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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:14:42 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:14:42 -0700 |
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diff --git a/289-h/289-h.htm b/289-h/289-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ffe8937 --- /dev/null +++ b/289-h/289-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7897 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="utf-8"> +<title>The Wind in the Willows | Project Gutenberg</title> +<link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> +<style> + +body { margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 289 ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<h1>The Wind in the Willows</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Kenneth Grahame</h2> + +<h4>Author Of “The Golden Age,” “Dream Days,” Etc.</h4> + +<hr> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. THE RIVER BANK</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. THE OPEN ROAD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. THE WILD WOOD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. MR. BADGER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. DULCE DOMUM</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. MR. TOAD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. TOAD’S ADVENTURES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. WAYFARERS ALL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF TOAD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. “LIKE SUMMER TEMPESTS CAME HIS TEARS”</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII. THE RETURN OF ULYSSES</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap01"></a>I.<br> +THE RIVER BANK</h2> + +<p> +The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little +home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and +chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat +and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back +and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and +around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of +divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly +flung down his brush on the floor, said “Bother!” and “O +blow!” and also “Hang spring-cleaning!” and bolted out of the +house without even waiting to put on his coat. Something up above was calling +him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his +case to the gravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are +nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and +scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, +working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, “Up we go! +Up we go!” till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and +he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow. +</p> + +<p> +“This is fine!” he said to himself. “This is better than +whitewashing!” The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes caressed +his heated brow, and after the seclusion of the cellarage he had lived in so +long the carol of happy birds fell on his dulled hearing almost like a shout. +Jumping off all his four legs at once, in the joy of living and the delight of +spring without its cleaning, he pursued his way across the meadow till he +reached the hedge on the further side. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold up!” said an elderly rabbit at the gap. “Sixpence for +the privilege of passing by the private road!” He was bowled over in an +instant by the impatient and contemptuous Mole, who trotted along the side of +the hedge chaffing the other rabbits as they peeped hurriedly from their holes +to see what the row was about. “Onion-sauce! Onion-sauce!” he +remarked jeeringly, and was gone before they could think of a thoroughly +satisfactory reply. Then they all started grumbling at each other. “How +<i>stupid</i> you are! Why didn’t you tell him——” “Well, +why didn’t <i>you</i> say——” “You might have reminded +him——” and so on, in the usual way; but, of course, it was +then much too late, as is always the case. +</p> + +<p> +It all seemed too good to be true. Hither and thither through the meadows he +rambled busily, along the hedgerows, across the copses, finding everywhere +birds building, flowers budding, leaves thrusting—everything happy, and +progressive, and occupied. And instead of having an uneasy conscience pricking +him and whispering “whitewash!” he somehow could only feel how +jolly it was to be the only idle dog among all these busy citizens. After all, +the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to +see all the other fellows busy working. +</p> + +<p> +He thought his happiness was complete when, as he meandered aimlessly along, +suddenly he stood by the edge of a full-fed river. Never in his life had he +seen a river before—this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and +chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to +fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and +held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver—glints and gleams and sparkles, +rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, +fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, +by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when +tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a +babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of +the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea. +</p> + +<p> +As he sat on the grass and looked across the river, a dark hole in the bank +opposite, just above the water’s edge, caught his eye, and dreamily he +fell to considering what a nice snug dwelling-place it would make for an animal +with few wants and fond of a bijou riverside residence, above flood level and +remote from noise and dust. As he gazed, something bright and small seemed to +twinkle down in the heart of it, vanished, then twinkled once more like a tiny +star. But it could hardly be a star in such an unlikely situation; and it was +too glittering and small for a glow-worm. Then, as he looked, it winked at him, +and so declared itself to be an eye; and a small face began gradually to grow +up round it, like a frame round a picture. +</p> + +<p> +A brown little face, with whiskers. +</p> + +<p> +A grave round face, with the same twinkle in its eye that had first attracted +his notice. +</p> + +<p> +Small neat ears and thick silky hair. +</p> + +<p> +It was the Water Rat! +</p> + +<p> +Then the two animals stood and regarded each other cautiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, Mole!” said the Water Rat. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, Rat!” said the Mole. +</p> + +<p> +“Would you like to come over?” enquired the Rat presently. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, its all very well to <i>talk</i>,” said the Mole, rather pettishly, +he being new to a river and riverside life and its ways. +</p> + +<p> +The Rat said nothing, but stooped and unfastened a rope and hauled on it; then +lightly stepped into a little boat which the Mole had not observed. It was +painted blue outside and white within, and was just the size for two animals; +and the Mole’s whole heart went out to it at once, even though he did not +yet fully understand its uses. +</p> + +<p> +The Rat sculled smartly across and made fast. Then he held up his forepaw as +the Mole stepped gingerly down. “Lean on that!” he said. “Now +then, step lively!” and the Mole to his surprise and rapture found +himself actually seated in the stern of a real boat. +</p> + +<p> +“This has been a wonderful day!” said he, as the Rat shoved off and +took to the sculls again. “Do you know, I’ve never been in a boat +before in all my life.” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” cried the Rat, open-mouthed: “Never been in +a—you never—well I—what have you been doing, then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it so nice as all that?” asked the Mole shyly, though he was +quite prepared to believe it as he leant back in his seat and surveyed the +cushions, the oars, the rowlocks, and all the fascinating fittings, and felt +the boat sway lightly under him. +</p> + +<p> +“Nice? It’s the <i>only</i> thing,” said the Water Rat solemnly, as +he leant forward for his stroke. “Believe me, my young friend, there is +<i>nothing</i>—absolute nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing +about in boats. Simply messing,” he went on dreamily: +“messing—about—in—boats; messing——” +</p> + +<p> +“Look ahead, Rat!” cried the Mole suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +It was too late. The boat struck the bank full tilt. The dreamer, the joyous +oarsman, lay on his back at the bottom of the boat, his heels in the air. +</p> + +<p> +“—about in boats—or <i>with</i> boats,” the Rat went on +composedly, picking himself up with a pleasant laugh. “In or out of +’em, it doesn’t matter. Nothing seems really to matter, +that’s the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don’t; +whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or +whether you never get anywhere at all, you’re always busy, and you never +do anything in particular; and when you’ve done it there’s always +something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you’d much +better not. Look here! If you’ve really nothing else on hand this +morning, supposing we drop down the river together, and have a long day of +it?” +</p> + +<p> +The Mole waggled his toes from sheer happiness, spread his chest with a sigh of +full contentment, and leaned back blissfully into the soft cushions. +“<i>What</i> a day I’m having!” he said. “Let us start at +once!” +</p> + +<p> +“Hold hard a minute, then!” said the Rat. He looped the painter +through a ring in his landing-stage, climbed up into his hole above, and after +a short interval reappeared staggering under a fat, wicker luncheon-basket. +</p> + +<p> +“Shove that under your feet,” he observed to the Mole, as he passed +it down into the boat. Then he untied the painter and took the sculls again. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s inside it?” asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s cold chicken inside it,” replied the Rat briefly; +“ +coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscresssandwichespottedme +atgingerbeerlemonadesodawater——” +</p> + +<p> +“O stop, stop,” cried the Mole in ecstacies: “This is too +much!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you really think so?” enquired the Rat seriously. +“It’s only what I always take on these little excursions; and the +other animals are always telling me that I’m a mean beast and cut it <i>very</i> +fine!” +</p> + +<p> +The Mole never heard a word he was saying. Absorbed in the new life he was +entering upon, intoxicated with the sparkle, the ripple, the scents and the +sounds and the sunlight, he trailed a paw in the water and dreamed long waking +dreams. The Water Rat, like the good little fellow he was, sculled steadily on +and forebore to disturb him. +</p> + +<p> +“I like your clothes awfully, old chap,” he remarked after some +half an hour or so had passed. “I’m going to get a black velvet +smoking-suit myself some day, as soon as I can afford it.” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” said the Mole, pulling himself together with +an effort. “You must think me very rude; but all this is so new to me. +So—this—is—a—River!” +</p> + +<p> +“<i>The</i> River,” corrected the Rat. +</p> + +<p> +“And you really live by the river? What a jolly life!” +</p> + +<p> +“By it and with it and on it and in it,” said the Rat. +“It’s brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, and food +and drink, and (naturally) washing. It’s my world, and I don’t want +any other. What it hasn’t got is not worth having, and what it +doesn’t know is not worth knowing. Lord! the times we’ve had +together! Whether in winter or summer, spring or autumn, it’s always got +its fun and its excitements. When the floods are on in February, and my cellars +and basement are brimming with drink that’s no good to me, and the brown +water runs by my best bedroom window; or again when it all drops away and, +shows patches of mud that smells like plum-cake, and the rushes and weed clog +the channels, and I can potter about dry shod over most of the bed of it and +find fresh food to eat, and things careless people have dropped out of +boats!” +</p> + +<p> +“But isn’t it a bit dull at times?” the Mole ventured to ask. +“Just you and the river, and no one else to pass a word with?” +</p> + +<p> +“No one else to—well, I mustn’t be hard on you,” said +the Rat with forbearance. “You’re new to it, and of course you +don’t know. The bank is so crowded nowadays that many people are moving +away altogether: O no, it isn’t what it used to be, at all. Otters, +kingfishers, dabchicks, moorhens, all of them about all day long and always +wanting you to <i>do</i> something—as if a fellow had no business of his own to +attend to!” +</p> + +<p> +“What lies over <i>there?</i>” asked the Mole, waving a paw towards a +background of woodland that darkly framed the water-meadows on one side of the +river. +</p> + +<p> +“That? O, that’s just the Wild Wood,” said the Rat shortly. +“We don’t go there very much, we river-bankers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aren’t they—aren’t they very <i>nice</i> people in +there?” said the Mole, a trifle nervously. +</p> + +<p> +“W-e-ll,” replied the Rat, “let me see. The squirrels are all +right. <i>And</i> the rabbits—some of ’em, but rabbits are a mixed lot. +And then there’s Badger, of course. He lives right in the heart of it; +wouldn’t live anywhere else, either, if you paid him to do it. Dear old +Badger! Nobody interferes with <i>him</i>. They’d better not,” he added +significantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, who <i>should</i> interfere with him?” asked the Mole. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, of course—there—are others,” explained the Rat +in a hesitating sort of way. +</p> + +<p> +“Weasels—and stoats—and foxes—and so on. They’re +all right in a way—I’m very good friends with them—pass the +time of day when we meet, and all that—but they break out sometimes, +there’s no denying it, and then—well, you can’t really trust +them, and that’s the fact.” +</p> + +<p> +The Mole knew well that it is quite against animal-etiquette to dwell on +possible trouble ahead, or even to allude to it; so he dropped the subject. +</p> + +<p> +“And beyond the Wild Wood again?” he asked: “Where it’s +all blue and dim, and one sees what may be hills or perhaps they mayn’t, +and something like the smoke of towns, or is it only cloud-drift?” +</p> + +<p> +“Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,” said the Rat. +“And that’s something that doesn’t matter, either to you or +me. I’ve never been there, and I’m never going, nor you either, if +you’ve got any sense at all. Don’t ever refer to it again, please. +Now then! Here’s our backwater at last, where we’re going to +lunch.” +</p> + +<p> +Leaving the main stream, they now passed into what seemed at first sight like a +little land-locked lake. Green turf sloped down to either edge, brown snaky +tree-roots gleamed below the surface of the quiet water, while ahead of them +the silvery shoulder and foamy tumble of a weir, arm-in-arm with a restless +dripping mill-wheel, that held up in its turn a grey-gabled mill-house, filled +the air with a soothing murmur of sound, dull and smothery, yet with little +clear voices speaking up cheerfully out of it at intervals. It was so very +beautiful that the Mole could only hold up both forepaws and gasp, “O my! +O my! O my!” +</p> + +<p> +The Rat brought the boat alongside the bank, made her fast, helped the still +awkward Mole safely ashore, and swung out the luncheon-basket. The Mole begged +as a favour to be allowed to unpack it all by himself; and the Rat was very +pleased to indulge him, and to sprawl at full length on the grass and rest, +while his excited friend shook out the table-cloth and spread it, took out all +the mysterious packets one by one and arranged their contents in due order, +still gasping, “O my! O my!” at each fresh revelation. When all was +ready, the Rat said, “Now, pitch in, old fellow!” and the Mole was +indeed very glad to obey, for he had started his spring-cleaning at a very +early hour that morning, as people <i>will</i> do, and had not paused for bite or sup; +and he had been through a very great deal since that distant time which now +seemed so many days ago. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you looking at?” said the Rat presently, when the edge of +their hunger was somewhat dulled, and the Mole’s eyes were able to wander +off the table-cloth a little. +</p> + +<p> +“I am looking,” said the Mole, “at a streak of bubbles that I +see travelling along the surface of the water. That is a thing that strikes me +as funny.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bubbles? Oho!” said the Rat, and chirruped cheerily in an inviting +sort of way. +</p> + +<p> +A broad glistening muzzle showed itself above the edge of the bank, and the +Otter hauled himself out and shook the water from his coat. +</p> + +<p> +“Greedy beggars!” he observed, making for the provender. “Why +didn’t you invite me, Ratty?” +</p> + +<p> +“This was an impromptu affair,” explained the Rat. “By the +way—my friend Mr. Mole.” +</p> + +<p> +“Proud, I’m sure,” said the Otter, and the two animals were +friends forthwith. +</p> + +<p> +“Such a rumpus everywhere!” continued the Otter. “All the +world seems out on the river to-day. I came up this backwater to try and get a +moment’s peace, and then stumble upon you fellows!—At least—I +beg pardon—I don’t exactly mean that, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a rustle behind them, proceeding from a hedge wherein last +year’s leaves still clung thick, and a stripy head, with high shoulders +behind it, peered forth on them. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, old Badger!” shouted the Rat. +</p> + +<p> +The Badger trotted forward a pace or two; then grunted, “H’m! +Company,” and turned his back and disappeared from view. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s <i>just</i> the sort of fellow he is!” observed the +disappointed Rat. “Simply hates Society! Now we shan’t see any more +of him to-day. Well, tell us, <i>who’s</i> out on the river?” +</p> + +<p> +“Toad’s out, for one,” replied the Otter. “In his +brand-new wager-boat; new togs, new everything!” +</p> + +<p> +The two animals looked at each other and laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Once, it was nothing but sailing,” said the Rat, “Then he +tired of that and took to punting. Nothing would please him but to punt all day +and every day, and a nice mess he made of it. Last year it was house-boating, +and we all had to go and stay with him in his house-boat, and pretend we liked +it. He was going to spend the rest of his life in a house-boat. It’s all +the same, whatever he takes up; he gets tired of it, and starts on something +fresh.” +</p> + +<p> +“Such a good fellow, too,” remarked the Otter reflectively: +“But no stability—especially in a boat!” +</p> + +<p> +From where they sat they could get a glimpse of the main stream across the +island that separated them; and just then a wager-boat flashed into view, the +rower—a short, stout figure—splashing badly and rolling a good +deal, but working his hardest. The Rat stood up and hailed him, but +Toad—for it was he—shook his head and settled sternly to his work. +</p> + +<p> +“He’ll be out of the boat in a minute if he rolls like that,” +said the Rat, sitting down again. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course he will,” chuckled the Otter. “Did I ever tell you +that good story about Toad and the lock-keeper? It happened this way. +Toad....” +</p> + +<p> +An errant May-fly swerved unsteadily athwart the current in the intoxicated +fashion affected by young bloods of May-flies seeing life. A swirl of water and +a “cloop!” and the May-fly was visible no more. +</p> + +<p> +Neither was the Otter. +</p> + +<p> +The Mole looked down. The voice was still in his ears, but the turf whereon he +had sprawled was clearly vacant. Not an Otter to be seen, as far as the distant +horizon. +</p> + +<p> +But again there was a streak of bubbles on the surface of the river. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“O, please let me,” said the Mole. So, of course, the Rat let him. +</p> + +<p> +Packing the basket was not quite such pleasant work as unpacking the +basket. It never is. But the Mole was bent on enjoying everything, and although +just when he had got the basket packed and strapped up tightly he saw a plate +staring up at him from the grass, and when the job had been done again the Rat +pointed out a fork which anybody ought to have seen, and last of all, behold! +the mustard pot, which he had been sitting on without knowing it—still, +somehow, the thing got finished at last, without much loss of temper. +</p> + +<p> +The afternoon sun was getting low as the Rat sculled gently homewards in a +dreamy mood, murmuring poetry-things over to himself, and not paying much +attention to Mole. But the Mole was very full of lunch, and self-satisfaction, +and pride, and already quite at home in a boat (so he thought) and was getting +a bit restless besides: and presently he said, “Ratty! Please, <i>I</i> +want to row, now!” +</p> + +<p> +The Rat shook his head with a smile. “Not yet, my young friend,” he +said—“wait till you’ve had a few lessons. It’s not so +easy as it looks.” +</p> + +<p> +The Mole was quiet for a minute or two. But he began to feel more and more +jealous of Rat, sculling so strongly and so easily along, and his pride began +to whisper that he could do it every bit as well. He jumped up and seized the +sculls, so suddenly, that the Rat, who was gazing out over the water and saying +more poetry-things to himself, was taken by surprise and fell backwards off his +seat with his legs in the air for the second time, while the triumphant Mole +took his place and grabbed the sculls with entire confidence. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop it, you <i>silly</i> ass!” cried the Rat, from the bottom of the +boat. “You can’t do it! You’ll have us over!” +</p> + +<p> +The Mole flung his sculls back with a flourish, and made a great dig at the +water. He missed the surface altogether, his legs flew up above his head, and +he found himself lying on the top of the prostrate Rat. Greatly alarmed, he +made a grab at the side of the boat, and the next moment—Sploosh! +</p> + +<p> +Over went the boat, and he found himself struggling in the river. +</p> + +<p> +O my, how cold the water was, and O, how <i>very</i> wet it felt. How it sang in his +ears as he went down, down, down! How bright and welcome the sun looked as he +rose to the surface coughing and spluttering! How black was his despair when he +felt himself sinking again! Then a firm paw gripped him by the back of his +neck. It was the Rat, and he was evidently laughing—the Mole could <i>feel</i> +him laughing, right down his arm and through his paw, and so into his—the +Mole’s—neck. +</p> + +<p> +The Rat got hold of a scull and shoved it under the Mole’s arm; then he +did the same by the other side of him and, swimming behind, propelled the +helpless animal to shore, hauled him out, and set him down on the bank, a +squashy, pulpy lump of misery. +</p> + +<p> +When the Rat had rubbed him down a bit, and wrung some of the wet out of him, +he said, “Now, then, old fellow! Trot up and down the towing-path as hard +as you can, till you’re warm and dry again, while I dive for the +luncheon-basket.” +</p> + +<p> +So the dismal Mole, wet without and ashamed within, trotted about till he was +fairly dry, while the Rat plunged into the water again, recovered the boat, +righted her and made her fast, fetched his floating property to shore by +degrees, and finally dived successfully for the luncheon-basket and struggled +to land with it. +</p> + +<p> +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. Indeed, I have been a +complete ass, and I know it. Will you overlook it this once and forgive me, and +let things go on as before?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all right, bless you!” responded the Rat cheerily. +“What’s a little wet to a Water Rat? I’m more in the water +than out of it most days. Don’t you think any more about it; and, look +here! I really think you had better come and stop with me for a little time. +It’s very plain and rough, you know—not like Toad’s house at +all—but you haven’t seen that yet; still, I can make you +comfortable. And I’ll teach you to row, and to swim, and you’ll +soon be as handy on the water as any of us.” +</p> + +<p> +The Mole was so touched by his kind manner of speaking that he could find no +voice to answer him; and he had to brush away a tear or two with the back of +his paw. But the Rat kindly looked in another direction, and presently the +Mole’s spirits revived again, and he was even able to give some straight +back-talk to a couple of moorhens who were sniggering to each other about his +bedraggled appearance. +</p> + +<p> +When they got home, the Rat made a bright fire in the parlour, and planted the +Mole in an arm-chair in front of it, having fetched down a dressing-gown and +slippers for him, and told him river stories till supper-time. Very thrilling +stories they were, too, to an earth-dwelling animal like Mole. Stories about +weirs, and sudden floods, and leaping pike, and steamers that flung hard +bottles—at least bottles were certainly flung, and <i>from</i> steamers, so +presumably <i>by</i> them; and about herons, and how particular they were whom they +spoke to; and about adventures down drains, and night-fishings with Otter, or +excursions far a-field with Badger. Supper was a most cheerful meal; but very +shortly afterwards a terribly sleepy Mole had to be escorted upstairs by his +considerate host, to the best bedroom, where he soon laid his head on his +pillow in great peace and contentment, knowing that his new-found friend the +River was lapping the sill of his window. +</p> + +<p> +This day was only the first of many similar ones for the emancipated Mole, each +of them longer and full of interest as the ripening summer moved onward. He +learnt to swim and to row, and entered into the joy of running water; and with +his ear to the reed-stems he caught, at intervals, something of what the wind +went whispering so constantly among them. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap02"></a>II.<br> +THE OPEN ROAD</h2> + +<p> +“Ratty,” said the Mole suddenly, one bright summer morning, +“if you please, I want to ask you a favour.” +</p> + +<p> +The Rat was sitting on the river bank, singing a little song. He had just +composed it himself, so he was very taken up with it, and would not pay proper +attention to Mole or anything else. Since early morning he had been swimming in +the river, in company with his friends the ducks. And when the ducks stood on +their heads suddenly, as ducks will, he would dive down and tickle their necks, +just under where their chins would be if ducks had chins, till they were forced +to come to the surface again in a hurry, spluttering and angry and shaking +their feathers at him, for it is impossible to say quite <i>all</i> you feel when your +head is under water. At last they implored him to go away and attend to his own +affairs and leave them to mind theirs. So the Rat went away, and sat on the +river bank in the sun, and made up a song about them, which he called +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“DUCKS’ DITTY.”<br> +<br> +All along the backwater,<br> +Through the rushes tall,<br> +Ducks are a-dabbling,<br> +Up tails all!<br> +Ducks’ tails, drakes’ tails,<br> +Yellow feet a-quiver,<br> +Yellow bills all out of sight<br> +Busy in the river!<br> +<br> +Slushy green undergrowth<br> +Where the roach swim—<br> +Here we keep our larder,<br> +Cool and full and dim.<br> +<br> +Everyone for what he likes!<br> +<i>We</i> like to be<br> +Heads down, tails up,<br> +Dabbling free!<br> +<br> +High in the blue above<br> +Swifts whirl and call—<br> +<i>We</i> are down a-dabbling<br> +Uptails all! +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know that I think so <i>very</i> much of that little song, +Rat,” observed the Mole cautiously. He was no poet himself and +didn’t care who knew it; and he had a candid nature. +</p> + +<p> +“Nor don’t the ducks neither,” replied the Rat cheerfully. +“They say, ‘<i>Why</i> can’t fellows be allowed to do what they like +<i>when</i> they like and <i>as</i> they like, instead of other fellows sitting on banks and +watching them all the time and making remarks and poetry and things about them? +What <i>nonsense</i> it all is!’ That’s what the ducks say.” +</p> + +<p> +“So it is, so it is,” said the Mole, with great heartiness. +</p> + +<p> +“No, it isn’t!” cried the Rat indignantly. +</p> + +<p> +“Well then, it isn’t, it isn’t,” replied the Mole +soothingly. “But what I wanted to ask you was, won’t you take me to +call on Mr. Toad? I’ve heard so much about him, and I do so want to make +his acquaintance.