At last the Rat succeeded in decoying him to the table, and had just got seriously to work with the sardine-opener when sounds were heard from the for-court without-sounds like the scuffling of small feet in the gravel and a confused murmur of tiny voices while broken sentences reached them -"Now, all in a line - hold the lantern up a bit, Tommy - clear your throats first - no coughing after I say one, two, three - Where's young Bill? - Here, come on, do, we're all awaiting -"
"What's up?" inquired the Rat, pausing in his labors.
"I think it must be the field-mice," replied the Mole, with a touch of pride in his manner. "they go round carol-singing regularly this time of the year. They're quite an institution in these parts. And they never pass me over - they come to Mole End last of all; and I used to give them hot drinks, and supper too sometimes, when I could afford it. It will be like old times to hear them again."
"Let's have a look at them!" cried the Rat, jumping up and running to the door.
It was a pretty sight, and a seasonable one, that met their eyes when they flung the door open. In the fore-court, lit by the dim rays of a horn lantern, some eight or ten little field-mice stood in a semi-circle, red worsted comforters round their throats, their fore-paws thrust deep into their pockets, their feet jigging for warmth. With bright beady eyes they glanced shyly at each other, sniggering a little, sniffing and applying coat-sleeves a good deal.
As the door opened, one of the older ones that carried the lantern was just saying, "Now then, one, two three!" and forthwith their shrill little voices uprose on the air, singing one of the old-time carols that their forefathers composed in fields that were fallow and held be frost, or when snow-bound in chimney corners, and handed down to be sung in the miry street to lamp-lit windows at Yule-time.
From The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
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