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'You see, he confided to his sisters, 'they couldn't get on very well without me, as I'm learning to put their bait on for them, and I help to unpack their luncheon-basket, and very often I lie down on the bank and tell them stories; they like that very much.
The day grew hot and dusty as they ran down from the Lake district, and they were glad to have their lunch beside a noisy little burn in a green meadow, from the well-stocked luncheon-basket provided by the Penrith inn.
Having thus seen to our rifles and ammunition and taken care also that some brandy was put in the luncheon-basket in case of an accident, we set off early in the afternoon in Spooner's tonga, which is a two-wheeled cart with a hood over it.
The voice died away and ceased as an insect's tiny trumpet dwindles swiftly into silence; and the Water Rat, paralysed and staring, saw at last but a distant speck on the white surface of the road. Mechanically he rose and proceeded to repack the luncheon-basket, carefully and without haste.
Jupille trotted before us, carrying his rod in one hand, a luncheon-basket and a fish-bag in the other. He turned round and gave us a look at each cross-road, smiled beneath his heavy moustache, and went on faster than before. I felt sure that something out of the way was about to happen, and that the silent quill-driver was tasting a quiet joke. I had not guessed the whole truth.
Upon learning his determination Flora announced her decision to accompany him; and accordingly, having packed a luncheon-basket, the pair set off together soon after breakfast, leaving Nicholls and the boatswain in charge of the camp.
The luncheon-basket was packed with twice the usual quantity of sandwiches, into which Mammy slyly tucked a small paper of sweet things as a sort of comforter, with repeated injunctions to Henry not to make a mistake and confiscate them for his own private use.
The Rat hummed a tune, and the Mole recollected that animal-etiquette forbade any sort of comment on the sudden disappearance of one's friends at any moment, for any reason or no reason whatever. "Well, well," said the Rat, "I suppose we ought to be moving. I wonder which of us had better pack the luncheon-basket?" He did not speak as if he was frightfully eager for the treat.
When all was ready for a start once more, the Mole, limp and dejected, took his seat in the stern of the boat; and as they set off, he said in a low voice, broken with emotion, "Ratty, my generous friend! I am very sorry indeed for my foolish and ungrateful conduct. My heart quite fails me when I think how I might have lost that beautiful luncheon-basket.
But John and Thomas found it nearly as hard work climbing with the luncheon-basket in the heat of the midsummer sun as it was when they climbed to the same elevation in midwinter; only they did not slip back so fast, nor did they feel that they were art and part in a "daftlike" thing.
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