could be heard.

  The next moment the ship tilted and slid on the very edge of the fall and then — down she went with a sickening speed! The thresh of foam, the roar of water, the bangs and bumps, blackness, and icy coldness, all were mixed up together as the waters closed over the boat and her helpless cargo. The time when Baldmoney and Sneezewort were carried over the mill wheel was nothing to this!

  And after this sudden hell — what?

  A calming, a peace, a fading sound of the fall and all four gnomes, as feeble as draggled beetles, bobbed up far downstream. Dodder, handicapped by his one leg, could not swim like the others, and had not Baldmoney grabbed him by the collar he would have gone down to join the fishes and be a feast for the crayfish.

  But somehow or another they struggled to the bank and crept, like drowned mice, into the intricate tangle of the reeds. It was a battle to reach the bank beyond but they made it, half-dead.

  For some moments they lay motionless, gasping and coughing, sneezing and shivering. At last Dodder lifted his head and was violently sick, for he had swallowed a lot of water.

  ‘Ouch! Ach!’ he gasped. ‘Ouch! what a business!’

  He looked at the others, dimly seen in the darkness among the grass. ‘Are we all here? Baldmoney, you safe?’

  ‘Ye-yes, I’m here, Dodder,’ came a faint retching voice.

  ‘Sneezewort, you all right?’

  ‘A-a-all right, Dodder,’ came Sneezewort’s reply, between coughs and gasps.

  ‘Cloudberry, where are you?’

  ‘Here, Dodder!’ came the gurgled reply.

  ‘Squirrel?’

  ‘SQUIRREL?’

  ‘WHERE’S SQUIRREL?’

  There was no response. Despite his exhaustion, Dodder somehow got to his feet. ‘Squirrel, where are you?’

  No answer.

  ‘Squirrel, are you safe? Answer me!’ Dodder was frantic with anxiety.

  No answer, only the wind among the night trees and the now distant undertones of the weir!

  Chapter 9

  RUMBLING MILL

  TTER, DRIVEN FROM HIS HOLT ON the dying Folly, had taken up a new abode under the derelict wheelhouse of Rumbling Mill, on the main river. He and his wife were delighted with their new home. In this deeper water there were more fish to be caught and Rumbling Mill made a splendid headquarters. Indeed, as Mrs Otter said, she blessed the day they had moved, and very soon they produced a family of three cubs to celebrate the house-warming. ‘Why we ever stayed up the Folly I can’t think!’ Mrs Otter had said to her husband. ‘This river is so much more fun and it’s better for the children!’

  And in all truth Rumbling Mill did seem to be a ‘find’. It was many years since that ponderous iron-shod wheel had revolved in the pulsing life-blood of the river, and even the Mill House itself had fallen into decay. The little plot of ground behind the house, which had once been the miller’s orchard, was waist-high in nettles and wild carrot, but the twisted old apple trees, bearded with lichen and decked with mistletoe bushes, still bore red-cheeked fruit in autumn and so far was it from human ken that not even marauding boys visited it; even the stout legs of the little Shoebottom could not walk as far, for it was five miles distant from Mr Shoebottom’s shop. Besides, rumour had it that Rumbling Mill was ‘ha’nted’.

  Blackcap and whitethroat bubbled in the undergrowth, turtle-doves purred among the willows, sedge warblers chattered and sang among the rank beds of waterside vegetation, swallows took up their abode in the tumbledown outhouses, and a pair of white barn owls took possession of the mill-house. Bats moved in and hung upside down among the dim cobwebby beams, mice and rats lived in hundreds under the old threshing floor, grass snakes lived in the orchard, wrens and tits built in the holes in the decaying brickwork, and all through the hot summer days the reed buntings sang their sleepy songs among the crowding willows by the water’s edge. ‘Chip, chip, chip, tetezeeo! Chip, chip, chip, tetezeeo!’ they sang, never moving from the same perch day after day. It was a paradise for wildlings, both for plants, birds and beasts.

  In no other part of the river was there such a sleepy beautiful place, so green, quiet and screened by trees.