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, certainly,” said the good-natured Rat, jumping to his feet +and dismissing poetry from his mind for the day. “Get the boat out, and +we’ll paddle up there at once. It’s never the wrong time to call on +Toad. Early or late he’s always the same fellow. Always good-tempered, +always glad to see you, always sorry when you go!” +</p> + +<p> +“He must be a very nice animal,” observed the Mole, as he got into +the boat and took the sculls, while the Rat settled himself comfortably in the +stern. +</p> + +<p> +“He is indeed the best of animals,” replied Rat. “So simple, +so good-natured, and so affectionate. Perhaps he’s not very +clever—we can’t all be geniuses; and it may be that he is both +boastful and conceited. But he has got some great qualities, has Toady.” +</p> + +<p> +Rounding a bend in the river, they came in sight of a handsome, dignified old +house of mellowed red brick, with well-kept lawns reaching down to the +water’s edge. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s Toad Hall,” said the Rat; “and that creek on +the left, where the notice-board says, ‘Private. No landing +allowed,’ leads to his boat-house, where we’ll leave the boat. The +stables are over there to the right. That’s the banqueting-hall +you’re looking at now—very old, that is. Toad is rather rich, you +know, and this is really one of the nicest houses in these parts, though we +never admit as much to Toad.” +</p> + +<p> +They glided up the creek, and the Mole shipped his sculls as they passed into +the shadow of a large boat-house. Here they saw many handsome boats, slung from +the cross beams or hauled up on a slip, but none in the water; and the place +had an unused and a deserted air. +</p> + +<p> +The Rat looked around him. “I understand,” said he. “Boating +is played out. He’s tired of it, and done with it. I wonder what new fad +he has taken up now? Come along and let’s look him up. We shall hear all +about it quite soon enough.” +</p> + +<p> +They disembarked, and strolled across the gay flower-decked lawns in search of +Toad, whom they presently happened upon resting in a wicker garden-chair, with +a pre-occupied expression of face, and a large map spread out on his knees. +</p> + +<p> +“Hooray!” he cried, jumping up on seeing them, “this is +splendid!” He shook the paws of both of them warmly, never waiting for an +introduction to the Mole. “How <i>kind</i> of you!” he went on, dancing +round them. “I was just going to send a boat down the river for you, +Ratty, with strict orders that you were to be fetched up here at once, whatever +you were doing. I want you badly—both of you. Now what will you take? +Come inside and have something! You don’t know how lucky it is, your +turning up just now!” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s sit quiet a bit, Toady!” said the Rat, throwing +himself into an easy chair, while the Mole took another by the side of him and +made some civil remark about Toad’s “delightful residence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Finest house on the whole river,” cried Toad boisterously. +“Or anywhere else, for that matter,” he could not help adding. +</p> + +<p> +Here the Rat nudged the Mole. Unfortunately the Toad saw him do it, and turned +very red. There was a moment’s painful silence. Then Toad burst out +laughing. “All right, Ratty,” he said. “It’s only my +way, you know. And it’s not such a very bad house, is it? You know you +rather like it yourself. Now, look here. Let’s be sensible. You are the +very animals I wanted. You’ve got to help me. It’s most +important!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s about your rowing, I suppose,” said the Rat, with an +innocent air. “You’re getting on fairly well, though you splash a +good bit still. With a great deal of patience, and any quantity of coaching, +you may——” +</p> + +<p> +“O, pooh! boating!” interrupted the Toad, in great disgust. +“Silly boyish amusement. I’ve given that up <i>long</i> ago. Sheer waste +of time, that’s what it is. It makes me downright sorry to see you +fellows, who ought to know better, spending all your energies in that aimless +manner. No, I’ve discovered the real thing, the only genuine occupation +for a life time. I propose to devote the remainder of mine to it, and can only +regret the wasted years that lie behind me, squandered in trivialities. Come +with me, dear Ratty, and your amiable friend also, if he will be so very good, +just as far as the stable-yard, and you shall see what you shall see!” +</p> + +<p> +He led the way to the stable-yard accordingly, the Rat following with a most +mistrustful expression; and there, drawn out of the coach house into the open, +they saw a gipsy caravan, shining with newness, painted a canary-yellow picked +out with green, and red wheels. +</p> + +<p> +“There you are!” cried the Toad, straddling and expanding himself. +“There’s real life for you, embodied in that little cart. The open +road, the dusty highway, the heath, the common, the hedgerows, the rolling +downs! Camps, villages, towns, cities! Here to-day, up and off to somewhere +else to-morrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement! The whole world before +you, and a horizon that’s always changing! And mind! this is the very +finest cart of its sort that was ever built, without any exception. Come inside +and look at the arrangements. Planned ’em all myself, I did!” +</p> + +<p> +The Mole was tremendously interested and excited, and followed him eagerly up +the steps and into the interior of the caravan. The Rat only snorted and thrust +his hands deep into his pockets, remaining where he was. +</p> + +<p> +It was indeed very compact and comfortable. Little sleeping bunks—a +little table that folded up against the wall—a cooking-stove, lockers, +bookshelves, a bird-cage with a bird in it; and pots, pans, jugs and kettles of +every size and variety. +</p> + +<p> +“All complete!” said the Toad triumphantly, pulling open a locker. +“You see—biscuits, potted lobster, sardines—everything you +can possibly want. Soda-water here—baccy there—letter-paper, bacon, +jam, cards and dominoes—you’ll find,” he continued, as they +descended the steps again, “you’ll find that nothing what ever has +been forgotten, when we make our start this afternoon.” +</p> + +<p> +“I beg your pardon,” said the Rat slowly, as he chewed a straw, +“but did I overhear you say something about ‘<i>we</i>,’ and +‘<i>start</i>,’ and ‘<i>this afternoon?</i>’” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, you dear good old Ratty,” said Toad, imploringly, +“don’t begin talking in that stiff and sniffy sort of way, because +you know you’ve <i>got</i> to come. I can’t possibly manage without you, +so please consider it settled, and don’t argue—it’s the one +thing I can’t stand. You surely don’t mean to stick to your dull +fusty old river all your life, and just live in a hole in a bank, and <i>boat?</i> I +want to show you the world! I’m going to make an <i>animal</i> of you, my +boy!” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t care,” said the Rat, doggedly. “I’m not +coming, and that’s flat. And I <i>am</i> going to stick to my old river, <i>and</i> +live in a hole, <i>and</i> boat, as I’ve always done. And what’s more, +Mole’s going to stick to me and do as I do, aren’t you, +Mole?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I am,” said the Mole, loyally. “I’ll always +stick to you, Rat, and what you say is to be—has got to be. All the same, +it sounds as if it might have been—well, rather fun, you know!” he +added, wistfully. Poor Mole! The Life Adventurous was so new a thing to him, +and so thrilling; and this fresh aspect of it was so tempting; and he had +fallen in love at first sight with the canary-coloured cart and all its little +fitments. +</p> + +<p> +The Rat saw what was passing in his mind, and wavered. He hated disappointing +people, and he was fond of the Mole, and would do almost anything to oblige +him. Toad was watching both of them closely. +</p> + +<p> +“Come along in, and have some lunch,” he said, diplomatically, +“and we’ll talk it over. We needn’t decide anything in a +hurry. Of course, <i>I</i> don’t really care. I only want to give +pleasure to you fellows. ‘Live for others!’ That’s my motto +in life.” +</p> + +<p> +During luncheon—which was excellent, of course, as everything at Toad +Hall always was—the Toad simply let himself go. Disregarding the Rat, he +proceeded to play upon the inexperienced Mole as on a harp. Naturally a voluble +animal, and always mastered by his imagination, he painted the prospects of the +trip and the joys of the open life and the roadside in such glowing colours +that the Mole could hardly sit in his chair for excitement. Somehow, it soon +seemed taken for granted by all three of them that the trip was a settled +thing; and the Rat, though still unconvinced in his mind, allowed his +good-nature to over-ride his personal objections. He could not bear to +disappoint his two friends, who were already deep in schemes and anticipations, +planning out each day’s separate occupation for several weeks ahead. +</p> + +<p> +When they were quite ready, the now triumphant Toad led his companions to the +paddock and set them to capture the old grey horse, who, without having been +consulted, and to his own extreme annoyance, had been told off by Toad for the +dustiest job in this dusty expedition. He frankly preferred the paddock, and +took a deal of catching. Meantime Toad packed the lockers still tighter with +necessaries, and hung nosebags, nets of onions, bundles of hay, and baskets +from the bottom of the cart. At last the horse was caught and harnessed, and +they set off, all talking at once, each animal either trudging by the side of +the cart or sitting on the shaft, as the humour took him. It was a golden +afternoon. The smell of the dust they kicked up was rich and satisfying; out of +thick orchards on either side the road, birds called and whistled to them +cheerily; good-natured wayfarers, passing them, gave them +“Good-day,” or stopped to say nice things about their beautiful +cart; and rabbits, sitting at their front doors in the hedgerows, held up their +fore-paws, and said, “O my! O my! O my!” +</p> + +<p> +Late in the evening, tired and happy and miles from home, they drew up on a +remote common far from habitations, turned the horse loose to graze, and ate +their simple supper sitting on the grass by the side of the cart. Toad talked +big about all he was going to do in the days to come, while stars grew fuller +and larger all around them, and a yellow moon, appearing suddenly and silently +from nowhere in particular, came to keep them company and listen to their talk. +At last they turned in to their little bunks in the cart; and Toad, kicking out +his legs, sleepily said, “Well, good night, you fellows! This is the real +life for a gentleman! Talk about your old river!” +</p> + +<p> +“I <i>don’t</i> talk about my river,” replied the patient Rat. +“You <i>know</i> I don’t, Toad. But I <i>think</i> about it,” he added +pathetically, in a lower tone: “I think about it—all the +time!” +</p> + +<p> +The Mole reached out from under his blanket, felt for the Rat’s paw in +the darkness, and gave it a squeeze. “I’ll do whatever you like, +Ratty,” he whispered. “Shall we run away to-morrow morning, quite +early—<i>very</i> early—and go back to our dear old hole on the +river?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, we’ll see it out,” whispered back the Rat. +“Thanks awfully, but I ought to stick by Toad till this trip is ended. It +wouldn’t be safe for him to be left to himself. It won’t take very +long. His fads never do. Good night!” +</p> + +<p> +The end was indeed nearer than even the Rat suspected. +</p> + +<p> +After so much open air and excitement the Toad slept very soundly, and no +amount of shaking could rouse him out of bed next morning. So the Mole and Rat +turned to, quietly and manfully, and while the Rat saw to the horse, and lit a +fire, and cleaned last night’s cups and platters, and got things ready +for breakfast, the Mole trudged off to the nearest village, a long way off, for +milk and eggs and various necessaries the Toad had, of course, forgotten to +provide. The hard work had all been done, and the two animals were resting, +thoroughly exhausted, by the time Toad appeared on the scene, fresh and gay, +remarking what a pleasant easy life it was they were all leading now, after the +cares and worries and fatigues of housekeeping at home. +</p> + +<p> +They had a pleasant ramble that day over grassy downs and along narrow +by-lanes, and camped as before, on a common, only this time the two guests took +care that Toad should do his fair share of work. In consequence, when the time +came for starting next morning, Toad was by no means so rapturous about the +simplicity of the primitive life, and indeed attempted to resume his place in +his bunk, whence he was hauled by force. Their way lay, as before, across +country by narrow lanes, and it was not till the afternoon that they came out +on the high-road, their first high-road; and there disaster, fleet and +unforeseen, sprang out on them—disaster momentous indeed to their +expedition, but simply overwhelming in its effect on the after-career of Toad. +</p> + +<p> +They were strolling along the high-road easily, the Mole by the horse’s +head, talking to him, since the horse had complained that he was being +frightfully left out of it, and nobody considered him in the least; the Toad +and the Water Rat walking behind the cart talking together—at least Toad +was talking, and Rat was saying at intervals, “Yes, precisely; and what +did <i>you</i> say to <i>him?</i>”—and thinking all the time of something very +different, when far behind them they heard a faint warning hum; like the drone +of a distant bee. Glancing back, they saw a small cloud of dust, with a dark +centre of energy, advancing on them at incredible speed, while from out the +dust a faint “Poop-poop!” wailed like an uneasy animal in pain. +Hardly regarding it, they turned to resume their conversation, when in an +instant (as it seemed) the peaceful scene was changed, and with a blast of wind +and a whirl of sound that made them jump for the nearest ditch, It was on them! +The “Poop-poop” rang with a brazen shout in their ears, they had a +moment’s glimpse of an interior of glittering plate-glass and rich +morocco, and the magnificent motor-car, immense, breath-snatching, passionate, +with its pilot tense and hugging his wheel, possessed all earth and air for the +fraction of a second, flung an enveloping cloud of dust that blinded and +enwrapped them utterly, and then dwindled to a speck in the far distance, +changed back into a droning bee once more. +</p> + +<p> +The old grey horse, dreaming, as he plodded along, of his quiet paddock, in a +new raw situation such as this simply abandoned himself to his natural +emotions. Rearing, plunging, backing steadily, in spite of all the Mole’s +efforts at his head, and all the Mole’s lively language directed at his +better feelings, he drove the cart backwards towards the deep ditch at the side +of the road. It wavered an instant—then there was a heartrending +crash—and the canary-coloured cart, their pride and their joy, lay on its +side in the ditch, an irredeemable wreck. +</p> + +<p> +The Rat danced up and down in the road, simply transported with passion. +“You villains!” he shouted, shaking both fists, “You +scoundrels, you highwaymen, you—you—roadhogs!—I’ll have +the law of you! I’ll report you! I’ll take you through all the +Courts!” His home-sickness had quite slipped away from him, and for the +moment he was the skipper of the canary-coloured vessel driven on a shoal by +the reckless jockeying of rival mariners, and he was trying to recollect all +the fine and biting things he used to say to masters of steam-launches when +their wash, as they drove too near the bank, used to flood his parlour-carpet +at home. +</p> + +<p> +Toad sat straight down in the middle of the dusty road, his legs stretched out +before him, and stared fixedly in the direction of the disappearing motor-car. +He breathed short, his face wore a placid satisfied expression, and at +intervals he faintly murmured “Poop-poop!” +</p> + +<p> +The Mole was busy trying to quiet the horse, which he succeeded in doing after +a time. Then he went to look at the cart, on its side in the ditch. It was +indeed a sorry sight. Panels and windows smashed, axles hopelessly bent, one +wheel off, sardine-tins scattered over the wide world, and the bird in the +bird-cage sobbing pitifully and calling to be let out. +</p> + +<p> +The Rat came to help him, but their united efforts were not sufficient to right +the cart. “Hi! Toad!” they cried. “Come and bear a hand, +can’t you!” +</p> + +<p> +The Toad never answered a word, or budged from his seat in the road; so they +went to see what was the matter with him. They found him in a sort of a trance, +a happy smile on his face, his eyes still fixed on the dusty wake of their +destroyer. At intervals he was still heard to murmur “Poop-poop!” +</p> + +<p> +The Rat shook him by the shoulder. “Are you coming to help us, +Toad?” he demanded sternly. +</p> + +<p> +“Glorious, stirring sight!” murmured Toad, never offering to move. +“The poetry of motion! The <i>real</i> way to travel! The <i>only</i> way to travel! +Here to-day—in next week to-morrow! Villages skipped, towns and cities +jumped—always somebody else’s horizon! O bliss! O poop-poop! O my! +O my!” +</p> + +<p> +“O <i>stop</i> being an ass, Toad!” cried the Mole despairingly. +</p> + +<p> +“And to think I never <i>knew!</i>” went on the Toad in a dreamy monotone. +“All those wasted years that lie behind me, I never knew, never even +<i>dreamt!</i> But <i>now</i>—but now that I know, now that I fully realise! O what a +flowery track lies spread before me, henceforth! What dust-clouds shall spring +up behind me as I speed on my reckless way! What carts I shall fling carelessly +into the ditch in the wake of my magnificent onset! Horrid little +carts—common carts—canary-coloured carts!” +</p> + +<p> +“What are we to do with him?” asked the Mole of the Water Rat. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing at all,” replied the Rat firmly. “Because there is +really nothing to be done. You see, I know him from of old. He is now +possessed. He has got a new craze, and it always takes him that way, in its +first stage. He’ll continue like that for days now, like an animal +walking in a happy dream, quite useless for all practical purposes. Never mind +him. Let’s go and see what there is to be done about the cart.” +</p> + +<p> +A careful inspection showed them that, even if they succeeded in righting it by +themselves, the cart would travel no longer. The axles were in a hopeless +state, and the missing wheel was shattered into pieces. +</p> + +<p> +The Rat knotted the horse’s reins over his back and took him by the head, +carrying the bird cage and its hysterical occupant in the other hand. +“Come on!” he said grimly to the Mole. “It’s five or +six miles to the nearest town, and we shall just have to walk it. The sooner we +make a start the better.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what about Toad?” asked the Mole anxiously, as they set off +together. “We can’t leave him here, sitting in the middle of the +road by himself, in the distracted state he’s in! It’s not safe. +Supposing another Thing were to come along?” +</p> + +<p> +“O, <i>bother</i> Toad,” said the Rat savagely; “I’ve done +with him!” +</p> + +<p> +They had not proceeded very far on their way, however, when there was a +pattering of feet behind them, and Toad caught them up and thrust a paw inside +the elbow of each of them; still breathing short and staring into vacancy. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, look here, Toad!” said the Rat sharply: “as soon as we +get to the town, you’ll have to go straight to the police-station, and +see if they know anything about that motor-car and who it belongs to, and lodge +a complaint against it. And then you’ll have to go to a +blacksmith’s or a wheelwright’s and arrange for the cart to be +fetched and mended and put to rights. It’ll take time, but it’s not +quite a hopeless smash. Meanwhile, the Mole and I will go to an inn and find +comfortable rooms where we can stay till the cart’s ready, and till your +nerves have recovered their shock.” +</p> + +<p> +“Police-station! Complaint!” murmured Toad dreamily. “Me +<i>complain</i> of that beautiful, that heavenly vision that has been vouchsafed me! +<i>Mend</i> the <i>cart!</i> I’ve done with carts for ever. I never want to see the +cart, or to hear of it, again. O, Ratty! You can’t think how obliged I am +to you for consenting to come on this trip! I wouldn’t have gone without +you, and then I might never have seen that—that swan, that sunbeam, that +thunderbolt! I might never have heard that entrancing sound, or smelt that +bewitching smell! I owe it all to you, my best of friends!” +</p> + +<p> +The Rat turned from him in despair. “You see what it is?” he said +to the Mole, addressing him across Toad’s head: “He’s quite +hopeless. I give it up—when we get to the town we’ll go to the +railway station, and with luck we may pick up a train there that’ll get +us back to riverbank to-night. And if ever you catch me going a-pleasuring with +this provoking animal again!”—He snorted, and during the rest of +that weary trudge addressed his remarks exclusively to Mole. +</p> + +<p> +On reaching the town they went straight to the station and deposited Toad in +the second-class waiting-room, giving a porter twopence to keep a strict eye on +him. They then left the horse at an inn stable, and gave what directions they +could about the cart and its contents. Eventually, a slow train having landed +them at a station not very far from Toad Hall, they escorted the spell-bound, +sleep-walking Toad to his door, put him inside it, and instructed his +housekeeper to feed him, undress him, and put him to bed. Then they got out +their boat from the boat-house, sculled down the river home, and at a very late +hour sat down to supper in their own cosy riverside parlour, to the Rat’s +great joy and contentment. +</p> + +<p> +The following evening the Mole, who had risen late and taken things very easy +all day, was sitting on the bank fishing, when the Rat, who had been looking up +his friends and gossiping, came strolling along to find him. “Heard the +news?” he said. “There’s nothing else being talked about, all +along the river bank. Toad went up to Town by an early train this morning. And +he has ordered a large and very expensive motor-car.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap03"></a>III.<br> +THE WILD WOOD</h2> + +<p> +The Mole had long wanted to make the acquaintance of the Badger. He seemed, by +all accounts, to be such an important personage and, though rarely visible, to +make his unseen influence felt by everybody about the place. But whenever the +Mole mentioned his wish to the Water Rat he always found himself put off. +“It’s all right,” the Rat would say. “Badger’ll +turn up some day or other—he’s always turning up—and then +I’ll introduce you. The best of fellows! But you must not only take him +<i>as</i> you find him, but <i>when</i> you find him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t you ask him here dinner or something?” said the +Mole. +</p> + +<p> +“He wouldn’t come,” replied the Rat simply. “Badger +hates Society, and invitations, and dinner, and all that sort of thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, supposing we go and call on <i>him?</i>” suggested the Mole. +</p> + +<p> +“O, I’m sure he wouldn’t like that at <i>all</i>,” said the +Rat, quite alarmed. “He’s so very shy, he’d be sure to be +offended. I’ve never even ventured to call on him at his own home myself, +though I know him so well. Besides, we can’t. It’s quite out of the +question, because he lives in the very middle of the Wild Wood.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, supposing he does,” said the Mole. “You told me the +Wild Wood was all right, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, I know, I know, so it is,” replied the Rat evasively. +“But I think we won’t go there just now. Not <i>just</i> yet. It’s a +long way, and he wouldn’t be at home at this time of year anyhow, and +he’ll be coming along some day, if you’ll wait quietly.” +</p> + +<p> +The Mole had to be content with this. But the Badger never came along, and +every day brought its amusements, and it was not till summer was long over, and +cold and frost and miry ways kept them much indoors, and the swollen river +raced past outside their windows with a speed that mocked at boating of any +sort or kind, that he found his thoughts dwelling again with much persistence +on the solitary grey Badger, who lived his own life by himself, in his hole in +the middle of the Wild Wood. +</p> + +<p> +In the winter time the Rat slept a great deal, retiring early and rising late. +During his short day he sometimes scribbled poetry or did other small domestic +jobs about the house; and, of course, there were always animals dropping in for +a chat, and consequently there was a good deal of story-telling and comparing +notes on the past summer and all its doings. +</p> + +<p> +Such a rich chapter it had been, when one came to look back on it all! With +illustrations so numerous and so very highly coloured! The pageant of the river +bank had marched steadily along, unfolding itself in scene-pictures that +succeeded each other in stately procession. Purple loosestrife arrived early, +shaking luxuriant tangled locks along the edge of the mirror whence its own +face laughed back at it. Willow-herb, tender and wistful, like a pink sunset +cloud, was not slow to follow. Comfrey, the purple hand-in-hand with the white, +crept forth to take its place in the line; and at last one morning the +diffident and delaying dog-rose stepped delicately on the stage, and one knew, +as if string-music had announced it in stately chords that strayed into a +gavotte, that June at last was here. One member of the company was still +awaited; the shepherd-boy for the nymphs to woo, the knight for whom the ladies +waited at the window, the prince that was to kiss the sleeping summer back to +life and love. But when meadow-sweet, debonair and odorous in amber jerkin, +moved graciously to his place in the group, then the play was ready to begin. +</p> + +<p> +And what a play it had been! Drowsy animals, snug in their holes while wind and +rain were battering at their doors, recalled still keen mornings, an hour +before sunrise, when the white mist, as yet undispersed, clung closely along +the surface of the water; then the shock of the early plunge, the scamper along +the bank, and the radiant transformation of earth, air, and water, when +suddenly the sun was with them again, and grey was gold and colour was born and +sprang out of the earth once more. They recalled the languorous siesta of hot +mid-day, deep in green undergrowth, the sun striking through in tiny golden +shafts and spots; the boating and bathing of the afternoon, the rambles along +dusty lanes and through yellow cornfields; and the long, cool evening at last, +when so many threads were gathered up, so many friendships rounded, and so many +adventures planned for the morrow. There was plenty to talk about on those +short winter days when the animals found themselves round the fire; still, the +Mole had a good deal of spare time on his hands, and so one afternoon, when the +Rat in his arm-chair before the blaze was alternately dozing and trying over +rhymes that wouldn’t fit, he formed the resolution to go out by himself +and explore the Wild Wood, and perhaps strike up an acquaintance with Mr. +Badger. +</p> + +<p> +It was a cold still afternoon with a hard steely sky overhead, when he slipped +out of the warm parlour into the open air. The country lay bare and entirely +leafless around him, and he thought that he had never seen so far and so +intimately into the insides of things as on that winter day when Nature was +deep in her annual slumber and seemed to have kicked the clothes off. Copses, +dells, quarries and all hidden places, which had been mysterious mines for +exploration in leafy summer, now exposed themselves and their secrets +pathetically, and seemed to ask him to overlook their shabby poverty for a +while, till they could riot in rich masquerade as before, and trick and entice +him with the old deceptions. It was pitiful in a way, and yet +cheering—even exhilarating. He was glad that he liked the country +undecorated, hard, and stripped of its finery. He had got down to the bare +bones of it, and they were fine and strong and simple. He did not want the warm +clover and the play of seeding grasses; the screens of quickset, the billowy +drapery of beech and elm seemed best away; and with great cheerfulness of +spirit he pushed on towards the Wild Wood, which lay before him low and +threatening, like a black reef in some still southern sea. +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing to alarm him at first entry. Twigs crackled under his feet, +logs tripped him, funguses on stumps resembled caricatures, and startled him +for the moment by their likeness to something familiar and far away; but that +was all fun, and exciting. It led him on, and he penetrated to where the light +was less, and trees crouched nearer and nearer, and holes made ugly mouths at +him on either side. +</p> + +<p> +Everything was very still now. The dusk advanced on him steadily, rapidly, +gathering in behind and before; and the light seemed to be draining away like +flood-water. +</p> + +<p> +Then the faces began. +</p> + +<p> +It was over his shoulder, and indistinctly, that he first thought he saw a +face; a little evil wedge-shaped face, looking out at him from a hole. When he +turned and confronted it, the thing had vanished. +</p> + +<p> +He quickened his pace, telling himself cheerfully not to begin imagining +things, or there would be simply no end to it. He passed another hole, and +another, and another; and then—yes!