Kenneth Grahame: The Wind in the Willows

9. WAYFARERS ALL (continued)

`But isn't it very hot and stuffy, down in the--hold, I think you call it?' asked the Water Rat.

The seafarer looked at him with the suspicion go a wink. `I'm an old hand,' he remarked with much simplicity. `The captain's cabin's good enough for me.'

`It's a hard life, by all accounts,' murmured the Rat, sunk in deep thought.

`For the crew it is,' replied the seafarer gravely, again with the ghost of a wink.

`From Corsica,' he went on, `I made use of a ship that was taking wine to the mainland. We made Alassio in the evening, lay to, hauled up our wine-casks, and hove them overboard, tied one to the other by a long line. Then the crew took to the boats and rowed shorewards, singing as they went, and drawing after them the long bobbing procession of casks, like a mile of porpoises. On the sands they had horses waiting, which dragged the casks up the steep street of the little town with a fine rush and clatter and scramble. When the last cask was in, we went and refreshed and rested, and sat late into the night, drinking with our friends, and next morning I took to the great olive-woods for a spell and a rest. For now I had done with islands for the time, and ports and shipping were plentiful; so I led a lazy life among the peasants, lying and watching them work, or stretched high on the hillside with the blue Mediterranean far below me. And so at length, by easy stages, and partly on foot, partly by sea, to Marseilles, and the meeting of old shipmates, and the visiting of great ocean-bound vessels, and feasting once more. Talk of shell-fish! Why, sometimes I dream of the shell-fish of Marseilles, and wake up crying!'

`That reminds me,' said the polite Water Rat; `you happened to mention that you were hungry, and I ought to have spoken earlier. Of course, you will stop and take your midday meal with me? My hole is close by; it is some time past noon, and you are very welcome to whatever there is.'