  •

  Otter was teaching his cubs to toboggan down a mud-slide hard by the tail of the old mill pool. They loved it and Otter and Mrs Otter were not above such childish delights themselves. There was no one to see but the white owls and the moon, which shone down on the roofs of the old tumbledown place. It was huge fun. But after a while Otter wearied of it and with a kick of his rudder headed upriver close to the bank. Sometimes he left the water and threaded the reed beds. Once he took to the water meadows and followed up a deep ditch which had no water in it and was overhung by stinging nettles and buttercups.

  This was a short cut and besides, it was nice to leave the water for a space and travel overland. He scared several rabbits, which were hopping about in the moonlight meads and he heard a corncrake ‘craking’ in the mowing grass.

  Otter felt very pleased with life that night. Never before had he felt so excited, so well. He was a perfect animal, at the prime of life, and sleek and powerful as a seal. He played little games with himself now and then, chasing his rudder and rolling over in the dewy grass trying to bite his shadow, until he was quite out of breath.

  Not far away he could see the thick trees fringing the river, marking its course as bird-sown trees mark the course of a sunken lane.

  As he ambled along, thoroughly enjoying himself, his mind turned somehow to the gnomes whom he had left far upriver with the Jeanie Deans. Soon they would be coming down and Otter did not want to miss his friends. It would be a sad thing if they passed Rumbling Mill without him seeing them. Besides, he was very proud of his family, and wanted to show them off and perhaps most of all, he wanted the cubs to see the Jeanie Deans, for he had told them all about her.

  ‘Still,’ thought Otter, ‘I can’t keep hanging about every night, just on the chance of seeing them.’

  He suddenly realised that, what with the tobogganing and his rambling, he was very hungry. He thought of a nice fat roach or grayling and his mouth began to water. So he set off for the river. He soon found he could not be long away from it, from its music and its smells.

  He pushed through a little coppice of oaks and willows until he reached a forest of dock leaves. The ground was black and oozy and a human would have sunk to his knees in it. The mire had a strong wild tang (Otter loved it) it smelt of pike and that made him more hungry than ever. He passed the skeleton of a jack, the white bones gleamed under the moon. It lay beside a moss-grown log, half-buried in the mire. It was the remains of a previous meal of his. He had not devoured it all, only a juicy back steak had been bitten out, the rats had finished the rest.

  Otter was so hungry he wondered why he could ever have left it, half-eaten like that!

  All at once he stopped dead. Not far off was a clump of poplars. Even though the night was so calm there was a faint rustle, almost like the sound of the sea, among the millions of leaves which made up those graceful tapering moonlit spires. And somehow, mixed up with that faint rustle, he thought he heard another sound, the sound of pipes playing, Pan Pipes!

  Otter was very afraid. He shivered and the dew gleamed in pearls on his close, squat head. But when the animals hear the Pan Pipes there is no turning back; they have to obey.

  So Otter went, slowly as a snail, towards the tall trees, his sleek fur creeping along his spine. As he got near the music slowly died away and Otter began to wonder if he had really heard it. There was an unreality too about the witching night, he half-expected to awake from a dream and find himself tucked up in the holt under Rumbling Mill.

  And then he heard Pan’s voice calling, ‘Otter! Otter!’ very softly.

  ‘I am here, my Lord Pan,’ said Otter, raising his muzzle. ‘What is it you want of me?’

  ‘Otter,’ went on the gentle voice, seeming very close, yet far away, ‘go to Bantley Weir . . . Bantley Weir. The Little People are in trouble.’

  Otter, half-hidden by the dock leaves, raised himself up like a big brown weasel, his forepaws hanging against his furry stomach, his eyes searching the rustling poplars. Had he dreamt it all?

  ‘Bantley Weir . . . the Little People . . .’ the words trailed away. There was no sound now save the very faint sweet music of the pipes coming as if from an immense distance, dying on the night wind. With a swift, almost snake-like movement, Otter turned under the docks. He went into the river as silently as a vole and rings went widening and gleaming out of the dark shadow.

  He swam with great power and ease, going through the water was easier to him than going overland.