—no!—yes! certainly a +little narrow face, with hard eyes, had flashed up for an instant from a hole, +and was gone. He hesitated—braced himself up for an effort and strode on. +Then suddenly, and as if it had been so all the time, every hole, far and near, +and there were hundreds of them, seemed to possess its face, coming and going +rapidly, all fixing on him glances of malice and hatred: all hard-eyed and evil +and sharp. +</p> + +<p> +If he could only get away from the holes in the banks, he thought, there would +be no more faces. He swung off the path and plunged into the untrodden places +of the wood. +</p> + +<p> +Then the whistling began. +</p> + +<p> +Very faint and shrill it was, and far behind him, when first he heard it; but +somehow it made him hurry forward. Then, still very faint and shrill, it +sounded far ahead of him, and made him hesitate and want to go back. As he +halted in indecision it broke out on either side, and seemed to be caught up +and passed on throughout the whole length of the wood to its farthest limit. +They were up and alert and ready, evidently, whoever they were! And he—he +was alone, and unarmed, and far from any help; and the night was closing in. +</p> + +<p> +Then the pattering began. +</p> + +<p> +He thought it was only falling leaves at first, so slight and delicate was the +sound of it. Then as it grew it took a regular rhythm, and he knew it for +nothing else but the pat-pat-pat of little feet still a very long way off. Was +it in front or behind? It seemed to be first one, and then the other, then +both. It grew and it multiplied, till from every quarter as he listened +anxiously, leaning this way and that, it seemed to be closing in on him. As he +stood still to hearken, a rabbit came running hard towards him through the +trees. He waited, expecting it to slacken pace, or to swerve from him into a +different course. Instead, the animal almost brushed him as it dashed past, his +face set and hard, his eyes staring. “Get out of this, you fool, get +out!” the Mole heard him mutter as he swung round a stump and disappeared +down a friendly burrow. +</p> + +<p> +The pattering increased till it sounded like sudden hail on the dry leaf-carpet +spread around him. The whole wood seemed running now, running hard, hunting, +chasing, closing in round something or—somebody? In panic, he began to +run too, aimlessly, he knew not whither. He ran up against things, he fell over +things and into things, he darted under things and dodged round things. At last +he took refuge in the deep dark hollow of an old beech tree, which offered +shelter, concealment—perhaps even safety, but who could tell? Anyhow, he +was too tired to run any further, and could only snuggle down into the dry +leaves which had drifted into the hollow and hope he was safe for a time. And +as he lay there panting and trembling, and listened to the whistlings and the +patterings outside, he knew it at last, in all its fullness, that dread thing +which other little dwellers in field and hedgerow had encountered here, and +known as their darkest moment—that thing which the Rat had vainly tried +to shield him from—the Terror of the Wild Wood! +</p> + +<p> +Meantime the Rat, warm and comfortable, dozed by his fireside. His paper of +half-finished verses slipped from his knee, his head fell back, his mouth +opened, and he wandered by the verdant banks of dream-rivers. Then a coal +slipped, the fire crackled and sent up a spurt of flame, and he woke with a +start. Remembering what he had been engaged upon, he reached down to the floor +for his verses, pored over them for a minute, and then looked round for the +Mole to ask him if he knew a good rhyme for something or other. +</p> + +<p> +But the Mole was not there. +</p> + +<p> +He listened for a time. The house seemed very quiet. +</p> + +<p> +Then he called “Moly!” several times, and, receiving no answer, got +up and went out into the hall. +</p> + +<p> +The Mole’s cap was missing from its accustomed peg. His goloshes, which +always lay by the umbrella-stand, were also gone. +</p> + +<p> +The Rat left the house, and carefully examined the muddy surface of the ground +outside, hoping to find the Mole’s tracks. There they were, sure enough. +The goloshes were new, just bought for the winter, and the pimples on their +soles were fresh and sharp. He could see the imprints of them in the mud, +running along straight and purposeful, leading direct to the Wild Wood. +</p> + +<p> +The Rat looked very grave, and stood in deep thought for a minute or two. Then +he re-entered the house, strapped a belt round his waist, shoved a brace of +pistols into it, took up a stout cudgel that stood in a corner of the hall, and +set off for the Wild Wood at a smart pace. +</p> + +<p> +It was already getting towards dusk when he reached the first fringe of trees +and plunged without hesitation into the wood, looking anxiously on either side +for any sign of his friend. Here and there wicked little faces popped out of +holes, but vanished immediately at sight of the valorous animal, his pistols, +and the great ugly cudgel in his grasp; and the whistling and pattering, which +he had heard quite plainly on his first entry, died away and ceased, and all +was very still. He made his way manfully through the length of the wood, to its +furthest edge; then, forsaking all paths, he set himself to traverse it, +laboriously working over the whole ground, and all the time calling out +cheerfully, “Moly, Moly, Moly! Where are you? It’s +me—it’s old Rat!” +</p> + +<p> +He had patiently hunted through the wood for an hour or more, when at last to +his joy he heard a little answering cry. Guiding himself by the sound, he made +his way through the gathering darkness to the foot of an old beech tree, with a +hole in it, and from out of the hole came a feeble voice, saying “Ratty! +Is that really you?” +</p> + +<p> +The Rat crept into the hollow, and there he found the Mole, exhausted and still +trembling. “O Rat!” he cried, “I’ve been so frightened, +you can’t think!” +</p> + +<p> +“O, I quite understand,” said the Rat soothingly. “You +shouldn’t really have gone and done it, Mole. I did my best to keep you +from it. We river-bankers, we hardly ever come here by ourselves. If we have to +come, we come in couples, at least; then we’re generally all right. +Besides, there are a hundred things one has to know, which we understand all +about and you don’t, as yet. I mean passwords, and signs, and sayings +which have power and effect, and plants you carry in your pocket, and verses +you repeat, and dodges and tricks you practise; all simple enough when you know +them, but they’ve got to be known if you’re small, or you’ll +find yourself in trouble. Of course if you were Badger or Otter, it would be +quite another matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely the brave Mr. Toad wouldn’t mind coming here by himself, +would he?” inquired the Mole. +</p> + +<p> +“Old Toad?” said the Rat, laughing heartily. “He +wouldn’t show his face here alone, not for a whole hatful of golden +guineas, Toad wouldn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +The Mole was greatly cheered by the sound of the Rat’s careless laughter, +as well as by the sight of his stick and his gleaming pistols, and he stopped +shivering and began to feel bolder and more himself again. +</p> + +<p> +“Now then,” said the Rat presently, “we really must pull +ourselves together and make a start for home while there’s still a little +light left. It will never do to spend the night here, you understand. Too cold, +for one thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Ratty,” said the poor Mole, “I’m dreadfully +sorry, but I’m simply dead beat and that’s a solid fact. You <i>must</i> +let me rest here a while longer, and get my strength back, if I’m to get +home at all.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, all right,” said the good-natured Rat, “rest away. +It’s pretty nearly pitch dark now, anyhow; and there ought to be a bit of +a moon later.” +</p> + +<p> +So the Mole got well into the dry leaves and stretched himself out, and +presently dropped off into sleep, though of a broken and troubled sort; while +the Rat covered himself up, too, as best he might, for warmth, and lay +patiently waiting, with a pistol in his paw. +</p> + +<p> +When at last the Mole woke up, much refreshed and in his usual spirits, the Rat +said, “Now then! I’ll just take a look outside and see if +everything’s quiet, and then we really must be off.” +</p> + +<p> +He went to the entrance of their retreat and put his head out. Then the Mole +heard him saying quietly to himself, “Hullo! hullo! +here—is—a—go!” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s up, Ratty?” asked the Mole. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Snow</i> is up,” replied the Rat briefly; “or rather, <i>down</i>. +It’s snowing hard.” +</p> + +<p> +The Mole came and crouched beside him, and, looking out, saw the wood that had +been so dreadful to him in quite a changed aspect. Holes, hollows, pools, +pitfalls, and other black menaces to the wayfarer were vanishing fast, and a +gleaming carpet of faery was springing up everywhere, that looked too delicate +to be trodden upon by rough feet. A fine powder filled the air and caressed the +cheek with a tingle in its touch, and the black boles of the trees showed up in +a light that seemed to come from below. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well, it can’t be helped,” said the Rat, after +pondering. “We must make a start, and take our chance, I suppose. The +worst of it is, I don’t exactly know where we are. And now this snow +makes everything look so very different.” +</p> + +<p> +It did indeed. The Mole would not have known that it was the same wood. +However, they set out bravely, and took the line that seemed most promising, +holding on to each other and pretending with invincible cheerfulness that they +recognized an old friend in every fresh tree that grimly and silently greeted +them, or saw openings, gaps, or paths with a familiar turn in them, in the +monotony of white space and black tree-trunks that refused to vary. +</p> + +<p> +An hour or two later—they had lost all count of time—they pulled +up, dispirited, weary, and hopelessly at sea, and sat down on a fallen +tree-trunk to recover their breath and consider what was to be done. They were +aching with fatigue and bruised with tumbles; they had fallen into several +holes and got wet through; the snow was getting so deep that they could hardly +drag their little legs through it, and the trees were thicker and more like +each other than ever. There seemed to be no end to this wood, and no beginning, +and no difference in it, and, worst of all, no way out. +</p> + +<p> +“We can’t sit here very long,” said the Rat. “We shall +have to make another push for it, and do something or other. The cold is too +awful for anything, and the snow will soon be too deep for us to wade +through.” He peered about him and considered. “Look here,” he +went on, “this is what occurs to me. There’s a sort of dell down +here in front of us, where the ground seems all hilly and humpy and hummocky. +We’ll make our way down into that, and try and find some sort of shelter, +a cave or hole with a dry floor to it, out of the snow and the wind, and there +we’ll have a good rest before we try again, for we’re both of us +pretty dead beat. Besides, the snow may leave off, or something may turn +up.” +</p> + +<p> +So once more they got on their feet, and struggled down into the dell, where +they hunted about for a cave or some corner that was dry and a protection from +the keen wind and the whirling snow. They were investigating one of the +hummocky bits the Rat had spoken of, when suddenly the Mole tripped up and fell +forward on his face with a squeal. +</p> + +<p> +“O my leg!” he cried. “O my poor shin!” and he sat up +on the snow and nursed his leg in both his front paws. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor old Mole!” said the Rat kindly. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t seem to be having much luck to-day, do you? Let’s +have a look at the leg. Yes,” he went on, going down on his knees to +look, “you’ve cut your shin, sure enough. Wait till I get at my +handkerchief, and I’ll tie it up for you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I must have tripped over a hidden branch or a stump,” said the +Mole miserably. “O, my! O, my!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a very clean cut,” said the Rat, examining it again +attentively. “That was never done by a branch or a stump. Looks as if it +was made by a sharp edge of something in metal. Funny!” He pondered +awhile, and examined the humps and slopes that surrounded them. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, never mind what done it,” said the Mole, forgetting his +grammar in his pain. “It hurts just the same, whatever done it.” +</p> + +<p> +But the Rat, after carefully tying up the leg with his handkerchief, had left +him and was busy scraping in the snow. He scratched and shovelled and explored, +all four legs working busily, while the Mole waited impatiently, remarking at +intervals, “O, <i>come</i> on, Rat!” +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly the Rat cried “Hooray!” and then +“Hooray-oo-ray-oo-ray-oo-ray!” and fell to executing a feeble jig +in the snow. +</p> + +<p> +“What <i>have</i> you found, Ratty?” asked the Mole, still nursing his +leg. +</p> + +<p> +“Come and see!” said the delighted Rat, as he jigged on. +</p> + +<p> +The Mole hobbled up to the spot and had a good look. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he said at last, slowly, “I SEE it right enough. Seen +the same sort of thing before, lots of times. Familiar object, I call it. A +door-scraper! Well, what of it? Why dance jigs around a door-scraper?” +</p> + +<p> +“But don’t you see what it <i>means</i>, you—you dull-witted +animal?” cried the Rat impatiently. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course I see what it means,” replied the Mole. “It simply +means that some VERY careless and forgetful person has left his door-scraper +lying about in the middle of the Wild Wood, <i>just</i> where it’s <i>sure</i> to trip +<i>everybody</i> up. Very thoughtless of him, I call it. When I get home I shall go +and complain about it to—to somebody or other, see if I +don’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“O, dear! O, dear!” cried the Rat, in despair at his obtuseness. +“Here, stop arguing and come and scrape!” And he set to work again +and made the snow fly in all directions around him. +</p> + +<p> +After some further toil his efforts were rewarded, and a very shabby door-mat +lay exposed to view. +</p> + +<p> +“There, what did I tell you?” exclaimed the Rat in great triumph. +</p> + +<p> +“Absolutely nothing whatever,” replied the Mole, with perfect +truthfulness. “Well now,” he went on, “you seem to have found +another piece of domestic litter, done for and thrown away, and I suppose +you’re perfectly happy. Better go ahead and dance your jig round that if +you’ve got to, and get it over, and then perhaps we can go on and not +waste any more time over rubbish-heaps. Can we EAT a doormat? or sleep under a +door-mat? Or sit on a door-mat and sledge home over the snow on it, you +exasperating rodent?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do—you—mean—to—say,” cried the excited +Rat, “that this door-mat doesn’t <i>tell</i> you anything?” +</p> + +<p> +“Really, Rat,” said the Mole, quite pettishly, “I think +we’d had enough of this folly. Who ever heard of a door-mat <i>telling</i> +anyone anything? They simply don’t do it. They are not that sort at all. +Door-mats know their place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now look here, you—you thick-headed beast,” replied the Rat, +really angry, “this must stop. Not another word, but scrape—scrape +and scratch and dig and hunt round, especially on the sides of the hummocks, if +you want to sleep dry and warm to-night, for it’s our last chance!” +</p> + +<p> +The Rat attacked a snow-bank beside them with ardour, probing with his cudgel +everywhere and then digging with fury; and the Mole scraped busily too, more to +oblige the Rat than for any other reason, for his opinion was that his friend +was getting light-headed. +</p> + +<p> +Some ten minutes’ hard work, and the point of the Rat’s cudgel +struck something that sounded hollow. He worked till he could get a paw through +and feel; then called the Mole to come and help him. Hard at it went the two +animals, till at last the result of their labours stood full in view of the +astonished and hitherto incredulous Mole. +</p> + +<p> +In the side of what had seemed to be a snow-bank stood a solid-looking little +door, painted a dark green. An iron bell-pull hung by the side, and below it, +on a small brass plate, neatly engraved in square capital letters, they could +read by the aid of moonlight +</p> + +<p class="center"> +MR. BADGER. +</p> + +<p> +The Mole fell backwards on the snow from sheer surprise and delight. +“Rat!” he cried in penitence, “you’re a wonder! A real +wonder, that’s what you are. I see it all now! You argued it out, step by +step, in that wise head of yours, from the very moment that I fell and cut my +shin, and you looked at the cut, and at once your majestic mind said to itself, +‘Door-scraper!’ And then you turned to and found the very +door-scraper that done it! Did you stop there? No. Some people would have been +quite satisfied; but not you. Your intellect went on working. ‘Let me +only just find a door-mat,’ says you to yourself, ‘and my theory is +proved!’ And of course you found your door-mat. You’re so clever, I +believe you could find anything you liked. ‘Now,’ says you, +‘that door exists, as plain as if I saw it. There’s nothing else +remains to be done but to find it!’ Well, I’ve read about that sort +of thing in books, but I’ve never come across it before in real life. You +ought to go where you’ll be properly appreciated. You’re simply +wasted here, among us fellows. If I only had your head, +Ratty——” +</p> + +<p> +“But as you haven’t,” interrupted the Rat, rather unkindly, +“I suppose you’re going to sit on the snow all night and <i>talk?</i> Get +up at once and hang on to that bell-pull you see there, and ring hard, as hard +as you can, while I hammer!” +</p> + +<p> +While the Rat attacked the door with his stick, the Mole sprang up at the +bell-pull, clutched it and swung there, both feet well off the ground, and from +quite a long way off they could faintly hear a deep-toned bell respond. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap04"></a>IV.<br> +MR. BADGER</h2> + +<p> +THEY waited patiently for what seemed a very long time, stamping in the snow to +keep their feet warm. At last they heard the sound of slow shuffling footsteps +approaching the door from the inside. It seemed, as the Mole remarked to the +Rat, like some one walking in carpet slippers that were too large for him and +down at heel; which was intelligent of Mole, because that was exactly what it +was. +</p> + +<p> +There was the noise of a bolt shot back, and the door opened a few inches, +enough to show a long snout and a pair of sleepy blinking eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, the <i>very</i> next time this happens,” said a gruff and suspicious +voice, “I shall be exceedingly angry. Who is it <i>this</i> time, disturbing +people on such a night? Speak up!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Badger,” cried the Rat, “let us in, please. It’s +me, Rat, and my friend Mole, and we’ve lost our way in the snow.” +</p> + +<p> +“What, Ratty, my dear little man!” exclaimed the Badger, in quite a +different voice. “Come along in, both of you, at once. Why, you must be +perished. Well I never! Lost in the snow! And in the Wild Wood, too, and at +this time of night! But come in with you.” +</p> + +<p> +The two animals tumbled over each other in their eagerness to get inside, and +heard the door shut behind them with great joy and relief. +</p> + +<p> +The Badger, who wore a long dressing-gown, and whose slippers were indeed very +down at heel, carried a flat candlestick in his paw and had probably been on +his way to bed when their summons sounded. He looked kindly down on them and +patted both their heads. “This is not the sort of night for small animals +to be out,” he said paternally. “I’m afraid you’ve been +up to some of your pranks again, Ratty. But come along; come into the kitchen. +There’s a first-rate fire there, and supper and everything.” +</p> + +<p> +He shuffled on in front of them, carrying the light, and they followed him, +nudging each other in an anticipating sort of way, down a long, gloomy, and, to +tell the truth, decidedly shabby passage, into a sort of a central hall; out of +which they could dimly see other long tunnel-like passages branching, passages +mysterious and without apparent end. But there were doors in the hall as +well—stout oaken comfortable-looking doors. One of these the Badger flung +open, and at once they found themselves in all the glow and warmth of a large +fire-lit kitchen. +</p> + +<p> +The floor was well-worn red brick, and on the wide hearth burnt a fire of logs, +between two attractive chimney-corners tucked away in the wall, well out of any +suspicion of draught. A couple of high-backed settles, facing each other on +either side of the fire, gave further sitting accommodations for the sociably +disposed. In the middle of the room stood a long table of plain boards placed +on trestles, with benches down each side. At one end of it, where an arm-chair +stood pushed back, were spread the remains of the Badger’s plain but +ample supper. Rows of spotless plates winked from the shelves of the dresser at +the far end of the room, and from the rafters overhead hung hams, bundles of +dried herbs, nets of onions, and baskets of eggs. It seemed a place where +heroes could fitly feast after victory, where weary harvesters could line up in +scores along the table and keep their Harvest Home with mirth and song, or +where two or three friends of simple tastes could sit about as they pleased and +eat and smoke and talk in comfort and contentment. The ruddy brick floor smiled +up at the smoky ceiling; the oaken settles, shiny with long wear, exchanged +cheerful glances with each other; plates on the dresser grinned at pots on the +shelf, and the merry firelight flickered and played over everything without +distinction. +</p> + +<p> +The kindly Badger thrust them down on a settle to toast themselves at the fire, +and bade them remove their wet coats and boots. Then he fetched them +dressing-gowns and slippers, and himself bathed the Mole’s shin with warm +water and mended the cut with sticking-plaster till the whole thing was just as +good as new, if not better. In the embracing light and warmth, warm and dry at +last, with weary legs propped up in front of them, and a suggestive clink of +plates being arranged on the table behind, it seemed to the storm-driven +animals, now in safe anchorage, that the cold and trackless Wild Wood just left +outside was miles and miles away, and all that they had suffered in it a +half-forgotten dream. +</p> + +<p> +When at last they were thoroughly toasted, the Badger summoned them to the +table, where he had been busy laying a repast. They had felt pretty hungry +before, but when they actually saw at last the supper that was spread for them, +really it seemed only a question of what they should attack first where all was +so attractive, and whether the other things would obligingly wait for them till +they had time to give them attention. Conversation was impossible for a long +time; and when it was slowly resumed, it was that regrettable sort of +conversation that results from talking with your mouth full. The Badger did not +mind that sort of thing at all, nor did he take any notice of elbows on the +table, or everybody speaking at once. As he did not go into Society himself, he +had got an idea that these things belonged to the things that didn’t +really matter. (We know of course that he was wrong, and took too narrow a +view; because they do matter very much, though it would take too long to +explain why.) He sat in his arm-chair at the head of the table, and nodded +gravely at intervals as the animals told their story; and he did not seem +surprised or shocked at anything, and he never said, “I told you +so,” or, “Just what I always said,” or remarked that they +ought to have done so-and-so, or ought not to have done something else. The +Mole began to feel very friendly towards him. +</p> + +<p> +When supper was really finished at last, and each animal felt that his skin was +now as tight as was decently safe, and that by this time he didn’t care a +hang for anybody or anything, they gathered round the glowing embers of the +great wood fire, and thought how jolly it was to be sitting up <i>so</i> late, and <i>so</i> +independent, and <i>so</i> full; and after they had chatted for a time about things in +general, the Badger said heartily, “Now then! tell us the news from your +part of the world. How’s old Toad going on?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, from bad to worse,” said the Rat gravely, while the Mole, +cocked up on a settle and basking in the firelight, his heels higher than his +head, tried to look properly mournful. “Another smash-up only last week, +and a bad one. You see, he will insist on driving himself, and he’s +hopelessly incapable. If he’d only employ a decent, steady, well-trained +animal, pay him good wages, and leave everything to him, he’d get on all +right. But no; he’s convinced he’s a heaven-born driver, and nobody +can teach him anything; and all the rest follows.” +</p> + +<p> +“How many has he had?” inquired the Badger gloomily. +</p> + +<p> +“Smashes, or machines?” asked the Rat. “Oh, well, after all, +it’s the same thing—with Toad. This is the seventh. As for the +others—you know that coach-house of his? Well, it’s piled +up—literally piled up to the roof—with fragments of motor-cars, +none of them bigger than your hat! That accounts for the other six—so far +as they can be accounted for.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s been in hospital three times,” put in the Mole; +“and as for the fines he’s had to pay, it’s simply awful to +think of.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and that’s part of the trouble,” continued the Rat. +“Toad’s rich, we all know; but he’s not a millionaire. And +he’s a hopelessly bad driver, and quite regardless of law and order. +Killed or ruined—it’s got to be one of the two things, sooner or +later. Badger! we’re his friends—oughtn’t we to do +something?” +</p> + +<p> +The Badger went through a bit of hard thinking. “Now look here!” he +said at last, rather severely; “of course you know I can’t do +anything <i>now?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +His two friends assented, quite understanding his point. No animal, according +to the rules of animal-etiquette, is ever expected to do anything strenuous, or +heroic, or even moderately active during the off-season of winter. All are +sleepy—some actually asleep. All are weather-bound, more or less; and all +are resting from arduous days and nights, during which every muscle in them has +been severely tested, and every energy kept at full stretch. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well then!” continued the Badger. “<i>But</i>, when once the +year has really turned, and the nights are shorter, and halfway through them +one rouses and feels fidgety and wanting to be up and doing by sunrise, if not +before—<i>you</i> know!——” +</p> + +<p> +Both animals nodded gravely. <i>They</i> knew! +</p> + +<p> +“Well, <i>then</i>,” went on the Badger, “we—that is, you and +me and our friend the Mole here—we’ll take Toad seriously in hand. +We’ll stand no nonsense whatever. We’ll bring him back to reason, +by force if need be. We’ll <i>make</i> him be a sensible Toad. +We’ll—you’re asleep, Rat!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not me!” said the Rat, waking up with a jerk. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s been asleep two or three times since supper,” said the +Mole, laughing. He himself was feeling quite wakeful and even lively, though he +didn’t know why. The reason was, of course, that he being naturally an +underground animal by birth and breeding, the situation of Badger’s house +exactly suited him and made him feel at home; while the Rat, who slept every +night in a bedroom the windows of which opened on a breezy river, naturally +felt the atmosphere still and oppressive. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it’s time we were all in bed,” said the Badger, +getting up and fetching flat candlesticks. “Come along, you two, and +I’ll show you your quarters. And take your time tomorrow +morning—breakfast at any hour you please!” +</p> + +<p> +He conducted the two animals to a long room that seemed half bedchamber and +half loft. The Badger’s winter stores, which indeed were visible +everywhere, took up half the room—piles of apples, turnips, and potatoes, +baskets full of nuts, and jars of honey; but the two little white beds on the +remainder of the floor looked soft and inviting, and the linen on them, though +coarse, was clean and smelt beautifully of lavender; and the Mole and the Water +Rat, shaking off their garments in some thirty seconds, tumbled in between the +sheets in great joy and contentment. +</p> + +<p> +In accordance with the kindly Badger’s injunctions, the two tired animals +came down to breakfast very late next morning, and found a bright fire burning +in the kitchen, and two young hedgehogs sitting on a bench at the table, eating +oatmeal porridge out of wooden bowls. The hedgehogs dropped their spoons, rose +to their feet, and ducked their heads respectfully as the two entered. +</p> + +<p> +“There, sit down, sit down,” said the Rat pleasantly, “and go +on with your porridge. Where have you youngsters come from? Lost your way in +the snow, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, please, sir,” said the elder of the two hedgehogs +respectfully. “Me and little Billy here, we was trying to find our way to +school—mother <i>would</i> have us go, was the weather ever so—and of +course we lost ourselves, sir, and Billy he got frightened and took and cried, +being young and faint-hearted. And at last we happened up against Mr. +Badger’s back door, and made so bold as to knock, sir, for Mr. Badger +he’s a kind-hearted gentleman, as everyone knows——” +</p> + +<p> +“I understand,” said the Rat, cutting himself some rashers from a +side of bacon, while the Mole dropped some eggs into a saucepan. “And +what’s the weather like outside? You needn’t ‘sir’ me +quite so much?” he added. +</p> + +<p> +“O, terrible bad, sir, terrible deep the snow is,” said the +hedgehog. “No getting out for the likes of you gentlemen to-day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s Mr. Badger?” inquired the Mole, as he warmed the +coffee-pot before the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“The master’s gone into his study, sir,” replied the +hedgehog, “and he said as how he was going to be particular busy this +morning, and on no account was he to be disturbed.” +</p> + +<p> +This explanation, of course, was thoroughly understood by every one present. +The fact is, as already set forth, when you live a life of intense activity for +six months in the year, and of comparative or actual somnolence for the other +six, during the latter period you cannot be continually pleading sleepiness +when there are people about or things to be done. The excuse gets monotonous. +The animals well knew that Badger, having eaten a hearty breakfast, had retired +to his study and settled himself in an arm-chair with his legs up on another +and a red cotton handkerchief over his face, and was being “busy” +in the usual way at this time of the year. +</p> + +<p> +The front-door bell clanged loudly, and the Rat, who was very greasy with +buttered toast, sent Billy, the smaller hedgehog, to see who it might be. There +was a sound of much stamping in the hall, and presently Billy returned in front +of the Otter, who threw himself on the Rat with an embrace and a shout of +affectionate greeting. +</p> + +<p> +“Get off!” spluttered the Rat, with his mouth full. +</p> + +<p> +“Thought I should find you here all right,” said the Otter +cheerfully. “They were all in a great state of alarm along River Bank +when I arrived this morning. Rat never been home all night—nor Mole +either—something dreadful must have happened, they said; and the snow had +covered up all your tracks, of course. But I knew that when people were in any +fix they mostly went to Badger, or else Badger got to know of it somehow, so I +came straight off here, through the Wild Wood and the snow! My! it was fine, +coming through the snow as the red sun was rising and showing against the black +tree-trunks! As you went along in the stillness, every now and then masses of +snow slid off the branches suddenly with a flop! making you jump and run for +cover. Snow-castles and snow-caverns had sprung up out of nowhere in the +night—and snow bridges, terraces, ramparts—I could have stayed and +played with them for hours. Here and there great branches had been torn away by +the sheer weight of the snow, and robins perched and hopped on them in their +perky conceited way, just as if they had done it themselves. A ragged string of +wild geese passed overhead, high on the grey sky, and a few rooks whirled over +the trees, inspected, and flapped off homewards with a disgusted expression; +but I met no sensible being to ask the news of. About halfway across I came on +a rabbit sitting on a stump, cleaning his silly face with his paws. He was a +pretty scared animal when I crept up behind him and placed a heavy forepaw on +his shoulder. I had to cuff his head once or twice to get any sense out of it +at all. At last I managed to extract from him that Mole had been seen in the +Wild Wood last night by one of them. It was the talk of the burrows, he said, +how Mole, Mr. Rat’s particular friend, was in a bad fix; how he had lost +his way, and ‘They’ were up and out hunting, and were chivvying him +round and round. ‘Then why didn’t any of you <i>do</i> something?’ I +asked. ‘You mayn’t be blest with brains, but there are hundreds and +hundreds of you, big, stout fellows, as fat as butter, and your burrows running +in all directions, and you could have taken him in and made him safe and +comfortable, or tried to, at all events.’ ‘What, <i>us?</i>’ he +merely said: ‘<i>do</i> something? us rabbits?’ So I cuffed him again and +left him. There was nothing else to be done. At any rate, I had learnt +something; and if I had had the luck to meet any of ‘Them’ +I’d have learnt something more—or <i>they</i> would.” +</p> + +<p> +“Weren’t you at all—er—nervous?” asked the Mole, +some of yesterday’s terror coming back to him at the mention of the Wild +Wood. +</p> + +<p> +“Nervous?” The Otter showed a gleaming set of strong white teeth as +he laughed. “I’d give ’em nerves if any of them tried +anything on with me. Here, Mole, fry me some slices of ham, like the good +little chap you are. I’m frightfully hungry, and I’ve got any +amount to say to Ratty here. Haven’t seen him for an age.” +</p> + +<p> +So the good-natured Mole, having cut some slices of ham, set the hedgehogs to +fry it, and returned to his own breakfast, while the Otter and the Rat, their +heads together, eagerly talked river-shop, which is long shop and talk that is +endless, running on like the babbling river itself. +</p> + +<p> +A plate of fried ham had just been cleared and sent back for more, when the +Badger entered, yawning and rubbing his eyes, and greeted them all in his +quiet, simple way, with kind enquiries for every one. “It must be getting +on for luncheon time,” he remarked to the Otter. “Better stop and +have it with us. You must be hungry, this cold morning.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather!” replied the Otter, winking at the Mole. “The sight +of these greedy young hedgehogs stuffing themselves with fried ham makes me +feel positively famished.” +</p> + +<p> +The hedgehogs, who were just beginning to feel hungry again after their +porridge, and after working so hard at their frying, looked timidly up at Mr. +Badger, but were too shy to say anything. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, you two youngsters be off home to your mother,” said the +Badger kindly. “I’ll send some one with you to show you the way. +You won’t want any dinner to-day, I’ll be bound.” +</p> + +<p> +He gave them sixpence apiece and a pat on the head, and they went off with much +respectful swinging of caps and touching of forelocks. +</p> + +<p> +Presently they all sat down to luncheon together. The Mole found himself placed +next to Mr. Badger, and, as the other two were still deep in river-gossip from +which nothing could divert them, he took the opportunity to tell Badger how +comfortable and home-like it all felt to him. “Once well +underground,” he said, “you know exactly where you are. Nothing can +happen to you, and nothing can get at you. You’re entirely your own +master, and you don’t have to consult anybody or mind what they say. +Things go on all the same overhead, and you let ’em, and don’t +bother about ’em. When you want to, up you go, and there the things are, +waiting for you.” +</p> + +<p> +The Badger simply beamed on him. “That’s exactly what I say,” +he replied. “There’s no security, or peace and tranquillity, except +underground. And then, if your ideas get larger and you want to +expand—why, a dig and a scrape, and there you are! If you feel your house +is a bit too big, you stop up a hole or two, and there you are again! No +builders, no tradesmen, no remarks passed on you by fellows looking over your +wall, and, above all, no <i>weather</i>. Look at Rat, now. A couple of feet of flood +water, and he’s got to move into hired lodgings; uncomfortable, +inconveniently situated, and horribly expensive. Take Toad. I say nothing +against Toad Hall; quite the best house in these parts, <i>as</i> a house. But +supposing a fire breaks out—where’s Toad? Supposing tiles are blown +off, or walls sink or crack, or windows get broken—where’s Toad? +Supposing the rooms are draughty—I <i>hate</i> a draught +myself—where’s Toad? No, up and out of doors is good enough to roam +about and get one’s living in; but underground to come back to at +last—that’s my idea of <i>home!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +The Mole assented heartily; and the Badger in consequence got very friendly +with him. “When lunch is over,” he said, “I’ll take you +all round this little place of mine. I can see you’ll appreciate it. You +understand what domestic architecture ought to be, you do.” +</p> + +<p> +After luncheon, accordingly, when the other two had settled themselves into the +chimney-corner and had started a heated argument on the subject of <i>eels</i>, the +Badger lighted a lantern and bade the Mole follow him. Crossing the hall, they +passed down one of the principal tunnels, and the wavering light of the lantern +gave glimpses on either side of rooms both large and small, some mere +cupboards, others nearly as broad and imposing as Toad’s dining-hall. A +narrow passage at right angles led them into another corridor, and here the +same thing was repeated. The Mole was staggered at the size, the extent, the +ramifications of it all; at the length of the dim passages, the solid vaultings +of the crammed store-chambers, the masonry everywhere, the pillars, the arches, +the pavements. “How on earth, Badger,” he said at last, “did +you ever find time and strength to do all this? It’s astonishing!” +</p> + +<p> +“It <i>would</i> be astonishing indeed,” said the Badger simply, “if +I <i>had</i> done it. But as a matter of fact I did none of it—only cleaned out +the passages and chambers, as far as I had need of them. There’s lots +more of it, all round about. I see you don’t understand, and I must +explain it to you. Well, very long ago, on the spot where the Wild Wood waves +now, before ever it had planted itself and grown up to what it now is, there +was a city—a city of people, you know. Here, where we are standing, they +lived, and walked, and talked, and slept, and carried on their business. Here +they stabled their horses and feasted, from here they rode out to fight or +drove out to trade. They were a powerful people, and rich, and great builders. +They built to last, for they thought their city would last for ever.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what has become of them all?” asked the Mole. +</p> + +<p> +“Who can tell?” said the Badger. “People come—they stay +for a while, they flourish, they build—and they go. It is their way. But +we remain. There were badgers here, I’ve been told, long before that same +city ever came to be. And now there are badgers here again. We are an enduring +lot, and we may move out for a time, but we wait, and are patient, and back we +come. And so it will ever be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, and when they went at last, those people?” said the Mole. +</p> + +<p> +“When they went,” continued the Badger, “the strong winds and +persistent rains took the matter in hand, patiently, ceaselessly, year after +year. Perhaps we badgers too, in our small way, helped a little—who +knows? It was all down, down, down, gradually—ruin and levelling and +disappearance. Then it was all up, up, up, gradually, as seeds grew to +saplings, and saplings to forest trees, and bramble and fern came creeping in +to help. Leaf-mould rose and obliterated, streams in their winter freshets +brought sand and soil to clog and to cover, and in course of time our home was +ready for us again, and we moved in. Up above us, on the surface, the same +thing happened. Animals arrived, liked the look of the place, took up their +quarters, settled down, spread, and flourished. They didn’t bother +themselves about the past—they never do; they’re too busy. The +place was a bit humpy and hillocky, naturally, and full of holes; but that was +rather an advantage. And they don’t bother about the future, +either—the future when perhaps the people will move in again—for a +time—as may very well be. The Wild Wood is pretty well populated by now; +with all the usual lot, good, bad, and indifferent—I name no names. It +takes all sorts to make a world. But I fancy you know something about them +yourself by this time.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do indeed,” said the Mole, with a slight shiver. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well,” said the Badger, patting him on the shoulder, +“it was your first experience of them, you see. They’re not so bad +really; and we must all live and let live. But I’ll pass the word around +to-morrow, and I think you’ll have no further trouble. Any friend of <i>mine</i> +walks where he likes in this country, or I’ll know the reason why!” +</p> + +<p> +When they got back to the kitchen again, they found the Rat walking up and +down, very restless. The underground atmosphere was oppressing him and getting +on his nerves, and he seemed really to be afraid that the river would run away +if he wasn’t there to look after it. So he had his overcoat on, and his +pistols thrust into his belt again. “Come along, Mole,” he said +anxiously, as soon as he caught sight of them. “We must get off while +it’s daylight. Don’t want to spend another night in the Wild Wood +again.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’ll be all right, my fine fellow,” said the Otter. +“I’m coming along with you, and I know every path blindfold; and if +there’s a head that needs to be punched, you can confidently rely upon me +to punch it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You really needn’t fret, Ratty,” added the Badger placidly. +“My passages run further than you think, and I’ve bolt-holes to the +edge of the wood in several directions, though I don’t care for everybody +to know about them. When you really have to go, you shall leave by one of my +short cuts. Meantime, make yourself easy, and sit down again.” +</p> + +<p> +The Rat was nevertheless still anxious to be off and attend to his river, so +the Badger, taking up his lantern again, led the way along a damp and airless +tunnel that wound and dipped, part vaulted, part hewn through solid rock, for a +weary distance that seemed to be miles. At last daylight began to show itself +confusedly through tangled growth overhanging the mouth of the passage; and the +Badger, bidding them a hasty good-bye, pushed them hurriedly through the +opening, made everything look as natural as possible again, with creepers, +brushwood, and dead leaves, and retreated. +</p> + +<p> +They found themselves standing on the very edge of the Wild Wood. Rocks and +brambles and tree-roots behind them, confusedly heaped and tangled; in front, a +great space of quiet fields, hemmed by lines of hedges black on the snow, and, +far ahead, a glint of the familiar old river, while the wintry sun hung red and +low on the horizon. The Otter, as knowing all the paths, took charge of the +party, and they trailed out on a bee-line for a distant stile. Pausing there a +moment and looking back, they saw the whole mass of the Wild Wood, dense, +menacing, compact, grimly set in vast white surroundings; simultaneously they +turned and made swiftly for home, for firelight and the familiar things it +played on, for the voice, sounding cheerily outside their window, of the river +that they knew and trusted in all its moods, that never made them afraid with +any amazement. +</p> + +<p> +As he hurried along, eagerly anticipating the moment when he would be at home +again among the things he knew and liked, the Mole saw clearly that he was an +animal of tilled field and hedge-row, linked to the ploughed furrow, the +frequented pasture, the lane of evening lingerings, the cultivated garden-plot. +For others the asperities, the stubborn endurance, or the clash of actual +conflict, that went with Nature in the rough; he must be wise, must keep to the +pleasant places in which his lines were laid and which held adventure enough, +in their way, to last for a lifetime. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap05"></a>V.<br> +DULCE DOMUM</h2> + +<p> +The sheep ran huddling together against the hurdles, blowing out thin nostrils +and stamping with delicate fore-feet, their heads thrown back and a light steam +rising from the crowded sheep-pen into the frosty air, as the two animals +hastened by in high spirits, with much chatter and laughter. They were +returning across country after a long day’s outing with Otter, hunting +and exploring on the wide uplands where certain streams tributary to their own +River had their first small beginnings; and the shades of the short winter day +were closing in on them, and they had still some distance to go. Plodding at +random across the plough, they had heard the sheep and had made for them; and +now, leading from the sheep-pen, they found a beaten track that made walking a +lighter business, and responded, moreover, to that small inquiring something +which all animals carry inside them, saying unmistakably, “Yes, quite +right; <i>this</i> leads home!” +</p> + +<p> +“It looks as if we were coming to a village,” said the Mole +somewhat dubiously, slackening his pace, as the track, that had in time become +a path and then had developed into a lane, now handed them over to the charge +of a well-metalled road. The animals did not hold with villages, and their own +highways, thickly frequented as they were, took an independent course, +regardless of church, post office, or public-house. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, never mind!” said the Rat. “At this season of the year +they’re all safe indoors by this time, sitting round the fire; men, +women, and children, dogs and cats and all. We shall slip through all right, +without any bother or unpleasantness, and we can have a look at them through +their windows if you like, and see what they’re doing.” +</p> + +<p> +The rapid nightfall of mid-December had quite beset the little village as they +approached it on soft feet over a first thin fall of powdery snow. Little was +visible but squares of a dusky orange-red on either side of the street, where +the firelight or lamplight of each cottage overflowed through the casements +into the dark world without. Most of the low latticed windows were innocent of +blinds, and to the lookers-in from outside, the inmates, gathered round the +tea-table, absorbed in handiwork, or talking with laughter and gesture, had +each that happy grace which is the last thing the skilled actor shall +capture—the natural grace which goes with perfect unconsciousness of +observation. Moving at will from one theatre to another, the two spectators, so +far from home themselves, had something of wistfulness in their eyes as they +watched a cat being stroked, a sleepy child picked up and huddled off to bed, +or a tired man stretch and knock out his pipe on the end of a smouldering log. +</p> + +<p> +But it was from one little window, with its blind drawn down, a mere blank +transparency on the night, that the sense of home and the little curtained +world within walls—the larger stressful world of outside Nature shut out +and forgotten—most pulsated. Close against the white blind hung a +bird-cage, clearly silhouetted, every wire, perch, and appurtenance distinct +and recognisable, even to yesterday’s dull-edged lump of sugar. On the +middle perch the fluffy occupant, head tucked well into feathers, seemed so +near to them as to be easily stroked, had they tried; even the delicate tips of +his plumped-out plumage pencilled plainly on the illuminated screen. As they +looked, the sleepy little fellow stirred uneasily, woke, shook himself, and +raised his head. They could see the gape of his tiny beak as he yawned in a +bored sort of way, looked round, and then settled his head into his back again, +while the ruffled feathers gradually subsided into perfect stillness. Then a +gust of bitter wind took them in the back of the neck, a small sting of frozen +sleet on the skin woke them as from a dream, and they knew their toes to be +cold and their legs tired, and their own home distant a weary way. +</p> + +<p> +Once beyond the village, where the cottages ceased abruptly, on either side of +the road they could smell through the darkness the friendly fields again; and +they braced themselves for the last long stretch, the home stretch, the stretch +that we know is bound to end, some time, in the rattle of the door-latch, the +sudden firelight, and the sight of familiar things greeting us as long-absent +travellers from far over-sea. They plodded along steadily and silently, each of +them thinking his own thoughts. The Mole’s ran a good deal on supper, as +it was pitch-dark, and it was all a strange country for him as far as he knew, +and he was following obediently in the wake of the Rat, leaving the guidance +entirely to him. As for the Rat, he was walking a little way ahead, as his +habit was, his shoulders humped, his eyes fixed on the straight grey road in +front of him; so he did not notice poor Mole when suddenly the summons reached +him, and took him like an electric shock. +</p> + +<p> +We others, who have long lost the more subtle of the physical senses, have not +even proper terms to express an animal’s inter-communications with his +surroundings, living or otherwise, and have only the word “smell,” +for instance, to include the whole range of delicate thrills which murmur in +the nose of the animal night and day, summoning, warning, inciting, repelling. +It was one of these mysterious fairy calls from out the void that suddenly +reached Mole in the darkness, making him tingle through and through with its +very familiar appeal, even while yet he could not clearly remember what it was. +He stopped dead in his tracks, his nose searching hither and thither in its +efforts to recapture the fine filament, the telegraphic current, that had so +strongly moved him. A moment, and he had caught it again; and with it this time +came recollection in fullest flood. +</p> + +<p> +Home! That was what they meant, those caressing appeals, those soft touches +wafted through the air, those invisible little hands pulling and tugging, all +one way! Why, it must be quite close by him at that moment, his old home that +he had hurriedly forsaken and never sought again, that day when he first found +the river! And now it was sending out its scouts and its messengers to capture +him and bring him in. Since his escape on that bright morning he had hardly +given it a thought, so absorbed had he been in his new life, in all its +pleasures, its surprises, its fresh and captivating experiences. Now, with a +rush of old memories, how clearly it stood up before him, in the darkness! +Shabby indeed, and small and poorly furnished, and yet his, the home he had +made for himself, the home he had been so happy to get back to after his +day’s work. And the home had been happy with him, too, evidently, and was +missing him, and wanted him back, and was telling him so, through his nose, +sorrowfully, reproachfully, but with no bitterness or anger; only with +plaintive reminder that it was there, and wanted him. +</p> + +<p> +The call was clear, the summons was plain. He must obey it instantly, and go. +“Ratty!” he called, full of joyful excitement, “hold on! Come +back! I want you, quick!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, <i>come</i> along, Mole, do!” replied the Rat cheerfully, still +plodding along. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Please</i> stop, Ratty!” pleaded the poor Mole, in anguish of heart. +“You don’t understand! It’s my home, my old home! I’ve +just come across the smell of it, and it’s close by here, really quite +close. And I <i>must</i> go to it, I must, I must! Oh, come back, Ratty! Please, +please come back!” +</p> + +<p> +The Rat was by this time very far ahead, too far to hear clearly what the Mole +was calling, too far to catch the sharp note of painful appeal in his voice. +And he was much taken up with the weather, for he too could smell +something—something suspiciously like approaching snow. +</p> + +<p> +“Mole, we mustn’t stop now, really!” he called back. +“We’ll come for it to-morrow, whatever it is you’ve found. +But I daren’t stop now—it’s late, and the snow’s coming +on again, and I’m not sure of the way! And I want your nose, Mole, so +come on quick, there’s a good fellow!” And the Rat pressed forward +on his way without waiting for an answer. +</p> + +<p> +Poor Mole stood alone in the road, his heart torn asunder, and a big sob +gathering, gathering, somewhere low down inside him, to leap up to the surface +presently, he knew, in passionate escape. But even under such a test as this +his loyalty to his friend stood firm. Never for a moment did he dream of +abandoning him. Meanwhile, the wafts from his old home pleaded, whispered, +conjured, and finally claimed him imperiously. He dared not tarry longer within +their magic circle. With a wrench that tore his very heartstrings he set his +face down the road and followed submissively in the track of the Rat, while +faint, thin little smells, still dogging his retreating nose, reproached him +for his new friendship and his callous forgetfulness. +</p> + +<p> +With an effort he caught up to the unsuspecting Rat, who began chattering +cheerfully about what they would do when they got back, and how jolly a fire of +logs in the parlour would be, and what a supper he meant to eat; never noticing +his companion’s silence and distressful state of mind. At last, however, +when they had gone some considerable way further, and were passing some +tree-stumps at the edge of a copse that bordered the road, he stopped and said +kindly, “Look here, Mole old chap, you seem dead tired. No talk left in +you, and your feet dragging like lead. We’ll sit down here for a minute +and rest. The snow has held off so far, and the best part of our journey is +over.” +</p> + +<p> +The Mole subsided forlornly on a tree-stump and tried to control himself, for +he felt it surely coming. The sob he had fought with so long refused to be +beaten. Up and up, it forced its way to the air, and then another, and another, +and others thick and fast; till poor Mole at last gave up the struggle, and +cried freely and helplessly and openly, now that he knew it was all over and he +had lost what he could hardly be said to have found. +</p> + +<p> +The Rat, astonished and dismayed at the violence of Mole’s paroxysm of +grief, did not dare to speak for a while. At last he said, very quietly and +sympathetically, “What is it, old fellow? Whatever can be the matter? +Tell us your trouble, and let me see what I can do.” +</p> + +<p> +Poor Mole found it difficult to get any words out between the upheavals of his +chest that followed one upon another so quickly and held back speech and choked +it as it came. “I know it’s a—shabby, dingy little +place,” he sobbed forth at last, brokenly: “not like—your +cosy quarters—or Toad’s beautiful hall—or Badger’s +great house—but it was my own little home—and I was fond of +it—and I went away and forgot all about it—and then I smelt it +suddenly—on the road, when I called and you wouldn’t listen, +Rat—and everything came back to me with a rush—and I <i>wanted</i> +it!—O dear, O dear!—and when you <i>wouldn’t</i> turn back, +Ratty—and I had to leave it, though I was smelling it all the +time—I thought my heart would break.—We might have just gone and +had one look at it, Ratty—only one look—it was close by—but +you wouldn’t turn back, Ratty, you wouldn’t turn back! O dear, O +dear!” +</p> + +<p> +Recollection brought fresh waves of sorrow, and sobs again took full charge of +him, preventing further speech. +</p> + +<p> +The Rat stared straight in front of him, saying nothing, only patting Mole +gently on the shoulder. After a time he muttered gloomily, “I see it all +now! What a <i>pig</i> I have been! A pig—that’s me! Just a pig—a +plain pig!” +</p> + +<p> +He waited till Mole’s sobs became gradually less stormy and more +rhythmical; he waited till at last sniffs were frequent and sobs only +intermittent. Then he rose from his seat, and, remarking carelessly, +“Well, now we’d really better be getting on, old chap!” set +off up the road again, over the toilsome way they had come. +</p> + +<p> +“Wherever are you (hic) going to (hic), Ratty?” cried the tearful +Mole, looking up in alarm. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re going to find that home of yours, old fellow,” replied +the Rat pleasantly; “so you had better come along, for it will take some +finding, and we shall want your nose.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, come back, Ratty, do!” cried the Mole, getting up and hurrying +after him. “It’s no good, I tell you! It’s too late, and too +dark, and the place is too far off, and the snow’s coming! And—and +I never meant to let you know I was feeling that way about it—it was all +an accident and a mistake! And think of River Bank, and your supper!” +</p> + +<p> +“Hang River Bank, and supper too!” said the Rat heartily. “I +tell you, I’m going to find this place now, if I stay out all night. So +cheer up, old chap, and take my arm, and we’ll very soon be back there +again.” +</p> + +<p> +Still snuffling, pleading, and reluctant, Mole suffered himself to be dragged +back along the road by his imperious companion, who by a flow of cheerful talk +and anecdote endeavoured to beguile his spirits back and make the weary way +seem shorter. When at last it seemed to the Rat that they must be nearing that +part of the road where the Mole had been “held up,” he said, +“Now, no more talking. Business! Use your nose, and give your mind to +it.” +</p> + +<p> +They moved on in silence for some little way, when suddenly the Rat was +conscious, through his arm that was linked in Mole’s, of a faint sort of +electric thrill that was passing down that animal’s body. Instantly he +disengaged himself, fell back a pace, and waited, all attention. +</p> + +<p> +The signals were coming through! +</p> + +<p> +Mole stood a moment rigid, while his uplifted nose, quivering slightly, felt +the air. +</p> + +<p> +Then a short, quick run forward—a fault—a check—a try back; +and then a slow, steady, confident advance. +</p> + +<p> +The Rat, much excited, kept close to his heels as the Mole, with something of +the air of a sleep-walker, crossed a dry ditch, scrambled through a hedge, and +nosed his way over a field open and trackless and bare in the faint starlight. +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly, without giving warning, he dived; but the Rat was on the alert, and +promptly followed him down the tunnel to which his unerring nose had faithfully +led him. +</p> + +<p> +It was close and airless, and the earthy smell was strong, and it seemed a long +time to Rat ere the passage ended and he could stand erect and stretch and +shake himself. The Mole struck a match, and by its light the Rat saw that they +were standing in an open space, neatly swept and sanded underfoot, and directly +facing them was Mole’s little front door, with “Mole End” +painted, in Gothic lettering, over the bell-pull at the side. +</p> + +<p> +Mole reached down a lantern from a nail on the wall and lit it... and the Rat, +looking round him, saw that they were in a sort of fore-court. A garden-seat +stood on one side of the door, and on the other a roller; for the Mole, who was +a tidy animal when at home, could not stand having his ground kicked up by +other animals into little runs that ended in earth-heaps. On the walls hung +wire baskets with ferns in them, alternating with brackets carrying plaster +statuary—Garibaldi, and the infant Samuel, and Queen Victoria, and other +heroes of modern Italy. Down on one side of the forecourt ran a skittle-alley, +with benches along it and little wooden tables marked with rings that hinted at +beer-mugs. In the middle was a small round pond containing gold-fish and +surrounded by a cockle-shell border. Out of the centre of the pond rose a +fanciful erection clothed in more cockle-shells and topped by a large silvered +glass ball that reflected everything all wrong and had a very pleasing effect. +</p> + +<p> +Mole’s face-beamed at the sight of all these objects so dear to him, and +he hurried Rat through the door, lit a lamp in the hall, and took one glance +round his old home. He saw the dust lying thick on everything, saw the +cheerless, deserted look of the long-neglected house, and its narrow, meagre +dimensions, its worn and shabby contents—and collapsed again on a +hall-chair, his nose to his paws. “O Ratty!” he cried dismally, +“why ever did I do it? Why did I bring you to this poor, cold little +place, on a night like this, when you might have been at River Bank by this +time, toasting your toes before a blazing fire, with all your own nice things +about you!” +</p> + +<p> +The Rat paid no heed to his doleful self-reproaches. He was running here and +there, opening doors, inspecting rooms and cupboards, and lighting lamps and +candles and sticking them, up everywhere. “What a capital little house +this is!” he called out cheerily. “So compact! So well planned! +Everything here and everything in its place! We’ll make a jolly night of +it. The first thing we want is a good fire; I’ll see to that—I +always know where to find things. So this is the parlour? Splendid! Your own +idea, those little sleeping-bunks in the wall? Capital! Now, I’ll fetch +the wood and the coals, and you get a duster, Mole—you’ll find one +in the drawer of the kitchen table—and try and smarten things up a bit. +Bustle about, old chap!” +</p> + +<p> +Encouraged by his inspiriting companion, the Mole roused himself and dusted and +polished with energy and heartiness, while the Rat, running to and fro with +armfuls of fuel, soon had a cheerful blaze roaring up the chimney. He hailed +the Mole to come and warm himself; but Mole promptly had another fit of the +blues, dropping down on a couch in dark despair and burying his face in his +duster. “Rat,” he moaned, “how about your supper, you poor, +cold, hungry, weary animal? I’ve nothing to give +you—nothing—not a crumb!” +</p> + +<p> +“What a fellow you are for giving in!” said the Rat reproachfully. +“Why, only just now I saw a sardine-opener on the kitchen dresser, quite +distinctly; and everybody knows that means there are sardines about somewhere +in the neighbourhood. Rouse yourself! pull yourself together, and come with me +and forage.” +</p> + +<p> +They went and foraged accordingly, hunting through every cupboard and turning +out every drawer. The result was not so very depressing after all, though of +course it might have been better; a tin of sardines—a box of +captain’s biscuits, nearly full—and a German sausage encased in +silver paper. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s a banquet for you!” observed the Rat, as he arranged +the table. “I know some animals who would give their ears to be sitting +down to supper with us to-night!” +</p> + +<p> +“No bread!” groaned the Mole dolorously; “no butter, +no——” +</p> + +<p> +“No <i>pâté de foie gras</i>, no champagne!” continued the Rat, grinning. +“And that reminds me—what’s that little door at the end of +the passage? Your cellar, of course! Every luxury in this house! Just you wait +a minute.” +</p> + +<p> +He made for the cellar-door, and presently reappeared, somewhat dusty, with a +bottle of beer in each paw and another under each arm, “Self-indulgent +beggar you seem to be, Mole,” he observed. “Deny yourself nothing. +This is really the jolliest little place I ever was in. Now, wherever did you +pick up those prints? Make the place look so home-like, they do. No wonder +you’re so fond of it, Mole. Tell us all about it, and how you came to +make it what it is.” +</p> + +<p> +Then, while the Rat busied himself fetching plates, and knives and forks, and +mustard which he mixed in an egg-cup, the Mole, his bosom still heaving with +the stress of his recent emotion, related—somewhat shyly at first, but +with more freedom as he warmed to his subject—how this was planned, and +how that was thought out, and how this was got through a windfall from an aunt, +and that was a wonderful find and a bargain, and this other thing was bought +out of laborious savings and a certain amount of “going without.” +His spirits finally quite restored, he must needs go and caress his +possessions, and take a lamp and show off their points to his visitor and +expatiate on them, quite forgetful of the supper they both so much needed; Rat, +who was desperately hungry but strove to conceal it, nodding seriously, +examining with a puckered brow, and saying, “wonderful,” and +“most remarkable,” at intervals, when the chance for an observation +was given him. +</p> + +<p> +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 +fore-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 +a-waiting——” +</p> + +<p> +“What’s up?” inquired the Rat, pausing in his labours. +</p> + +<p> +“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 at 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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s have a look at them!” cried the Rat, jumping up and +running to the door. +</p> + +<p> +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 fieldmice stood in a semicircle, 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 elder 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 by 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. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +CAROL<br> +<br> +Villagers all, this frosty tide,<br> +Let your doors swing open wide,<br> +Though wind may follow, and snow beside,<br> +Yet draw us in by your fire to bide;<br> + Joy shall be yours in the morning!<br> +<br> +Here we stand in the cold and the sleet,<br> +Blowing fingers and stamping feet,<br> +Come from far away you to greet—<br> +You by the fire and we in the street—<br> + Bidding you joy in the morning!<br> +<br> +For ere one half of the night was gone,<br> +Sudden a star has led us on,<br> +Raining bliss and benison—<br> +Bliss to-morrow and more anon,<br> + Joy for every morning!<br> +<br> +Goodman Joseph toiled through the snow—<br> +Saw the star o’er a stable low;<br> +Mary she might not further go—<br> +Welcome thatch, and litter below!<br> + Joy was hers in the morning!<br> +<br> +And then they heard the angels tell<br> +“Who were the first to cry <i>Nowell?</i><br> +Animals all, as it befell,<br> +In the stable where they did dwell!<br> + Joy shall be theirs in the morning!” +</p> + +<p> +The voices ceased, the singers, bashful but smiling, exchanged sidelong +glances, and silence succeeded—but for a moment only. Then, from up above +and far away, down the tunnel they had so lately travelled was borne to their +ears in a faint musical hum the sound of distant bells ringing a joyful and +clangorous peal. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well sung, boys!” cried the Rat heartily. “And now come +along in, all of you, and warm yourselves by the fire, and have something +hot!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, come along, field-mice,” cried the Mole eagerly. “This +is quite like old times! Shut the door after you. Pull up that settle to the +fire. Now, you just wait a minute, while we—O, Ratty!” he cried in +despair, plumping down on a seat, with tears impending. “Whatever are we +doing? We’ve nothing to give them!” +</p> + +<p> +“You leave all that to me,” said the masterful Rat. “Here, +you with the lantern! Come over this way. I want to talk to you. Now, tell me, +are there any shops open at this hour of the night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, certainly, sir,” replied the field-mouse respectfully. +“At this time of the year our shops keep open to all sorts of +hours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then look here!” said the Rat. “You go off at once, you and +your lantern, and you get me——” +</p> + +<p> +Here much muttered conversation ensued, and the Mole only heard bits of it, +such as—“Fresh, mind!—no, a pound of that will do—see +you get Buggins’s, for I won’t have any other—no, only the +best—if you can’t get it there, try somewhere else—yes, of +course, home-made, no tinned stuff—well then, do the best you can!” +Finally, there was a chink of coin passing from paw to paw, the field-mouse was +provided with an ample basket for his purchases, and off he hurried, he and his +lantern. +</p> + +<p> +The rest of the field-mice, perched in a row on the settle, their small legs +swinging, gave themselves up to enjoyment of the fire, and toasted their +chilblains till they tingled; while the Mole, failing to draw them into easy +conversation, plunged into family history and made each of them recite the +names of his numerous brothers, who were too young, it appeared, to be allowed +to go out a-carolling this year, but looked forward very shortly to winning the +parental consent. +</p> + +<p> +The Rat, meanwhile, was busy examining the label on one of the beer-bottles. +“I perceive this to be Old Burton,” he remarked approvingly. +“<i>Sensible</i> Mole! The very thing! Now we shall be able to mull some ale! +Get the things ready, Mole, while I draw the corks.” +</p> + +<p> +It did not take long to prepare the brew and thrust the tin heater well into +the red heart of the fire; and soon every field-mouse was sipping and coughing +and choking (for a little mulled ale goes a long way) and wiping his eyes and +laughing and forgetting he had ever been cold in all his life. +</p> + +<p> +“They act plays too, these fellows,” the Mole explained to the Rat. +“Make them up all by themselves, and act them afterwards. And very well +they do it, too! They gave us a capital one last year, about a field-mouse who +was captured at sea by a Barbary corsair, and made to row in a galley; and when +he escaped and got home again, his lady-love had gone into a convent. Here, +<i>you!</i> You were in it, I remember. Get up and recite a bit.” +</p> + +<p> +The field-mouse addressed got up on his legs, giggled shyly, looked round the +room, and remained absolutely tongue-tied. His comrades cheered him on, Mole +coaxed and encouraged him, and the Rat went so far as to take him by the +shoulders and shake him; but nothing could overcome his stage-fright. They were +all busily engaged on him like watermen applying the Royal Humane +Society’s regulations to a case of long submersion, when the latch +clicked, the door opened, and the field-mouse with the lantern reappeared, +staggering under the weight of his basket. +</p> + +<p> +There was no more talk of play-acting once the very real and solid contents of +the basket had been tumbled out on the table. Under the generalship of Rat, +everybody was set to do something or to fetch something. In a very few minutes +supper was ready, and Mole, as he took the head of the table in a sort of a +dream, saw a lately barren board set thick with savoury comforts; saw his +little friends’ faces brighten and beam as they fell to without delay; +and then let himself loose—for he was famished indeed—on the +provender so magically provided, thinking what a happy home-coming this had +turned out, after all. As they ate, they talked of old times, and the +field-mice gave him the local gossip up to date, and answered as well as they +could the hundred questions he had to ask them. The Rat said little or nothing, +only taking care that each guest had what he wanted, and plenty of it, and that +Mole had no trouble or anxiety about anything. +</p> + +<p> +They clattered off at last, very grateful and showering wishes of the season, +with their jacket pockets stuffed with remembrances for the small brothers and +sisters at home. When the door had closed on the last of them and the chink of +the lanterns had died away, Mole and Rat kicked the fire up, drew their chairs +in, brewed themselves a last nightcap of mulled ale, and discussed the events +of the long day. At last the Rat, with a tremendous yawn, said, “Mole, +old chap, I’m ready to drop. Sleepy is simply not the word. That your own +bunk over on that side? Very well, then, I’ll take this. What a ripping +little house this is! Everything so handy!” +</p> + +<p> +He clambered into his bunk and rolled himself well up in the blankets, and +slumber gathered him forthwith, as a swathe of barley is folded into the arms +of the reaping machine. +</p> + +<p> +The weary Mole also was glad to turn in without delay, and soon had his head on +his pillow, in great joy and contentment. But ere he closed his eyes he let +them wander round his old room, mellow in the glow of the firelight that played +or rested on familiar and friendly things which had long been unconsciously a +part of him, and now smilingly received him back, without rancour. He was now +in just the frame of mind that the tactful Rat had quietly worked to bring +about in him. He saw clearly how plain and simple—how narrow, +even—it all was; but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him, and the +special value of some such anchorage in one’s existence. He did not at +all want to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces, to turn his back on +sun and air and all they offered him and creep home and stay there; the upper +world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down there, and he knew +he must return to the larger stage. But it was good to think he had this to +come back to; this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad +to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap06"></a>VI.<br> +MR. TOAD</h2> + +<p> +It was a bright morning in the early part of summer; the river had resumed its +wonted banks and its accustomed pace, and a hot sun seemed to be pulling +everything green and bushy and spiky up out of the earth towards him, as if by +strings. The Mole and the Water Rat had been up since dawn, very busy on +matters connected with boats and the opening of the boating season; painting +and varnishing, mending paddles, repairing cushions, hunting for missing +boat-hooks, and so on; and were finishing breakfast in their little parlour and +eagerly discussing their plans for the day, when a heavy knock sounded at the +door. +</p> + +<p> +“Bother!” said the Rat, all over egg. “See who it is, Mole, +like a good chap, since you’ve finished.” +</p> + +<p> +The Mole went to attend the summons, and the Rat heard him utter a cry of +surprise. Then he flung the parlour door open, and announced with much +importance, “Mr. Badger!” +</p> + +<p> +This was a wonderful thing, indeed, that the Badger should pay a formal call on +them, or indeed on anybody. He generally had to be caught, if you wanted him +badly, as he slipped quietly along a hedgerow of an early morning or a late +evening, or else hunted up in his own house in the middle of the Wood, which +was a serious undertaking. +</p> + +<p> +The Badger strode heavily into the room, and stood looking at the two animals +with an expression full of seriousness. The Rat let his egg-spoon fall on the +table-cloth, and sat open-mouthed. +</p> + +<p> +“The hour has come!” said the Badger at last with great solemnity. +</p> + +<p> +“What hour?” asked the Rat uneasily, glancing at the clock on the +mantelpiece. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Whose</i> hour, you should rather say,” replied the Badger. +“Why, Toad’s hour! The hour of Toad! I said I would take him in +hand as soon as the winter was well over, and I’m going to take him in +hand to-day!” +</p> + +<p> +“Toad’s hour, of course!” cried the Mole delightedly. +“Hooray! I remember now! <i>We’ll</i> teach him to be a sensible +Toad!” +</p> + +<p> +“This very morning,” continued the Badger, taking an arm-chair, +“as I learnt last night from a trustworthy source, another new and +exceptionally powerful motor-car will arrive at Toad Hall on approval or +return. At this very moment, perhaps, Toad is busy arraying himself in those +singularly hideous habiliments so dear to him, which transform him from a +(comparatively) good-looking Toad into an Object which throws any decent-minded +animal that comes across it into a violent fit. We must be up and doing, ere it +is too late. You two animals will accompany me instantly to Toad Hall, and the +work of rescue shall be accomplished.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right you are!” cried the Rat, starting up. “We’ll +rescue the poor unhappy animal! We’ll convert him! He’ll be the +most converted Toad that ever was before we’ve done with him!” +</p> + +<p> +They set off up the road on their mission of mercy, Badger leading the way. +Animals when in company walk in a proper and sensible manner, in single file, +instead of sprawling all across the road and being of no use or support to each +other in case of sudden trouble or danger. +</p> + +<p> +They reached the carriage-drive of Toad Hall to find, as the Badger had +anticipated, a shiny new motor-car, of great size, painted a bright red +(Toad’s favourite colour), standing in front of the house. As they neared +the door it was flung open, and Mr. Toad, arrayed in goggles, cap, gaiters, and +enormous overcoat, came swaggering down the steps, drawing on his gauntleted +gloves. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo! come on, you fellows!” he cried cheerfully on catching +sight of them. “You’re just in time to come with me for a +jolly—to come for a jolly—for +a—er—jolly——” +</p> + +<p> +His hearty accents faltered and fell away as he noticed the stern unbending +look on the countenances of his silent friends, and his invitation remained +unfinished. +</p> + +<p> +The Badger strode up the steps. “Take him inside,” he said sternly +to his companions. Then, as Toad was hustled through the door, struggling and +protesting, he turned to the <i>chauffeur</i> in charge of the new motor-car. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid you won’t be wanted to-day,” he said. +“Mr. Toad has changed his mind. He will not require the car. Please +understand that this is final. You needn’t wait.” Then he followed +the others inside and shut the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Now then!” he said to the Toad, when the four of them stood +together in the Hall, “first of all, take those ridiculous things +off!” +</p> + +<p> +“Shan’t!” replied Toad, with great spirit. “What is the +meaning of this gross outrage? I demand an instant explanation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take them off him, then, you two,” ordered the Badger briefly. +</p> + +<p> +They had to lay Toad out on the floor, kicking and calling all sorts of names, +before they could get to work properly. Then the Rat sat on him, and the Mole +got his motor-clothes off him bit by bit, and they stood him up on his legs +again. A good deal of his blustering spirit seemed to have evaporated with the +removal of his fine panoply. Now that he was merely Toad, and no longer the +Terror of the Highway, he giggled feebly and looked from one to the other +appealingly, seeming quite to understand the situation. +</p> + +<p> +“You knew it must come to this, sooner or later, Toad,” the Badger +explained severely. +</p> + +<p> +You’ve disregarded all the warnings we’ve given you, you’ve +gone on squandering the money your father left you, and you’re getting us +animals a bad name in the district by your furious driving and your smashes and +your rows with the police. Independence is all very well, but we animals never +allow our friends to make fools of themselves beyond a certain limit; and that +limit you’ve reached. Now, you’re a good fellow in many respects, +and I don’t want to be too hard on you. I’ll make one more effort +to bring you to reason. You will come with me into the smoking-room, and there +you will hear some facts about yourself; and we’ll see whether you come +out of that room the same Toad that you went in.” +</p> + +<p> +He took Toad firmly by the arm, led him into the smoking-room, and closed the +door behind them. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>That’s</i> no good!” said the Rat contemptuously. “<i>Talking</i> +to Toad’ll never cure him. He’ll <i>say</i> anything.” +</p> + +<p> +They made themselves comfortable in armchairs and waited patiently. Through the +closed door they could just hear the long continuous drone of the +Badger’s voice, rising and falling in waves of oratory; and presently +they noticed that the sermon began to be punctuated at intervals by long-drawn +sobs, evidently proceeding from the bosom of Toad, who was a soft-hearted and +affectionate fellow, very easily converted—for the time being—to +any point of view. +</p> + +<p> +After some three-quarters of an hour the door opened, and the Badger +reappeared, solemnly leading by the paw a very limp and dejected Toad. His skin +hung baggily about him, his legs wobbled, and his cheeks were furrowed by the +tears so plentifully called forth by the Badger’s moving discourse. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down there, Toad,” said the Badger kindly, pointing to a +chair. “My friends,” he went on, “I am pleased to inform you +that Toad has at last seen the error of his ways. He is truly sorry for his +misguided conduct in the past, and he has undertaken to give up motor-cars +entirely and for ever. I have his solemn promise to that effect.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is very good news,” said the Mole gravely. +</p> + +<p> +“Very good news indeed,” observed the Rat dubiously, “if +only—<i>if</i> only——” +</p> + +<p> +He was looking very hard at Toad as he said this, and could not help thinking +he perceived something vaguely resembling a twinkle in that animal’s +still sorrowful eye. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s only one thing more to be done,” continued the +gratified Badger. “Toad, I want you solemnly to repeat, before your +friends here, what you fully admitted to me in the smoking-room just now. +First, you are sorry for what you’ve done, and you see the folly of it +all?” +</p> + +<p> +There was a long, long pause. Toad looked desperately this way and that, while +the other animals waited in grave silence. At last he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“No!” he said, a little sullenly, but stoutly; “I’m <i>not</i> +sorry. And it wasn’t folly at all! It was simply glorious!” +</p> + +<p> +“What?” cried the Badger, greatly scandalised. “You +backsliding animal, didn’t you tell me just now, in +there——” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes, yes, in <i>there</i>,” said Toad impatiently. “I’d +have said anything in <i>there</i>. You’re so eloquent, dear Badger, and so +moving, and so convincing, and put all your points so frightfully +well—you can do what you like with me in <i>there</i>, and you know it. But +I’ve been searching my mind since, and going over things in it, and I +find that I’m not a bit sorry or repentant really, so it’s no +earthly good saying I am; now, is it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you don’t promise,” said the Badger, “never to +touch a motor-car again?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not!” replied Toad emphatically. “On the contrary, +I faithfully promise that the very first motor-car I see, poop-poop! off I go +in it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Told you so, didn’t I?” observed the Rat to the Mole. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then,” said the Badger firmly, rising to his feet. +“Since you won’t yield to persuasion, we’ll try what force +can do. I feared it would come to this all along. You’ve often asked us +three to come and stay with you, Toad, in this handsome house of yours; well, +now we’re going to. When we’ve converted you to a proper point of +view we may quit, but not before. Take him upstairs, you two, and lock him up +in his bedroom, while we arrange matters between ourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s for your own good, Toady, you know,” said the Rat +kindly, as Toad, kicking and struggling, was hauled up the stairs by his two +faithful friends. “Think what fun we shall all have together, just as we +used to, when you’ve quite got over this—this painful attack of +yours!” +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll take great care of everything for you till you’re +well, Toad,” said the Mole; “and we’ll see your money +isn’t wasted, as it has been.” +</p> + +<p> +“No more of those regrettable incidents with the police, Toad,” +said the Rat, as they thrust him into his bedroom. +</p> + +<p> +“And no more weeks in hospital, being ordered about by female nurses, +Toad,” added the Mole, turning the key on him. +</p> + +<p> +They descended the stair, Toad shouting abuse at them through the keyhole; and +the three friends then met in conference on the situation. