"'Now I call that kind and brotherly of you,' said the Sea Rat. 'I was indeed hungry when I sat down, and ever since I inadvertently happened to mention shell-fish, my pangs have been extreme. But couldn't you fetch it along out here? I am none too fond of going under hatches, unless I'm obliged to; and then, while we eat, I could tell you more concerning my voyages and the pleasant life I lead—at least, it is very pleasant to me, and by your attention I judge it commends itself to you; whereas if we go indoors it is a hundred to one that I shall presently fall asleep.'
'That is indeed an excellent suggestion,' said the Water Rat, and hurried off home. There he got out the luncheon-basket and packed a simple meal, in which, remembering the stranger's origin and preferences, he took care to include a yard of long French bread, a sausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which lay down and cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask wherein lay bottled sunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes. Thus laden, he returned with all speed, and blushed for pleasure at the old seaman's commendations of his taste and judgment, as together they unpacked the basket and laid out the contents on the grass by the roadside."
It's late summer and already the animals are thinking of fall and the winter to follow. The Water Rat, who greeted the Mole in spring with a riverside picnic, greets the Sea Rat in-not-quite-fall with a roadside picnic. His heart yearns for the sunny south he has never seen and a madness comes upon him, He must follow the Sea Rat. It is, of course, Mole who stands in his way until the fit passes, and who completes the cure by suggesting the Water Rat write poetry about—the joys of autumn.
Kenneth Graham, The Wind in the Willows, 1908