  And very soon he heard, in the distance, the murmur of the weir growing louder and louder. As he swam he kept on saying to himself, ‘Bantley Weir, the Little People are in trouble, Bantley Weir, hurry! Hurry! Hurry!’

  Fat fish darted by, pike swirled under the lily pads, but they had no need to fear Otter at that moment. Even his hunger had vanished. One thing was in his mind: he was wanted at Bantley Weir!

  In a very short while he reached it. He scrambled out on to a weedy block of masonry just below the great tumbling water-slide where a million flashing bubbles winked and twinked. The sound of this mass of swiftly-moving water was full of music, strange hidden notes and fairy voices, like the clamour of a vast multitude of Mortals playing and talking all at once. He looked about him. The river below the weir seemed deserted. Had he dreamt the whole thing, thought Otter again. Why had he come on this fool’s errand? The moon had bewitched him. He shook himself and then took a header into the tumbled thunder at the weir’s foot.

  The great force of water drove him down, but Otter loved it as a skier loves the snow slopes on a mountain side. He let the current thrust and spin him, right downriver until the impetus slackened and died. And then, against the far reeds, he thought he caught sight of something show for an instant and then sink from sight. Otter dived again, his wide eyes piercing the green gloom of that underwater parlour.

  A few fish darting; a sinuous snake-like root of a lily, slimy, bearded, and beset with water snails; a glimpse of a pebbly bottom, and then — there it was again! — a slow-moving form, sinking and bubbling feebly, just ahead of his nose!

  It looked like the body of a drowned cat. Otter was up to it with one sweep of his rudder. It was Squirrel. Otter’s squat muzzle parted as he took the body by the scruff of the neck, in the way he carried his cubs. The next moment he had broken surface and, still with the wet cold body of Squirrel held gently but firmly in his mouth, he landed on a spit of shingle, where fresh-water mussel shells, split open and left by the carrion crows, were strewn about. Gently he laid his burden down and shook his coat in the moonlight, sending out a fine silver spray.

  The poor limp little object that had once been Squirrel, so fluffy and full of life, lay motionless, the water trickling and oozing out from his draggled fur on to the stones.

  Yet Otter, as he looked, detected that the fur was still greasy though the white cold skin showed between the wet wisps of hair.

  With his nose he pushed Squirrel over on to his stomach and began to apply artificial respiration, such as he once used upon one of his cubs which had been caught on some rusty wire on the river-bed.

  Otter worked away in the moonlight, pressing with his paws on Squirrel’s back. The moon sank lower behind the trees and two big owls wheeled round overhead. Otter never looked up at them, even when, with mournful cries they swooped low past him.

  And then, as Otter worked and worked, he felt at last that life was flowing back. The funny little rat-like teeth gasped open once, twice; the tongue moved, the pathetic little eyes, tight closed, flickered, the eye-balls swivelled.

  Otter redoubled his efforts. And in another minute or two Squirrel gave a deep gasp and opened full his eyes. He lay on his face, regarding Otter stupidly.

  ‘It’s all right, Squirrel, it’s me, Otter. You’re all right, I fished you out of the weir! It’s no good you pretending to be an otter, old chap. You stick to the trees where I can’t go. If I climbed a tree I should probably fall and break my neck. Well, it’s the same with you. If you try diving and such-like games, you’ll drown — see?’

  Squirrel did not ‘see’. Moreover he had struck his head on a stone on the river bed. He feebly moved his mouth and a little trickle of water came out of the corner. ‘I’m so cold,’ he whispered.

  Otter took him gently by the scruff of the neck. ‘You’re coming along with me, my lad. I’m going to take you to Rumbling Mill. We’ll be there in a brace of shakes, and I’ll turn you over to my wife. If I leave you here all night you’ll catch your death of cold.’

  So off went Otter, carrying the now feebly-protesting Squirrel, and in next to no time he was back at Rumbling Mill.