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s going to be a tedious business,” said the Badger, +sighing. “I’ve never seen Toad so determined. However, we will see +it out. He must never be left an instant unguarded. We shall have to take it in +turns to be with him, till the poison has worked itself out of his +system.” +</p> + +<p> +They arranged watches accordingly. Each animal took it in turns to sleep in +Toad’s room at night, and they divided the day up between them. At first +Toad was undoubtedly very trying to his careful guardians. When his violent +paroxysms possessed him he would arrange bedroom chairs in rude resemblance of +a motor-car and would crouch on the foremost of them, bent forward and staring +fixedly ahead, making uncouth and ghastly noises, till the climax was reached, +when, turning a complete somersault, he would lie prostrate amidst the ruins of +the chairs, apparently completely satisfied for the moment. As time passed, +however, these painful seizures grew gradually less frequent, and his friends +strove to divert his mind into fresh channels. But his interest in other +matters did not seem to revive, and he grew apparently languid and depressed. +</p> + +<p> +One fine morning the Rat, whose turn it was to go on duty, went upstairs to +relieve Badger, whom he found fidgeting to be off and stretch his legs in a +long ramble round his wood and down his earths and burrows. “Toad’s +still in bed,” he told the Rat, outside the door. “Can’t get +much out of him, except, ‘O leave him alone, he wants nothing, perhaps +he’ll be better presently, it may pass off in time, don’t be unduly +anxious,’ and so on. Now, you look out, Rat! When Toad’s quiet and +submissive and playing at being the hero of a Sunday-school prize, then +he’s at his artfullest. There’s sure to be something up. I know +him. Well, now, I must be off.” +</p> + +<p> +“How are you to-day, old chap?” inquired the Rat cheerfully, as he +approached Toad’s bedside. +</p> + +<p> +He had to wait some minutes for an answer. At last a feeble voice replied, +“Thank you so much, dear Ratty! So good of you to inquire! But first tell +me how you are yourself, and the excellent Mole?” +</p> + +<p> +“O, <i>we’re</i> all right,” replied the Rat. “Mole,” he +added incautiously, “is going out for a run round with Badger. +They’ll be out till luncheon time, so you and I will spend a pleasant +morning together, and I’ll do my best to amuse you. Now jump up, +there’s a good fellow, and don’t lie moping there on a fine morning +like this!” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear, kind Rat,” murmured Toad, “how little you realise my +condition, and how very far I am from ‘jumping up’ now—if +ever! But do not trouble about me. I hate being a burden to my friends, and I +do not expect to be one much longer. Indeed, I almost hope not.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I hope not, too,” said the Rat heartily. “You’ve +been a fine bother to us all this time, and I’m glad to hear it’s +going to stop. And in weather like this, and the boating season just beginning! +It’s too bad of you, Toad! It isn’t the trouble we mind, but +you’re making us miss such an awful lot.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid it <i>is</i> the trouble you mind, though,” replied the +Toad languidly. “I can quite understand it. It’s natural enough. +You’re tired of bothering about me. I mustn’t ask you to do +anything further. I’m a nuisance, I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are, indeed,” said the Rat. “But I tell you, I’d +take any trouble on earth for you, if only you’d be a sensible +animal.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I thought that, Ratty,” murmured Toad, more feebly than ever, +“then I would beg you—for the last time, probably—to step +round to the village as quickly as possible—even now it may be too +late—and fetch the doctor. But don’t you bother. It’s only a +trouble, and perhaps we may as well let things take their course.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what do you want a doctor for?” inquired the Rat, coming +closer and examining him. He certainly lay very still and flat, and his voice +was weaker and his manner much changed. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely you have noticed of late——” murmured Toad. +“But, no—why should you? Noticing things is only a trouble. +To-morrow, indeed, you may be saying to yourself, ‘O, if only I had +noticed sooner! If only I had done something!’ But no; it’s a +trouble. Never mind—forget that I asked.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, old man,” said the Rat, beginning to get rather +alarmed, “of course I’ll fetch a doctor to you, if you really think +you want him. But you can hardly be bad enough for that yet. Let’s talk +about something else.” +</p> + +<p> +“I fear, dear friend,” said Toad, with a sad smile, “that +‘talk’ can do little in a case like this—or doctors either, +for that matter; still, one must grasp at the slightest straw. And, by the +way—while you are about it—I <i>hate</i> to give you additional trouble, +but I happen to remember that you will pass the door—would you mind at +the same time asking the lawyer to step up? It would be a convenience to me, +and there are moments—perhaps I should say there is <i>a</i> moment—when +one must face disagreeable tasks, at whatever cost to exhausted nature!” +</p> + +<p> +“A lawyer! O, he must be really bad!” the affrighted Rat said to +himself, as he hurried from the room, not forgetting, however, to lock the door +carefully behind him. +</p> + +<p> +Outside, he stopped to consider. The other two were far away, and he had no one +to consult. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s best to be on the safe side,” he said, on reflection. +“I’ve known Toad fancy himself frightfully bad before, without the +slightest reason; but I’ve never heard him ask for a lawyer! If +there’s nothing really the matter, the doctor will tell him he’s an +old ass, and cheer him up; and that will be something gained. I’d better +humour him and go; it won’t take very long.” So he ran off to the +village on his errand of mercy. +</p> + +<p> +The Toad, who had hopped lightly out of bed as soon as he heard the key turned +in the lock, watched him eagerly from the window till he disappeared down the +carriage-drive. Then, laughing heartily, he dressed as quickly as possible in +the smartest suit he could lay hands on at the moment, filled his pockets with +cash which he took from a small drawer in the dressing-table, and next, +knotting the sheets from his bed together and tying one end of the improvised +rope round the central mullion of the handsome Tudor window which formed such a +feature of his bedroom, he scrambled out, slid lightly to the ground, and, +taking the opposite direction to the Rat, marched off lightheartedly, whistling +a merry tune. +</p> + +<p> +It was a gloomy luncheon for Rat when the Badger and the Mole at length +returned, and he had to face them at table with his pitiful and unconvincing +story. The Badger’s caustic, not to say brutal, remarks may be imagined, +and therefore passed over; but it was painful to the Rat that even the Mole, +though he took his friend’s side as far as possible, could not help +saying, “You’ve been a bit of a duffer this time, Ratty! Toad, too, +of all animals!” +</p> + +<p> +“He did it awfully well,” said the crestfallen Rat. +</p> + +<p> +“He did <i>you</i> awfully well!” rejoined the Badger hotly. +“However, talking won’t mend matters. He’s got clear away for +the time, that’s certain; and the worst of it is, he’ll be so +conceited with what he’ll think is his cleverness that he may commit any +folly. One comfort is, we’re free now, and needn’t waste any more +of our precious time doing sentry-go. But we’d better continue to sleep +at Toad Hall for a while longer. Toad may be brought back at any +moment—on a stretcher, or between two policemen.” +</p> + +<p> +So spoke the Badger, not knowing what the future held in store, or how much +water, and of how turbid a character, was to run under bridges before Toad +should sit at ease again in his ancestral Hall. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Meanwhile, Toad, gay and irresponsible, was walking briskly along the high +road, some miles from home. At first he had taken by-paths, and crossed many +fields, and changed his course several times, in case of pursuit; but now, +feeling by this time safe from recapture, and the sun smiling brightly on him, +and all Nature joining in a chorus of approval to the song of self-praise that +his own heart was singing to him, he almost danced along the road in his +satisfaction and conceit. +</p> + +<p> +“Smart piece of work that!” he remarked to himself chuckling. +“Brain against brute force—and brain came out on the top—as +it’s bound to do. Poor old Ratty! My! won’t he catch it when the +Badger gets back! A worthy fellow, Ratty, with many good qualities, but very +little intelligence and absolutely no education. I must take him in hand some +day, and see if I can make something of him.” +</p> + +<p> +Filled full of conceited thoughts such as these he strode along, his head in +the air, till he reached a little town, where the sign of “The Red +Lion,” swinging across the road halfway down the main street, reminded +him that he had not breakfasted that day, and that he was exceedingly hungry +after his long walk. He marched into the Inn, ordered the best luncheon that +could be provided at so short a notice, and sat down to eat it in the +coffee-room. +</p> + +<p> +He was about half-way through his meal when an only too familiar sound, +approaching down the street, made him start and fall a-trembling all over. The +poop-poop! drew nearer and nearer, the car could be heard to turn into the +inn-yard and come to a stop, and Toad had to hold on to the leg of the table to +conceal his over-mastering emotion. Presently the party entered the +coffee-room, hungry, talkative, and gay, voluble on their experiences of the +morning and the merits of the chariot that had brought them along so well. Toad +listened eagerly, all ears, for a time; at last he could stand it no longer. He +slipped out of the room quietly, paid his bill at the bar, and as soon as he +got outside sauntered round quietly to the inn-yard. “There cannot be any +harm,” he said to himself, “in my only just <i>looking</i> at it!” +</p> + +<p> +The car stood in the middle of the yard, quite unattended, the stable-helps and +other hangers-on being all at their dinner. Toad walked slowly round it, +inspecting, criticising, musing deeply. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder,” he said to himself presently, “I wonder if this +sort of car <i>starts</i> easily?” +</p> + +<p> +Next moment, hardly knowing how it came about, he found he had hold of the +handle and was turning it. As the familiar sound broke forth, the old passion +seized on Toad and completely mastered him, body and soul. As if in a dream he +found himself, somehow, seated in the driver’s seat; as if in a dream, he +pulled the lever and swung the car round the yard and out through the archway; +and, as if in a dream, all sense of right and wrong, all fear of obvious +consequences, seemed temporarily suspended. He increased his pace, and as the +car devoured the street and leapt forth on the high road through the open +country, he was only conscious that he was Toad once more, Toad at his best and +highest, Toad the terror, the traffic-queller, the Lord of the lone trail, +before whom all must give way or be smitten into nothingness and everlasting +night. He chanted as he flew, and the car responded with sonorous drone; the +miles were eaten up under him as he sped he knew not whither, fulfilling his +instincts, living his hour, reckless of what might come to him. +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +“To my mind,” observed the Chairman of the Bench of Magistrates +cheerfully, “the <i>only</i> difficulty that presents itself in this otherwise +very clear case is, how we can possibly make it sufficiently hot for the +incorrigible rogue and hardened ruffian whom we see cowering in the dock before +us. Let me see: he has been found guilty, on the clearest evidence, first, of +stealing a valuable motor-car; secondly, of driving to the public danger; and, +thirdly, of gross impertinence to the rural police. Mr. Clerk, will you tell +us, please, what is the very stiffest penalty we can impose for each of these +offences? Without, of course, giving the prisoner the benefit of any doubt, +because there isn’t any.” +</p> + +<p> +The Clerk scratched his nose with his pen. “Some people would +consider,” he observed, “that stealing the motor-car was the worst +offence; and so it is. But cheeking the police undoubtedly carries the severest +penalty; and so it ought. Supposing you were to say twelve months for the +theft, which is mild; and three years for the furious driving, which is +lenient; and fifteen years for the cheek, which was pretty bad sort of cheek, +judging by what we’ve heard from the witness-box, even if you only +believe one-tenth part of what you heard, and I never believe more +myself—those figures, if added together correctly, tot up to nineteen +years——” +</p> + +<p> +“First-rate!” said the Chairman. +</p> + +<p> +“—So you had better make it a round twenty years and be on the safe +side,” concluded the Clerk. +</p> + +<p> +“An excellent suggestion!” said the Chairman approvingly. +“Prisoner! Pull yourself together and try and stand up straight. +It’s going to be twenty years for you this time. And mind, if you appear +before us again, upon any charge whatever, we shall have to deal with you very +seriously!” +</p> + +<p> +Then the brutal minions of the law fell upon the hapless Toad; loaded him with +chains, and dragged him from the Court House, shrieking, praying, protesting; +across the marketplace, where the playful populace, always as severe upon +detected crime as they are sympathetic and helpful when one is merely +“wanted,” assailed him with jeers, carrots, and popular +catch-words; past hooting school children, their innocent faces lit up with the +pleasure they ever derive from the sight of a gentleman in difficulties; across +the hollow-sounding drawbridge, below the spiky portcullis, under the frowning +archway of the grim old castle, whose ancient towers soared high overhead; past +guardrooms full of grinning soldiery off duty, past sentries who coughed in a +horrid, sarcastic way, because that is as much as a sentry on his post dare do +to show his contempt and abhorrence of crime; up time-worn winding stairs, past +men-at-arms in casquet and corselet of steel, darting threatening looks through +their vizards; across courtyards, where mastiffs strained at their leash and +pawed the air to get at him; past ancient warders, their halberds leant against +the wall, dozing over a pasty and a flagon of brown ale; on and on, past the +rack-chamber and the thumbscrew-room, past the turning that led to the private +scaffold, till they reached the door of the grimmest dungeon that lay in the +heart of the innermost keep. There at last they paused, where an ancient gaoler +sat fingering a bunch of mighty keys. +</p> + +<p> +“Oddsbodikins!” said the sergeant of police, taking off his helmet +and wiping his forehead. “Rouse thee, old loon, and take over from us +this vile Toad, a criminal of deepest guilt and matchless artfulness and +resource. Watch and ward him with all thy skill; and mark thee well, greybeard, +should aught untoward befall, thy old head shall answer for his—and a +murrain on both of them!” +</p> + +<p> +The gaoler nodded grimly, laying his withered hand on the shoulder of the +miserable Toad. The rusty key creaked in the lock, the great door clanged +behind them; and Toad was a helpless prisoner in the remotest dungeon of the +best-guarded keep of the stoutest castle in all the length and breadth of Merry +England. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap07"></a>VII.<br> +THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN</h2> + +<p> +The Willow-Wren was twittering his thin little song, hidden himself in the dark +selvedge of the river bank. Though it was past ten o’clock at night, the +sky still clung to and retained some lingering skirts of light from the +departed day; and the sullen heats of the torrid afternoon broke up and rolled +away at the dispersing touch of the cool fingers of the short midsummer night. +Mole lay stretched on the bank, still panting from the stress of the fierce day +that had been cloudless from dawn to late sunset, and waited for his friend to +return. He had been on the river with some companions, leaving the Water Rat +free to keep a engagement of long standing with Otter; and he had come back to +find the house dark and deserted, and no sign of Rat, who was doubtless keeping +it up late with his old comrade. It was still too hot to think of staying +indoors, so he lay on some cool dock-leaves, and thought over the past day and +its doings, and how very good they all had been. +</p> + +<p> +The Rat’s light footfall was presently heard approaching over the parched +grass. “O, the blessed coolness!” he said, and sat down, gazing +thoughtfully into the river, silent and pre-occupied. +</p> + +<p> +“You stayed to supper, of course?” said the Mole presently. +</p> + +<p> +“Simply had to,” said the Rat. “They wouldn’t hear of +my going before. You know how kind they always are. And they made things as +jolly for me as ever they could, right up to the moment I left. But I felt a +brute all the time, as it was clear to me they were very unhappy, though they +tried to hide it. Mole, I’m afraid they’re in trouble. Little +Portly is missing again; and you know what a lot his father thinks of him, +though he never says much about it.” +</p> + +<p> +“What, that child?” said the Mole lightly. “Well, suppose he +is; why worry about it? He’s always straying off and getting lost, and +turning up again; he’s so adventurous. But no harm ever happens to him. +Everybody hereabouts knows him and likes him, just as they do old Otter, and +you may be sure some animal or other will come across him and bring him back +again all right. Why, we’ve found him ourselves, miles from home, and +quite self-possessed and cheerful!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; but this time it’s more serious,” said the Rat gravely. +“He’s been missing for some days now, and the Otters have hunted +everywhere, high and low, without finding the slightest trace. And +they’ve asked every animal, too, for miles around, and no one knows +anything about him. Otter’s evidently more anxious than he’ll +admit. I got out of him that young Portly hasn’t learnt to swim very well +yet, and I can see he’s thinking of the weir. There’s a lot of +water coming down still, considering the time of the year, and the place always +had a fascination for the child. And then there are—well, traps and +things—<i>you</i> know. Otter’s not the fellow to be nervous about any son +of his before it’s time. And now he <i>is</i> nervous. When I left, he came out +with me—said he wanted some air, and talked about stretching his legs. +But I could see it wasn’t that, so I drew him out and pumped him, and got +it all from him at last. He was going to spend the night watching by the ford. +You know the place where the old ford used to be, in by-gone days before they +built the bridge?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know it well,” said the Mole. “But why should Otter choose +to watch there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it seems that it was there he gave Portly his first +swimming-lesson,” continued the Rat. “From that shallow, gravelly +spit near the bank. And it was there he used to teach him fishing, and there +young Portly caught his first fish, of which he was so very proud. The child +loved the spot, and Otter thinks that if he came wandering back from wherever +he is—if he <i>is</i> anywhere by this time, poor little chap—he might +make for the ford he was so fond of; or if he came across it he’d +remember it well, and stop there and play, perhaps. So Otter goes there every +night and watches—on the chance, you know, just on the chance!” +</p> + +<p> +They were silent for a time, both thinking of the same thing—the lonely, +heart-sore animal, crouched by the ford, watching and waiting, the long night +through—on the chance. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well,” said the Rat presently, “I suppose we ought to +be thinking about turning in.” But he never offered to move. +</p> + +<p> +“Rat,” said the Mole, “I simply can’t go and turn in, +and go to sleep, and <i>do</i> nothing, even though there doesn’t seem to be +anything to be done. We’ll get the boat out, and paddle up stream. The +moon will be up in an hour or so, and then we will search as well as we +can—anyhow, it will be better than going to bed and doing <i>nothing</i>.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just what I was thinking myself,” said the Rat. “It’s +not the sort of night for bed anyhow; and daybreak is not so very far off, and +then we may pick up some news of him from early risers as we go along.” +</p> + +<p> +They got the boat out, and the Rat took the sculls, paddling with caution. Out +in midstream, there was a clear, narrow track that faintly reflected the sky; +but wherever shadows fell on the water from bank, bush, or tree, they were as +solid to all appearance as the banks themselves, and the Mole had to steer with +judgment accordingly. Dark and deserted as it was, the night was full of small +noises, song and chatter and rustling, telling of the busy little population +who were up and about, plying their trades and vocations through the night till +sunshine should fall on them at last and send them off to their well-earned +repose. The water’s own noises, too, were more apparent than by day, its +gurglings and “cloops” more unexpected and near at hand; and +constantly they started at what seemed a sudden clear call from an actual +articulate voice. +</p> + +<p> +The line of the horizon was clear and hard against the sky, and in one +particular quarter it showed black against a silvery climbing phosphorescence +that grew and grew. At last, over the rim of the waiting earth the moon lifted +with slow majesty till it swung clear of the horizon and rode off, free of +moorings; and once more they began to see surfaces—meadows wide-spread, +and quiet gardens, and the river itself from bank to bank, all softly +disclosed, all washed clean of mystery and terror, all radiant again as by day, +but with a difference that was tremendous. Their old haunts greeted them again +in other raiment, as if they had slipped away and put on this pure new apparel +and come quietly back, smiling as they shyly waited to see if they would be +recognised again under it. +</p> + +<p> +Fastening their boat to a willow, the friends landed in this silent, silver +kingdom, and patiently explored the hedges, the hollow trees, the runnels and +their little culverts, the ditches and dry water-ways. Embarking again and +crossing over, they worked their way up the stream in this manner, while the +moon, serene and detached in a cloudless sky, did what she could, though so far +off, to help them in their quest; till her hour came and she sank earthwards +reluctantly, and left them, and mystery once more held field and river. +</p> + +<p> +Then a change began slowly to declare itself. The horizon became clearer, field +and tree came more into sight, and somehow with a different look; the mystery +began to drop away from them. A bird piped suddenly, and was still; and a light +breeze sprang up and set the reeds and bulrushes rustling. Rat, who was in the +stern of the boat, while Mole sculled, sat up suddenly and listened with a +passionate intentness. Mole, who with gentle strokes was just keeping the boat +moving while he scanned the banks with care, looked at him with curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s gone!” sighed the Rat, sinking back in his seat again. +“So beautiful and strange and new. Since it was to end so soon, I almost +wish I had never heard it. For it has roused a longing in me that is pain, and +nothing seems worth while but just to hear that sound once more and go on +listening to it for ever. No! There it is again!” he cried, alert once +more. Entranced, he was silent for a long space, spellbound. +</p> + +<p> +“Now it passes on and I begin to lose it,” he said presently. +“O Mole! the beauty of it! The merry bubble and joy, the thin, clear, +happy call of the distant piping! Such music I never dreamed of, and the call +in it is stronger even than the music is sweet! Row on, Mole, row! For the +music and the call must be for us.” +</p> + +<p> +The Mole, greatly wondering, obeyed. “I hear nothing myself,” he +said, “but the wind playing in the reeds and rushes and osiers.” +</p> + +<p> +The Rat never answered, if indeed he heard. Rapt, transported, trembling, he +was possessed in all his senses by this new divine thing that caught up his +helpless soul and swung and dandled it, a powerless but happy infant in a +strong sustaining grasp. +</p> + +<p> +In silence Mole rowed steadily, and soon they came to a point where the river +divided, a long backwater branching off to one side. With a slight movement of +his head Rat, who had long dropped the rudder-lines, directed the rower to take +the backwater. The creeping tide of light gained and gained, and now they could +see the colour of the flowers that gemmed the water’s edge. +</p> + +<p> +“Clearer and nearer still,” cried the Rat joyously. “Now you +must surely hear it! Ah—at last—I see you do!” +</p> + +<p> +Breathless and transfixed the Mole stopped rowing as the liquid run of that +glad piping broke on him like a wave, caught him up, and possessed him utterly. +He saw the tears on his comrade’s cheeks, and bowed his head and +understood. For a space they hung there, brushed by the purple loose-strife +that fringed the bank; then the clear imperious summons that marched +hand-in-hand with the intoxicating melody imposed its will on Mole, and +mechanically he bent to his oars again. And the light grew steadily stronger, +but no birds sang as they were wont to do at the approach of dawn; and but for +the heavenly music all was marvellously still. +</p> + +<p> +On either side of them, as they glided onwards, the rich meadow-grass seemed +that morning of a freshness and a greenness unsurpassable. Never had they +noticed the roses so vivid, the willow-herb so riotous, the meadow-sweet so +odorous and pervading. Then the murmur of the approaching weir began to hold +the air, and they felt a consciousness that they were nearing the end, whatever +it might be, that surely awaited their expedition. +</p> + +<p> +A wide half-circle of foam and glinting lights and shining shoulders of green +water, the great weir closed the backwater from bank to bank, troubled all the +quiet surface with twirling eddies and floating foam-streaks, and deadened all +other sounds with its solemn and soothing rumble. In midmost of the stream, +embraced in the weir’s shimmering arm-spread, a small island lay +anchored, fringed close with willow and silver birch and alder. Reserved, shy, +but full of significance, it hid whatever it might hold behind a veil, keeping +it till the hour should come, and, with the hour, those who were called and +chosen. +</p> + +<p> +Slowly, but with no doubt or hesitation whatever, and in something of a solemn +expectancy, the two animals passed through the broken tumultuous water and +moored their boat at the flowery margin of the island. In silence they landed, +and pushed through the blossom and scented herbage and undergrowth that led up +to the level ground, till they stood on a little lawn of a marvellous green, +set round with Nature’s own orchard-trees—crab-apple, wild cherry, +and sloe. +</p> + +<p> +“This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to +me,” whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. “Here, in this holy +place, here if anywhere, surely we shall find Him!” +</p> + +<p> +Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his +muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no +panic terror—indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy—but it +was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only +mean that some august Presence was very, very near. With difficulty he turned +to look for his friend and saw him at his side cowed, stricken, and trembling +violently. And still there was utter silence in the populous bird-haunted +branches around them; and still the light grew and grew. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though the +piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still dominant and +imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting to strike him +instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on things rightly kept hidden. +Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that utter +clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fullness of +incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the +very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved horns, +gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose between the kindly +eyes that were looking down on them humourously, while the bearded mouth broke +into a half-smile at the corners; saw the rippling muscles on the arm that lay +across the broad chest, the long supple hand still holding the pan-pipes only +just fallen away from the parted lips; saw the splendid curves of the shaggy +limbs disposed in majestic ease on the sward; saw, last of all, nestling +between his very hooves, sleeping soundly in entire peace and contentment, the +little, round, podgy, childish form of the baby otter. All this he saw, for one +moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he +looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered. +</p> + +<p> +“Rat!” he found breath to whisper, shaking. “Are you +afraid?” +</p> + +<p> +“Afraid?” murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. +“Afraid! Of <i>Him?