  Mrs Otter came out in an awful fuss to see what Otter had found and they carried poor Squirrel up into the cosy warm chamber in the masonry where green moss draped the door and bright hart’s-tongue ferns grew from countless crannies. They bound up his head and bathed his wound. Then the little cubs all cuddled up against the cold little body, as Mr and Mrs Otter tucked Squirrel away to bed with them. And gradually the awful feeling of cold began to ebb away, minute by minute Squirrel felt the full life flooding back into his heart and every artery in his body. A beautiful glow settled on him as the otter cubs cuddled him closer still.

  Chapter 10

  SQUIRREL

  N THAT AWFUL MOMENT WHEN Dodder called aloud on Squirrel and had no reply, his heart seemed to die within him. His rage against Squirrel had been at white heat, for had not he, Dodder, left him in charge of the boat? In a measure it was his own fault, perhaps, for ever giving way like that. And it was perhaps this anger with himself that made him all the more bitter.

  But now, when he realised Squirrel had gone, all his angry thoughts vanished and in their place was a dreadful desolation. To Dodder’s astonishment he found he had come to love Squirrel and his merry ways almost as much as he loved his brothers (he was certainly more fond of Squirrel than he was of Cloudberry).

  When at last they could get their breath all four began a systematic search along the river bank. The Bens, just when they were wanted (as always happens) were not there. They worked their way among the reeds and plants for several hundred yards but no trace of Squirrel was to be found. At last, weary and worn out, Dodder flopped down on a stone.

  ‘It’s no good looking any more,’ he groaned. ‘Squirrel’s gone right enough, he may have struck his head on something — on the weir or even the boat, as we went over. We shan’t ever see him again, our dear old fluffy Squirrel who was always so happy and full of fun!’ And the tears began to well from his eyes.

  The others remained silent, Sneezewort and Baldmoney were weeping too, but Cloudberry remained dry-eyed, though he looked drawn and wretched.

  ‘It was my fault,’ said Dodder, ‘I should never have let him steer; it’s all my fault really. I take the blame. What happened, Cloudberry? You were up on the bridge too; did Squirrel lose his head and steer too near the weir?’

  Cloudberry gulped and looked at the stones at his feet. ‘Yes, he seemed to lose his head entirely when he saw how close we were.’

  ‘Why didn’t you warn him?’ asked Dodder. ‘Surely you knew that it was silly to go so close?’

  ‘I did warn him,’ lied Cloudberry glibly. ‘I told him to steer out more into mid-stream, but he wouldn’t take any notice, it wasn’t my fault.’

  There was a long silence. In the east the dawn was coming up. Far away a cow began to bellow like a rich-toned foghorn, it was more of a bray than a bellow. And the gnomes could hear the distant cocks crowing one against the other.

  ‘I can’t think where the Bens can be,’ said Dodder miserably. He clasped his arms about himself; all were shivering violently. Dodder did not know that whilst they were searching the reeds for Squirrel the Bens had twice passed over the weir, turning their amazed eyes this way and that as they searched for the boat.

  The sun crept over the distant trees, all the birds began to sing, first one, then another, then full chorus.

  The bright cheerful rays at last topped the trees and shot out warming fingers to dry those four miserable little men. Their skin jackets steamed as they sat in the sun.

  While they waited there, Baldmoney caught sight of a Kingfisher. It saw them, checked in mid-air and came to rest on an old mossy post below the weir. There it sat, bobbing up and down like an owl.

  ‘This is a nice how-d’ye-do,’ said he. ‘Where’s your boat?’

  Dodder pointed to the boiling water at the weir’s foot. ‘She’s down there,’ he said grimly.

  ‘Ah, there’s thirty feet of water there, so grebe told me,’ said the bird. ‘She’s gone for good. I met an owl downriver.’

  ‘What, Ben you mean?’

  ‘Yes, I believe he said his name was Ben. And I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you?’

  ‘About our friend Squirrel?’

  The Kingfisher nodded and sat silent.

  ‘Why, has Ben found him?’ asked Dodder in a husky whisper.

  The Kingfisher nodded again.

  ‘Dead?’

  Again the Kingfisher nodded. As a matter of fact the Kingfisher rather enjoyed imparting startling and appalling news.

 

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