</i> O, never, never! And yet—and yet—O, Mole, I +am afraid!” +</p> + +<p> +Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did +worship. +</p> + +<p> +Sudden and magnificent, the sun’s broad golden disc showed itself over +the horizon facing them; and the first rays, shooting across the level +water-meadows, took the animals full in the eyes and dazzled them. When they +were able to look once more, the Vision had vanished, and the air was full of +the carol of birds that hailed the dawn. +</p> + +<p> +As they stared blankly in dumb misery deepening as they slowly realised all +they had seen and all they had lost, a capricious little breeze, dancing up +from the surface of the water, tossed the aspens, shook the dewy roses and blew +lightly and caressingly in their faces; and with its soft touch came instant +oblivion. For this is the last best gift that the kindly demi-god is careful to +bestow on those to whom he has revealed himself in their helping: the gift of +forgetfulness. Lest the awful remembrance should remain and grow, and +overshadow mirth and pleasure, and the great haunting memory should spoil all +the after-lives of little animals helped out of difficulties, in order that +they should be happy and lighthearted as before. +</p> + +<p> +Mole rubbed his eyes and stared at Rat, who was looking about him in a puzzled +sort of way. “I beg your pardon; what did you say, Rat?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I was only remarking,” said Rat slowly, “that this +was the right sort of place, and that here, if anywhere, we should find him. +And look! Why, there he is, the little fellow!” And with a cry of delight +he ran towards the slumbering Portly. +</p> + +<p> +But Mole stood still a moment, held in thought. As one wakened suddenly from a +beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, and can re-capture nothing but a +dim sense of the beauty of it, the beauty! Till that, too, fades away in its +turn, and the dreamer bitterly accepts the hard, cold waking and all its +penalties; so Mole, after struggling with his memory for a brief space, shook +his head sadly and followed the Rat. +</p> + +<p> +Portly woke up with a joyous squeak, and wriggled with pleasure at the sight of +his father’s friends, who had played with him so often in past days. In a +moment, however, his face grew blank, and he fell to hunting round in a circle +with pleading whine. As a child that has fallen happily asleep in its +nurse’s arms, and wakes to find itself alone and laid in a strange place, +and searches corners and cupboards, and runs from room to room, despair growing +silently in its heart, even so Portly searched the island and searched, dogged +and unwearying, till at last the black moment came for giving it up, and +sitting down and crying bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +The Mole ran quickly to comfort the little animal; but Rat, lingering, looked +long and doubtfully at certain hoof-marks deep in the sward. +</p> + +<p> +“Some—great—animal—has been here,” he murmured +slowly and thoughtfully; and stood musing, musing; his mind strangely stirred. +</p> + +<p> +“Come along, Rat!” called the Mole. “Think of poor Otter, +waiting up there by the ford!” +</p> + +<p> +Portly had soon been comforted by the promise of a treat—a jaunt on the +river in Mr. Rat’s real boat; and the two animals conducted him to the +water’s side, placed him securely between them in the bottom of the boat, +and paddled off down the backwater. The sun was fully up by now, and hot on +them, birds sang lustily and without restraint, and flowers smiled and nodded +from either bank, but somehow—so thought the animals—with less of +richness and blaze of colour than they seemed to remember seeing quite recently +somewhere—they wondered where. +</p> + +<p> +The main river reached again, they turned the boat’s head upstream, +towards the point where they knew their friend was keeping his lonely vigil. As +they drew near the familiar ford, the Mole took the boat in to the bank, and +they lifted Portly out and set him on his legs on the tow-path, gave him his +marching orders and a friendly farewell pat on the back, and shoved out into +mid-stream. They watched the little animal as he waddled along the path +contentedly and with importance; watched him till they saw his muzzle suddenly +lift and his waddle break into a clumsy amble as he quickened his pace with +shrill whines and wriggles of recognition. Looking up the river, they could see +Otter start up, tense and rigid, from out of the shallows where he crouched in +dumb patience, and could hear his amazed and joyous bark as he bounded up +through the osiers on to the path. Then the Mole, with a strong pull on one +oar, swung the boat round and let the full stream bear them down again whither +it would, their quest now happily ended. +</p> + +<p> +“I feel strangely tired, Rat,” said the Mole, leaning wearily over +his oars as the boat drifted. “It’s being up all night, +you’ll say, perhaps; but that’s nothing. We do as much half the +nights of the week, at this time of the year. No; I feel as if I had been +through something very exciting and rather terrible, and it was just over; and +yet nothing particular has happened.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or something very surprising and splendid and beautiful,” murmured +the Rat, leaning back and closing his eyes. “I feel just as you do, Mole; +simply dead tired, though not body tired. It’s lucky we’ve got the +stream with us, to take us home. Isn’t it jolly to feel the sun again, +soaking into one’s bones! And hark to the wind playing in the +reeds!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s like music—far away music,” said the Mole nodding +drowsily. +</p> + +<p> +“So I was thinking,” murmured the Rat, dreamful and languid. +“Dance-music—the lilting sort that runs on without a stop—but +with words in it, too—it passes into words and out of them again—I +catch them at intervals—then it is dance-music once more, and then +nothing but the reeds’ soft thin whispering.” +</p> + +<p> +“You hear better than I,” said the Mole sadly. “I cannot +catch the words.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let me try and give you them,” said the Rat softly, his eyes still +closed. “Now it is turning into words again—faint but +clear—<i>Lest the awe should dwell—And turn your frolic to +fret—You shall look on my power at the helping hour—But then you +shall forget!</i> Now the reeds take it up—<i>forget, forget</i>, they sigh, and it +dies away in a rustle and a whisper. Then the voice returns— +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Lest limbs be reddened and rent—I spring the trap that is +set—As I loose the snare you may glimpse me there—For surely you +shall forget!</i> Row nearer, Mole, nearer to the reeds! It is hard to catch, and +grows each minute fainter. +</p> + +<p> +“<i>Helper and healer, I cheer—Small waifs in the woodland +wet—Strays I find in it, wounds I bind in it—Bidding them all +forget!</i> Nearer, Mole, nearer! No, it is no good; the song has died away into +reed-talk.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what do the words mean?” asked the wondering Mole. +</p> + +<p> +“That I do not know,” said the Rat simply. “I passed them on +to you as they reached me. Ah! now they return again, and this time full and +clear! This time, at last, it is the real, the unmistakable thing, +simple—passionate—perfect——” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, let’s have it, then,” said the Mole, after he had +waited patiently for a few minutes, half-dozing in the hot sun. +</p> + +<p> +But no answer came. He looked, and understood the silence. With a smile of much +happiness on his face, and something of a listening look still lingering there, +the weary Rat was fast asleep. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap08"></a>VIII.<br> +TOAD’S ADVENTURES</h2> + +<p> +When Toad found himself immured in a dank and noisome dungeon, and knew that +all the grim darkness of a medieval fortress lay between him and the outer +world of sunshine and well-metalled high roads where he had lately been so +happy, disporting himself as if he had bought up every road in England, he +flung himself at full length on the floor, and shed bitter tears, and abandoned +himself to dark despair. “This is the end of everything” (he said), +“at least it is the end of the career of Toad, which is the same thing; +the popular and handsome Toad, the rich and hospitable Toad, the Toad so free +and careless and debonair! How can I hope to be ever set at large again” +(he said), “who have been imprisoned so justly for stealing so handsome a +motor-car in such an audacious manner, and for such lurid and imaginative +cheek, bestowed upon such a number of fat, red-faced policemen!” (Here +his sobs choked him.) “Stupid animal that I was” (he said), +“now I must languish in this dungeon, till people who were proud to say +they knew me, have forgotten the very name of Toad! O wise old Badger!” +(he said), “O clever, intelligent Rat and sensible Mole! What sound +judgments, what a knowledge of men and matters you possess! O unhappy and +forsaken Toad!” With lamentations such as these he passed his days and +nights for several weeks, refusing his meals or intermediate light +refreshments, though the grim and ancient gaoler, knowing that Toad’s +pockets were well lined, frequently pointed out that many comforts, and indeed +luxuries, could by arrangement be sent in—at a price—from outside. +</p> + +<p> +Now the gaoler had a daughter, a pleasant wench and good-hearted, who assisted +her father in the lighter duties of his post. She was particularly fond of +animals, and, besides her canary, whose cage hung on a nail in the massive wall +of the keep by day, to the great annoyance of prisoners who relished an +after-dinner nap, and was shrouded in an antimacassar on the parlour table at +night, she kept several piebald mice and a restless revolving squirrel. This +kind-hearted girl, pitying the misery of Toad, said to her father one day, +“Father! I can’t bear to see that poor beast so unhappy, and +getting so thin! You let me have the managing of him. You know how fond of +animals I am. I’ll make him eat from my hand, and sit up, and do all +sorts of things.” +</p> + +<p> +Her father replied that she could do what she liked with him. He was tired of +Toad, and his sulks and his airs and his meanness. So that day she went on her +errand of mercy, and knocked at the door of Toad’s cell. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, cheer up, Toad,” she said, coaxingly, on entering, “and +sit up and dry your eyes and be a sensible animal. And do try and eat a bit of +dinner. See, I’ve brought you some of mine, hot from the oven!” +</p> + +<p> +It was bubble-and-squeak, between two plates, and its fragrance filled the +narrow cell. The penetrating smell of cabbage reached the nose of Toad as he +lay prostrate in his misery on the floor, and gave him the idea for a moment +that perhaps life was not such a blank and desperate thing as he had imagined. +But still he wailed, and kicked with his legs, and refused to be comforted. So +the wise girl retired for the time, but, of course, a good deal of the smell of +hot cabbage remained behind, as it will do, and Toad, between his sobs, sniffed +and reflected, and gradually began to think new and inspiring thoughts: of +chivalry, and poetry, and deeds still to be done; of broad meadows, and cattle +browsing in them, raked by sun and wind; of kitchen-gardens, and straight +herb-borders, and warm snap-dragon beset by bees; and of the comforting clink +of dishes set down on the table at Toad Hall, and the scrape of chair-legs on +the floor as every one pulled himself close up to his work. The air of the +narrow cell took a rosy tinge; he began to think of his friends, and how they +would surely be able to do something; of lawyers, and how they would have +enjoyed his case, and what an ass he had been not to get in a few; and lastly, +he thought of his own great cleverness and resource, and all that he was +capable of if he only gave his great mind to it; and the cure was almost +complete. +</p> + +<p> +When the girl returned, some hours later, she carried a tray, with a cup of +fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot buttered toast, +cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the holes +in it in great golden drops, like honey from the honeycomb. The smell of that +buttered toast simply talked to Toad, and with no uncertain voice; talked of +warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cosy parlour +firesides on winter evenings, when one’s ramble was over and slippered +feet were propped on the fender; of the purring of contented cats, and the +twitter of sleepy canaries. Toad sat up on end once more, dried his eyes, +sipped his tea and munched his toast, and soon began talking freely about +himself, and the house he lived in, and his doings there, and how important he +was, and what a lot his friends thought of him. +</p> + +<p> +The gaoler’s daughter saw that the topic was doing him as much good as +the tea, as indeed it was, and encouraged him to go on. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me about Toad Hall,” said she. “It sounds +beautiful.” +</p> + +<p> +“Toad Hall,” said the Toad proudly, “is an eligible +self-contained gentleman’s residence very unique; dating in part from the +fourteenth century, but replete with every modern convenience. Up-to-date +sanitation. Five minutes from church, post-office, and golf-links, Suitable +for——” +</p> + +<p> +“Bless the animal,” said the girl, laughing, “I don’t +want to <i>take</i> it. Tell me something <i>real</i> about it. But first wait till I fetch +you some more tea and toast.” +</p> + +<p> +She tripped away, and presently returned with a fresh trayful; and Toad, +pitching into the toast with avidity, his spirits quite restored to their usual +level, told her about the boathouse, and the fish-pond, and the old walled +kitchen-garden; and about the pig-styes, and the stables, and the pigeon-house, +and the hen-house; and about the dairy, and the wash-house, and the +china-cupboards, and the linen-presses (she liked that bit especially); and +about the banqueting-hall, and the fun they had there when the other animals +were gathered round the table and Toad was at his best, singing songs, telling +stories, carrying on generally. Then she wanted to know about his +animal-friends, and was very interested in all he had to tell her about them +and how they lived, and what they did to pass their time. Of course, she did +not say she was fond of animals as <i>pets</i>, because she had the sense to see that +Toad would be extremely offended. When she said good night, having filled his +water-jug and shaken up his straw for him, Toad was very much the same +sanguine, self-satisfied animal that he had been of old. He sang a little song +or two, of the sort he used to sing at his dinner-parties, curled himself up in +the straw, and had an excellent night’s rest and the pleasantest of +dreams. +</p> + +<p> +They had many interesting talks together, after that, as the dreary days went +on; and the gaoler’s daughter grew very sorry for Toad, and thought it a +great shame that a poor little animal should be locked up in prison for what +seemed to her a very trivial offence. Toad, of course, in his vanity, thought +that her interest in him proceeded from a growing tenderness; and he could not +help half-regretting that the social gulf between them was so very wide, for +she was a comely lass, and evidently admired him very much. +</p> + +<p> +One morning the girl was very thoughtful, and answered at random, and did not +seem to Toad to be paying proper attention to his witty sayings and sparkling +comments. +</p> + +<p> +“Toad,” she said presently, “just listen, please. I have an +aunt who is a washerwoman.” +</p> + +<p> +“There, there,” said Toad, graciously and affably, “never +mind; think no more about it. <i>I</i> have several aunts who <i>ought</i> to be +washerwomen.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do be quiet a minute, Toad,” said the girl. “You talk too +much, that’s your chief fault, and I’m trying to think, and you +hurt my head. As I said, I have an aunt who is a washerwoman; she does the +washing for all the prisoners in this castle—we try to keep any paying +business of that sort in the family, you understand. She takes out the washing +on Monday morning, and brings it in on Friday evening. This is a Thursday. Now, +this is what occurs to me: you’re very rich—at least you’re +always telling me so—and she’s very poor. A few pounds +wouldn’t make any difference to you, and it would mean a lot to her. Now, +I think if she were properly approached—squared, I believe is the word +you animals use—you could come to some arrangement by which she would let +you have her dress and bonnet and so on, and you could escape from the castle +as the official washerwoman. You’re very alike in many +respects—particularly about the figure.” +</p> + +<p> +“We’re <i>not</i>,” said the Toad in a huff. “I have a very +elegant figure—for what I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“So has my aunt,” replied the girl, “for what <i>she</i> is. But +have it your own way. You horrid, proud, ungrateful animal, when I’m +sorry for you, and trying to help you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes, that’s all right; thank you very much indeed,” +said the Toad hurriedly. “But look here! you wouldn’t surely have +Mr. Toad of Toad Hall, going about the country disguised as a +washerwoman!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you can stop here as a Toad,” replied the girl with much +spirit. “I suppose you want to go off in a coach-and-four!” +</p> + +<p> +Honest Toad was always ready to admit himself in the wrong. “You are a +good, kind, clever girl,” he said, “and I am indeed a proud and a +stupid toad. Introduce me to your worthy aunt, if you will be so kind, and I +have no doubt that the excellent lady and I will be able to arrange terms +satisfactory to both parties.” +</p> + +<p> +Next evening the girl ushered her aunt into Toad’s cell, bearing his +week’s washing pinned up in a towel. The old lady had been prepared +beforehand for the interview, and the sight of certain gold sovereigns that +Toad had thoughtfully placed on the table in full view practically completed +the matter and left little further to discuss. In return for his cash, Toad +received a cotton print gown, an apron, a shawl, and a rusty black bonnet; the +only stipulation the old lady made being that she should be gagged and bound +and dumped down in a corner. By this not very convincing artifice, she +explained, aided by picturesque fiction which she could supply herself, she +hoped to retain her situation, in spite of the suspicious appearance of things. +</p> + +<p> +Toad was delighted with the suggestion. It would enable him to leave the prison +in some style, and with his reputation for being a desperate and dangerous +fellow untarnished; and he readily helped the gaoler’s daughter to make +her aunt appear as much as possible the victim of circumstances over which she +had no control. +</p> + +<p> +“Now it’s your turn, Toad,” said the girl. “Take off +that coat and waistcoat of yours; you’re fat enough as it is.” +</p> + +<p> +Shaking with laughter, she proceeded to “hook-and-eye” him into the +cotton print gown, arranged the shawl with a professional fold, and tied the +strings of the rusty bonnet under his chin. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re the very image of her,” she giggled, “only +I’m sure you never looked half so respectable in all your life before. +Now, good-bye, Toad, and good luck. Go straight down the way you came up; and +if any one says anything to you, as they probably will, being but men, you can +chaff back a bit, of course, but remember you’re a widow woman, quite +alone in the world, with a character to lose.” +</p> + +<p> +With a quaking heart, but as firm a footstep as he could command, Toad set +forth cautiously on what seemed to be a most hare-brained and hazardous +undertaking; but he was soon agreeably surprised to find how easy everything +was made for him, and a little humbled at the thought that both his popularity, +and the sex that seemed to inspire it, were really another’s. The +washerwoman’s squat figure in its familiar cotton print seemed a passport +for every barred door and grim gateway; even when he hesitated, uncertain as to +the right turning to take, he found himself helped out of his difficulty by the +warder at the next gate, anxious to be off to his tea, summoning him to come +along sharp and not keep him waiting there all night. The chaff and the +humourous sallies to which he was subjected, and to which, of course, he had to +provide prompt and effective reply, formed, indeed, his chief danger; for Toad +was an animal with a strong sense of his own dignity, and the chaff was mostly +(he thought) poor and clumsy, and the humour of the sallies entirely lacking. +However, he kept his temper, though with great difficulty, suited his retorts +to his company and his supposed character, and did his best not to overstep the +limits of good taste. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed hours before he crossed the last courtyard, rejected the pressing +invitations from the last guardroom, and dodged the outspread arms of the last +warder, pleading with simulated passion for just one farewell embrace. But at +last he heard the wicket-gate in the great outer door click behind him, felt +the fresh air of the outer world upon his anxious brow, and knew that he was +free! +</p> + +<p> +Dizzy with the easy success of his daring exploit, he walked quickly towards +the lights of the town, not knowing in the least what he should do next, only +quite certain of one thing, that he must remove himself as quickly as possible +from the neighbourhood where the lady he was forced to represent was so +well-known and so popular a character. +</p> + +<p> +As he walked along, considering, his attention was caught by some red and green +lights a little way off, to one side of the town, and the sound of the puffing +and snorting of engines and the banging of shunted trucks fell on his ear. +“Aha!” he thought, “this is a piece of luck! A railway +station is the thing I want most in the whole world at this moment; and +what’s more, I needn’t go through the town to get it, and +shan’t have to support this humiliating character by repartees which, +though thoroughly effective, do not assist one’s sense of +self-respect.” +</p> + +<p> +He made his way to the station accordingly, consulted a time-table, and found +that a train, bound more or less in the direction of his home, was due to start +in half-an-hour. “More luck!” said Toad, his spirits rising +rapidly, and went off to the booking-office to buy his ticket. +</p> + +<p> +He gave the name of the station that he knew to be nearest to the village of +which Toad Hall was the principal feature, and mechanically put his fingers, in +search of the necessary money, where his waistcoat pocket should have been. But +here the cotton gown, which had nobly stood by him so far, and which he had +basely forgotten, intervened, and frustrated his efforts. In a sort of +nightmare he struggled with the strange uncanny thing that seemed to hold his +hands, turn all muscular strivings to water, and laugh at him all the time; +while other travellers, forming up in a line behind, waited with impatience, +making suggestions of more or less value and comments of more or less +stringency and point. At last—somehow—he never rightly understood +how—he burst the barriers, attained the goal, arrived at where all +waistcoat pockets are eternally situated, and found—not only no money, +but no pocket to hold it, and no waistcoat to hold the pocket! +</p> + +<p> +To his horror he recollected that he had left both coat and waistcoat behind +him in his cell, and with them his pocket-book, money, keys, watch, matches, +pencil-case—all that makes life worth living, all that distinguishes the +many-pocketed animal, the lord of creation, from the inferior one-pocketed or +no-pocketed productions that hop or trip about permissively, unequipped for the +real contest. +</p> + +<p> +In his misery he made one desperate effort to carry the thing off, and, with a +return to his fine old manner—a blend of the Squire and the College +Don—he said, “Look here! I find I’ve left my purse behind. +Just give me that ticket, will you, and I’ll send the money on to-morrow? +I’m well-known in these parts.” +</p> + +<p> +The clerk stared at him and the rusty black bonnet a moment, and then laughed. +“I should think you were pretty well known in these parts,” he +said, “if you’ve tried this game on often. Here, stand away from +the window, please, madam; you’re obstructing the other +passengers!” +</p> + +<p> +An old gentleman who had been prodding him in the back for some moments here +thrust him away, and, what was worse, addressed him as his good woman, which +angered Toad more than anything that had occurred that evening. +</p> + +<p> +Baffled and full of despair, he wandered blindly down the platform where the +train was standing, and tears trickled down each side of his nose. It was hard, +he thought, to be within sight of safety and almost of home, and to be baulked +by the want of a few wretched shillings and by the pettifogging mistrustfulness +of paid officials. Very soon his escape would be discovered, the hunt would be +up, he would be caught, reviled, loaded with chains, dragged back again to +prison and bread-and-water and straw; his guards and penalties would be +doubled; and O, what sarcastic remarks the girl would make! What was to be +done? He was not swift of foot; his figure was unfortunately recognisable. +Could he not squeeze under the seat of a carriage? He had seen this method +adopted by schoolboys, when the journey-money provided by thoughtful parents +had been diverted to other and better ends. As he pondered, he found himself +opposite the engine, which was being oiled, wiped, and generally caressed by +its affectionate driver, a burly man with an oil-can in one hand and a lump of +cotton-waste in the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Hullo, mother!” said the engine-driver, “what’s the +trouble? You don’t look particularly cheerful.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, sir!” said Toad, crying afresh, “I am a poor unhappy +washerwoman, and I’ve lost all my money, and can’t pay for a +ticket, and I <i>must</i> get home to-night somehow, and whatever I am to do I +don’t know. O dear, O dear!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a bad business, indeed,” said the engine-driver +reflectively. “Lost your money—and can’t get home—and +got some kids, too, waiting for you, I dare say?” +</p> + +<p> +“Any amount of ’em,” sobbed Toad. “And they’ll be +hungry—and playing with matches—and upsetting lamps, the little +innocents!—and quarrelling, and going on generally. O dear, O +dear!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said the good +engine-driver. “You’re a washerwoman to your trade, says you. Very +well, that’s that. And I’m an engine-driver, as you well may see, +and there’s no denying it’s terribly dirty work. Uses up a power of +shirts, it does, till my missus is fair tired of washing of ’em. If +you’ll wash a few shirts for me when you get home, and send ’em +along, I’ll give you a ride on my engine. It’s against the +Company’s regulations, but we’re not so very particular in these +out-of-the-way parts.” +</p> + +<p> +The Toad’s misery turned into rapture as he eagerly scrambled up into the +cab of the engine. Of course, he had never washed a shirt in his life, and +couldn’t if he tried and, anyhow, he wasn’t going to begin; but he +thought: “When I get safely home to Toad Hall, and have money again, and +pockets to put it in, I will send the engine-driver enough to pay for quite a +quantity of washing, and that will be the same thing, or better.” +</p> + +<p> +The guard waved his welcome flag, the engine-driver whistled in cheerful +response, and the train moved out of the station. As the speed increased, and +the Toad could see on either side of him real fields, and trees, and hedges, +and cows, and horses, all flying past him, and as he thought how every minute +was bringing him nearer to Toad Hall, and sympathetic friends, and money to +chink in his pocket, and a soft bed to sleep in, and good things to eat, and +praise and admiration at the recital of his adventures and his surpassing +cleverness, he began to skip up and down and shout and sing snatches of song, +to the great astonishment of the engine-driver, who had come across washerwomen +before, at long intervals, but never one at all like this. +</p> + +<p> +They had covered many and many a mile, and Toad was already considering what he +would have for supper as soon as he got home, when he noticed that the +engine-driver, with a puzzled expression on his face, was leaning over the side +of the engine and listening hard. Then he saw him climb on to the coals and +gaze out over the top of the train; then he returned and said to Toad: +“It’s very strange; we’re the last train running in this +direction to-night, yet I could be sworn that I heard another following +us!” +</p> + +<p> +Toad ceased his frivolous antics at once. He became grave and depressed, and a +dull pain in the lower part of his spine, communicating itself to his legs, +made him want to sit down and try desperately not to think of all the +possibilities. +</p> + +<p> +By this time the moon was shining brightly, and the engine-driver, steadying +himself on the coal, could command a view of the line behind them for a long +distance. +</p> + +<p> +Presently he called out, “I can see it clearly now! It is an engine, on +our rails, coming along at a great pace! It looks as if we were being +pursued!” +</p> + +<p> +The miserable Toad, crouching in the coal-dust, tried hard to think of +something to do, with dismal want of success. +</p> + +<p> +“They are gaining on us fast!” cried the engine-driver. And the +engine is crowded with the queerest lot of people! Men like ancient warders, +waving halberds; policemen in their helmets, waving truncheons; and shabbily +dressed men in pot-hats, obvious and unmistakable plain-clothes detectives even +at this distance, waving revolvers and walking-sticks; all waving, and all +shouting the same thing—‘Stop, stop, stop!’” +</p> + +<p> +Then Toad fell on his knees among the coals and, raising his clasped paws in +supplication, cried, “Save me, only save me, dear kind Mr. Engine-driver, +and I will confess everything! I am not the simple washerwoman I seem to be! I +have no children waiting for me, innocent or otherwise! I am a toad—the +well-known and popular Mr. Toad, a landed proprietor; I have just escaped, by +my great daring and cleverness, from a loathsome dungeon into which my enemies +had flung me; and if those fellows on that engine recapture me, it will be +chains and bread-and-water and straw and misery once more for poor, unhappy, +innocent Toad!” +</p> + +<p> +The engine-driver looked down upon him very sternly, and said, “Now tell +the truth; what were you put in prison for?” +</p> + +<p> +“It was nothing very much,” said poor Toad, colouring deeply. +“I only borrowed a motorcar while the owners were at lunch; they had no +need of it at the time. I didn’t mean to steal it, really; but +people—especially magistrates—take such harsh views of thoughtless +and high-spirited actions.” +</p> + +<p> +The engine-driver looked very grave and said, “I fear that you have been +indeed a wicked toad, and by rights I ought to give you up to offended justice. +But you are evidently in sore trouble and distress, so I will not desert you. I +don’t hold with motor-cars, for one thing; and I don’t hold with +being ordered about by policemen when I’m on my own engine, for another. +And the sight of an animal in tears always makes me feel queer and softhearted. +So cheer up, Toad! I’ll do my best, and we may beat them yet!” +</p> + +<p> +They piled on more coals, shovelling furiously; the furnace roared, the sparks +flew, the engine leapt and swung but still their pursuers slowly gained. The +engine-driver, with a sigh, wiped his brow with a handful of cotton-waste, and +said, “I’m afraid it’s no good, Toad. You see, they are +running light, and they have the better engine. There’s just one thing +left for us to do, and it’s your only chance, so attend very carefully to +what I tell you. A short way ahead of us is a long tunnel, and on the other +side of that the line passes through a thick wood. Now, I will put on all the +speed I can while we are running through the tunnel, but the other fellows will +slow down a bit, naturally, for fear of an accident. When we are through, I +will shut off steam and put on brakes as hard as I can, and the moment +it’s safe to do so you must jump and hide in the wood, before they get +through the tunnel and see you. Then I will go full speed ahead again, and they +can chase me if they like, for as long as they like, and as far as they like. +Now mind and be ready to jump when I tell you!” +</p> + +<p> +They piled on more coals, and the train shot into the tunnel, and the engine +rushed and roared and rattled, till at last they shot out at the other end into +fresh air and the peaceful moonlight, and saw the wood lying dark and helpful +upon either side of the line. The driver shut off steam and put on brakes, the +Toad got down on the step, and as the train slowed down to almost a walking +pace he heard the driver call out, “Now, jump!” +</p> + +<p> +Toad jumped, rolled down a short embankment, picked himself up unhurt, +scrambled into the wood and hid. +</p> + +<p> +Peeping out, he saw his train get up speed again and disappear at a great pace. +Then out of the tunnel burst the pursuing engine, roaring and whistling, her +motley crew waving their various weapons and shouting, “Stop! stop! +stop!” When they were past, the Toad had a hearty laugh—for the +first time since he was thrown into prison. +</p> + +<p> +But he soon stopped laughing when he came to consider that it was now very late +and dark and cold, and he was in an unknown wood, with no money and no chance +of supper, and still far from friends and home; and the dead silence of +everything, after the roar and rattle of the train, was something of a shock. +He dared not leave the shelter of the trees, so he struck into the wood, with +the idea of leaving the railway as far as possible behind him. +</p> + +<p> +After so many weeks within walls, he found the wood strange and unfriendly and +inclined, he thought, to make fun of him. Night-jars, sounding their mechanical +rattle, made him think that the wood was full of searching warders, closing in +on him. An owl, swooping noiselessly towards him, brushed his shoulder with its +wing, making him jump with the horrid certainty that it was a hand; then +flitted off, moth-like, laughing its low ho! ho! ho; which Toad thought in very +poor taste. Once he met a fox, who stopped, looked him up and down in a +sarcastic sort of way, and said, “Hullo, washerwoman! Half a pair of +socks and a pillow-case short this week! Mind it doesn’t occur +again!” and swaggered off, sniggering. Toad looked about for a stone to +throw at him, but could not succeed in finding one, which vexed him more than +anything. At last, cold, hungry, and tired out, he sought the shelter of a +hollow tree, where with branches and dead leaves he made himself as comfortable +a bed as he could, and slept soundly till the morning. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap09"></a>IX.<br> +WAYFARERS ALL</h2> + +<p> +The Water Rat was restless, and he did not exactly know why. To all appearance +the summer’s pomp was still at fullest height, and although in the tilled +acres green had given way to gold, though rowans were reddening, and the woods +were dashed here and there with a tawny fierceness, yet light and warmth and +colour were still present in undiminished measure, clean of any chilly +premonitions of the passing year. But the constant chorus of the orchards and +hedges had shrunk to a casual evensong from a few yet unwearied performers; the +robin was beginning to assert himself once more; and there was a feeling in the +air of change and departure. The cuckoo, of course, had long been silent; but +many another feathered friend, for months a part of the familiar landscape and +its small society, was missing too and it seemed that the ranks thinned +steadily day by day. Rat, ever observant of all winged movement, saw that it +was taking daily a southing tendency; and even as he lay in bed at night he +thought he could make out, passing in the darkness overhead, the beat and +quiver of impatient pinions, obedient to the peremptory call. +</p> + +<p> +Nature’s Grand Hotel has its Season, like the others. As the guests one +by one pack, pay, and depart, and the seats at the <i>table-d’hôte</i> shrink +pitifully at each succeeding meal; as suites of rooms are closed, carpets taken +up, and waiters sent away; those boarders who are staying on, <i>en pension</i>, until +the next year’s full re-opening, cannot help being somewhat affected by +all these flittings and farewells, this eager discussion of plans, routes, and +fresh quarters, this daily shrinkage in the stream of comradeship. One gets +unsettled, depressed, and inclined to be querulous. Why this craving for +change? Why not stay on quietly here, like us, and be jolly? You don’t +know this hotel out of the season, and what fun we have among ourselves, we +fellows who remain and see the whole interesting year out. All very true, no +doubt the others always reply; we quite envy you—and some other year +perhaps—but just now we have engagements—and there’s the bus +at the door—our time is up! So they depart, with a smile and a nod, and +we miss them, and feel resentful. The Rat was a self-sufficing sort of animal, +rooted to the land, and, whoever went, he stayed; still, he could not help +noticing what was in the air, and feeling some of its influence in his bones. +</p> + +<p> +It was difficult to settle down to anything seriously, with all this flitting +going on. Leaving the water-side, where rushes stood thick and tall in a stream +that was becoming sluggish and low, he wandered country-wards, crossed a field +or two of pasturage already looking dusty and parched, and thrust into the +great sea of wheat, yellow, wavy, and murmurous, full of quiet motion and small +whisperings. Here he often loved to wander, through the forest of stiff strong +stalks that carried their own golden sky away over his head—a sky that +was always dancing, shimmering, softly talking; or swaying strongly to the +passing wind and recovering itself with a toss and a merry laugh. Here, too, he +had many small friends, a society complete in itself, leading full and busy +lives, but always with a spare moment to gossip, and exchange news with a +visitor. Today, however, though they were civil enough, the field-mice and +harvest-mice seemed preoccupied. Many were digging and tunnelling busily; +others, gathered together in small groups, examined plans and drawings of small +flats, stated to be desirable and compact, and situated conveniently near the +Stores. Some were hauling out dusty trunks and dress-baskets, others were +already elbow-deep packing their belongings; while everywhere piles and bundles +of wheat, oats, barley, beech-mast and nuts, lay about ready for transport. +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s old Ratty!” they cried as soon as they saw him. +“Come and bear a hand, Rat, and don’t stand about idle!” +</p> + +<p> +“What sort of games are you up to?” said the Water Rat severely. +“You know it isn’t time to be thinking of winter quarters yet, by a +long way!” +</p> + +<p> +“O yes, we know that,” explained a field-mouse rather shamefacedly; +“but it’s always as well to be in good time, isn’t it? We +really <i>must</i> get all the furniture and baggage and stores moved out of this +before those horrid machines begin clicking round the fields; and then, you +know, the best flats get picked up so quickly nowadays, and if you’re +late you have to put up with <i>anything</i>; and they want such a lot of doing up, +too, before they’re fit to move into. Of course, we’re early, we +know that; but we’re only just making a start.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, bother <i>starts</i>,” said the Rat. “It’s a splendid day. +Come for a row, or a stroll along the hedges, or a picnic in the woods, or +something.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I <i>think</i> not <i>to-day</i>, thank you,” replied the field-mouse +hurriedly. “Perhaps some <i>other</i> day—when we’ve more +<i>time</i>——” +</p> + +<p> +The Rat, with a snort of contempt, swung round to go, tripped over a hat-box, +and fell, with undignified remarks. +</p> + +<p> +“If people would be more careful,” said a field-mouse rather +stiffly, “and look where they’re going, people wouldn’t hurt +themselves—and forget themselves. Mind that hold-all, Rat! You’d +better sit down somewhere. In an hour or two we may be more free to attend to +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You won’t be ‘free’ as you call it much this side of +Christmas, I can see that,” retorted the Rat grumpily, as he picked his +way out of the field. +</p> + +<p> +He returned somewhat despondently to his river again—his faithful, +steady-going old river, which never packed up, flitted, or went into winter +quarters. +</p> + +<p> +In the osiers which fringed the bank he spied a swallow sitting. Presently it +was joined by another, and then by a third; and the birds, fidgeting restlessly +on their bough, talked together earnestly and low. +</p> + +<p> +“What, <i>already</i>,” said the Rat, strolling up to them. +“What’s the hurry? I call it simply ridiculous.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, we’re not off yet, if that’s what you mean,” +replied the first swallow. “We’re only making plans and arranging +things. Talking it over, you know—what route we’re taking this +year, and where we’ll stop, and so on. That’s half the fun!” +</p> + +<p> +“Fun?” said the Rat; “now that’s just what I +don’t understand. If you’ve <i>got</i> to leave this pleasant place, and +your friends who will miss you, and your snug homes that you’ve just +settled into, why, when the hour strikes I’ve no doubt you’ll go +bravely, and face all the trouble and discomfort and change and newness, and +make believe that you’re not very unhappy. But to want to talk about it, +or even think about it, till you really need——” +</p> + +<p> +“No, you don’t understand, naturally,” said the second +swallow. “First, we feel it stirring within us, a sweet unrest; then back +come the recollections one by one, like homing pigeons. They flutter through +our dreams at night, they fly with us in our wheelings and circlings by day. We +hunger to inquire of each other, to compare notes and assure ourselves that it +was all really true, as one by one the scents and sounds and names of +long-forgotten places come gradually back and beckon to us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Couldn’t you stop on for just this year?” suggested the +Water Rat, wistfully. “We’ll all do our best to make you feel at +home. You’ve no idea what good times we have here, while you are far +away.” +</p> + +<p> +“I tried ‘stopping on’ one year,” said the third +swallow. “I had grown so fond of the place that when the time came I hung +back and let the others go on without me. For a few weeks it was all well +enough, but afterwards, O the weary length of the nights! The shivering, +sunless days! The air so clammy and chill, and not an insect in an acre of it! +No, it was no good; my courage broke down, and one cold, stormy night I took +wing, flying well inland on account of the strong easterly gales. It was +snowing hard as I beat through the passes of the great mountains, and I had a +stiff fight to win through; but never shall I forget the blissful feeling of +the hot sun again on my back as I sped down to the lakes that lay so blue and +placid below me, and the taste of my first fat insect! The past was like a bad +dream; the future was all happy holiday as I moved southwards week by week, +easily, lazily, lingering as long as I dared, but always heeding the call! No, +I had had my warning; never again did I think of disobedience.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, yes, the call of the South, of the South!” twittered the other +two dreamily. “Its songs its hues, its radiant air! O, do you +remember——” and, forgetting the Rat, they slid into +passionate reminiscence, while he listened fascinated, and his heart burned +within him. In himself, too, he knew that it was vibrating at last, that chord +hitherto dormant and unsuspected. The mere chatter of these southern-bound +birds, their pale and second-hand reports, had yet power to awaken this wild +new sensation and thrill him through and through with it; what would one moment +of the real thing work in him—one passionate touch of the real southern +sun, one waft of the authentic odor? With closed eyes he dared to dream a +moment in full abandonment, and when he looked again the river seemed steely +and chill, the green fields grey and lightless. Then his loyal heart seemed to +cry out on his weaker self for its treachery. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you ever come back, then, at all?” he demanded of the +swallows jealously. “What do you find to attract you in this poor drab +little country?” +</p> + +<p> +“And do you think,” said the first swallow, “that the other +call is not for us too, in its due season? The call of lush meadow-grass, wet +orchards, warm, insect-haunted ponds, of browsing cattle, of haymaking, and all +the farm-buildings clustering round the House of the perfect Eaves?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you suppose,” asked the second one, that you are the only +living thing that craves with a hungry longing to hear the cuckoo’s note +again?” +</p> + +<p> +“In due time,” said the third, “we shall be home-sick once +more for quiet water-lilies swaying on the surface of an English stream. But +to-day all that seems pale and thin and very far away. Just now our blood +dances to other music.” +</p> + +<p> +They fell a-twittering among themselves once more, and this time their +intoxicating babble was of violet seas, tawny sands, and lizard-haunted walls. +</p> + +<p> +Restlessly the Rat wandered off once more, climbed the slope that rose gently +from the north bank of the river, and lay looking out towards the great ring of +Downs that barred his vision further southwards—his simple horizon +hitherto, his Mountains of the Moon, his limit behind which lay nothing he had +cared to see or to know. To-day, to him gazing South with a new-born need +stirring in his heart, the clear sky over their long low outline seemed to +pulsate with promise; to-day, the unseen was everything, the unknown the only +real fact of life. On this side of the hills was now the real blank, on the +other lay the crowded and coloured panorama that his inner eye was seeing so +clearly. What seas lay beyond, green, leaping, and crested! What sun-bathed +coasts, along which the white villas glittered against the olive woods! What +quiet harbours, thronged with gallant shipping bound for purple islands of wine +and spice, islands set low in languorous waters! +</p> + +<p> +He rose and descended river-wards once more; then changed his mind and sought +the side of the dusty lane. There, lying half-buried in the thick, cool +under-hedge tangle that bordered it, he could muse on the metalled road and all +the wondrous world that it led to; on all the wayfarers, too, that might have +trodden it, and the fortunes and adventures they had gone to seek or found +unseeking—out there, beyond—beyond! +</p> + +<p> +Footsteps fell on his ear, and the figure of one that walked somewhat wearily +came into view; and he saw that it was a Rat, and a very dusty one. The +wayfarer, as he reached him, saluted with a gesture of courtesy that had +something foreign about it—hesitated a moment—then with a pleasant +smile turned from the track and sat down by his side in the cool herbage. He +seemed tired, and the Rat let him rest unquestioned, understanding something of +what was in his thoughts; knowing, too, the value all animals attach at times +to mere silent companionship, when the weary muscles slacken and the mind marks +time. +</p> + +<p> +The wayfarer was lean and keen-featured, and somewhat bowed at the shoulders; +his paws were thin and long, his eyes much wrinkled at the corners, and he wore +small gold ear rings in his neatly-set well-shaped ears. His knitted jersey was +of a faded blue, his breeches, patched and stained, were based on a blue +foundation, and his small belongings that he carried were tied up in a blue +cotton handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +When he had rested awhile the stranger sighed, snuffed the air, and looked +about him. +</p> + +<p> +“That was clover, that warm whiff on the breeze,” he remarked; +“and those are cows we hear cropping the grass behind us and blowing +softly between mouthfuls. There is a sound of distant reapers, and yonder rises +a blue line of cottage smoke against the woodland. The river runs somewhere +close by, for I hear the call of a moorhen, and I see by your build that +you’re a freshwater mariner. Everything seems asleep, and yet going on +all the time. It is a goodly life that you lead, friend; no doubt the best in +the world, if only you are strong enough to lead it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it’s <i>the</i> life, the only life, to live,” responded the +Water Rat dreamily, and without his usual whole-hearted conviction. +</p> + +<p> +“I did not say exactly that,” replied the stranger cautiously; +“but no doubt it’s the best. I’ve tried it, and I know. And +because I’ve just tried it—six months of it—and know +it’s the best, here am I, footsore and hungry, tramping away from it, +tramping southward, following the old call, back to the old life, <i>the</i> life +which is mine and which will not let me go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is this, then, yet another of them?” mused the Rat. “And +where have you just come from?” he asked. He hardly dared to ask where he +was bound for; he seemed to know the answer only too well. +</p> + +<p> +“Nice little farm,” replied the wayfarer, briefly. “Upalong +in that direction”—he nodded northwards. “Never mind about +it. I had everything I could want—everything I had any right to expect of +life, and more; and here I am! Glad to be here all the same, though, glad to be +here! So many miles further on the road, so many hours nearer to my +heart’s desire!” +</p> + +<p> +His shining eyes held fast to the horizon, and he seemed to be listening for +some sound that was wanting from that inland acreage, vocal as it was with the +cheerful music of pasturage and farmyard. +</p> + +<p> +“You are not one of <i>us</i>,” said the Water Rat, “nor yet a +farmer; nor even, I should judge, of this country.” +</p> + +<p> +“Right,” replied the stranger. “I’m a seafaring rat, I +am, and the port I originally hail from is Constantinople, though I’m a +sort of a foreigner there too, in a manner of speaking. You will have heard of +Constantinople, friend? A fair city, and an ancient and glorious one. And you +may have heard, too, of Sigurd, King of Norway, and how he sailed thither with +sixty ships, and how he and his men rode up through streets all canopied in +their honour with purple and gold; and how the Emperor and Empress came down +and banqueted with him on board his ship. When Sigurd returned home, many of +his Northmen remained behind and entered the Emperor’s body-guard, and my +ancestor, a Norwegian born, stayed behind too, with the ships that Sigurd gave +the Emperor. Seafarers we have ever been, and no wonder; as for me, the city of +my birth is no more my home than any pleasant port between there and the London +River. I know them all, and they know me. Set me down on any of their quays or +foreshores, and I am home again.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you go great voyages,” said the Water Rat with growing +interest. “Months and months out of sight of land, and provisions running +short, and allowanced as to water, and your mind communing with the mighty +ocean, and all that sort of thing?” +</p> + +<p> +“By no means,” said the Sea Rat frankly. “Such a life as you +describe would not suit me at all. I’m in the coasting trade, and rarely +out of sight of land. It’s the jolly times on shore that appeal to me, as +much as any seafaring. O, those southern seaports! The smell of them, the +riding-lights at night, the glamour!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, perhaps you have chosen the better way,” said the Water Rat, +but rather doubtfully. “Tell me something of your coasting, then, if you +have a mind to, and what sort of harvest an animal of spirit might hope to +bring home from it to warm his latter days with gallant memories by the +fireside; for my life, I confess to you, feels to me to-day somewhat narrow and +circumscribed.” +</p> + +<p> +“My last voyage,” began the Sea Rat, “that landed me +eventually in this country, bound with high hopes for my inland farm, will +serve as a good example of any of them, and, indeed, as an epitome of my +highly-coloured life. Family troubles, as usual, began it. The domestic +storm-cone was hoisted, and I shipped myself on board a small trading vessel +bound from Constantinople, by classic seas whose every wave throbs with a +deathless memory, to the Grecian Islands and the Levant. Those were golden days +and balmy nights! In and out of harbour all the time—old friends +everywhere—sleeping in some cool temple or ruined cistern during the heat +of the day—feasting and song after sundown, under great stars set in a +velvet sky! Thence we turned and coasted up the Adriatic, its shores swimming +in an atmosphere of amber, rose, and aquamarine; we lay in wide land-locked +harbours, we roamed through ancient and noble cities, until at last one +morning, as the sun rose royally behind us, we rode into Venice down a path of +gold. O, Venice is a fine city, wherein a rat can wander at his ease and take +his pleasure! Or, when weary of wandering, can sit at the edge of the Grand +Canal at night, feasting with his friends, when the air is full of music and +the sky full of stars, and the lights flash and shimmer on the polished steel +prows of the swaying gondolas, packed so that you could walk across the canal +on them from side to side! And then the food—do you like shellfish? Well, +well, we won’t linger over that now.” +</p> + +<p> +He was silent for a time; and the Water Rat, silent too and enthralled, floated +on dream-canals and heard a phantom song pealing high between vaporous grey +wave-lapped walls. +</p> + +<p> +“Southwards we sailed again at last,” continued the Sea Rat, +“coasting down the Italian shore, till finally we made Palermo, and there +I quitted for a long, happy spell on shore. I never stick too long to one ship; +one gets narrow-minded and prejudiced. Besides, Sicily is one of my happy +hunting-grounds. I know everybody there, and their ways just suit me. I spent +many jolly weeks in the island, staying with friends up country. When I grew +restless again I took advantage of a ship that was trading to Sardinia and +Corsica; and very glad I was to feel the fresh breeze and the sea-spray in my +face once more.” +</p> + +<p> +“But isn’t it very hot and stuffy, down in the—hold, I think +you call it?” asked the Water Rat. +</p> + +<p> +The seafarer looked at him with the suspicion of a wink. “I’m an +old hand,” he remarked with much simplicity. “The captain’s +cabin’s good enough for me.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a hard life, by all accounts,” murmured the Rat, sunk +in deep thought. +</p> + +<p> +“For the crew it is,” replied the seafarer gravely, again with the +ghost of a wink. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +The Sea Rat, as soon as his hunger was somewhat assuaged, continued the history +of his latest voyage, conducting his simple hearer from port to port of Spain, +landing him at Lisbon, Oporto, and Bordeaux, introducing him to the pleasant +harbours of Cornwall and Devon, and so up the Channel to that final quayside, +where, landing after winds long contrary, storm-driven and weather-beaten, he +had caught the first magical hints and heraldings of another Spring, and, fired +by these, had sped on a long tramp inland, hungry for the experiment of life on +some quiet farmstead, very far from the weary beating of any sea. +</p> + +<p> +Spell-bound and quivering with excitement, the Water Rat followed the +Adventurer league by league, over stormy bays, through crowded roadsteads, +across harbour bars on a racing tide, up winding rivers that hid their busy +little towns round a sudden turn; and left him with a regretful sigh planted at +his dull inland farm, about which he desired to hear nothing. +</p> + +<p> +By this time their meal was over, and the Seafarer, refreshed and strengthened, +his voice more vibrant, his eye lit with a brightness that seemed caught from +some far-away sea-beacon, filled his glass with the red and glowing vintage of +the South, and, leaning towards the Water Rat, compelled his gaze and held him, +body and soul, while he talked. Those eyes were of the changing foam-streaked +grey-green of leaping Northern seas; in the glass shone a hot ruby that seemed +the very heart of the South, beating for him who had courage to respond to its +pulsation. The twin lights, the shifting grey and the steadfast red, mastered +the Water Rat and held him bound, fascinated, powerless. The quiet world +outside their rays receded far away and ceased to be. And the talk, the +wonderful talk flowed on—or was it speech entirely, or did it pass at +times into song—chanty of the sailors weighing the dripping anchor, +sonorous hum of the shrouds in a tearing North-Easter, ballad of the fisherman +hauling his nets at sundown against an apricot sky, chords of guitar and +mandoline from gondola or caique? Did it change into the cry of the wind, +plaintive at first, angrily shrill as it freshened, rising to a tearing +whistle, sinking to a musical trickle of air from the leech of the bellying +sail? All these sounds the spell-bound listener seemed to hear, and with them +the hungry complaint of the gulls and the sea-mews, the soft thunder of the +breaking wave, the cry of the protesting shingle. Back into speech again it +passed, and with beating heart he was following the adventures of a dozen +seaports, the fights, the escapes, the rallies, the comradeships, the gallant +undertakings; or he searched islands for treasure, fished in still lagoons and +dozed day-long on warm white sand. Of deep-sea fishings he heard tell, and +mighty silver gatherings of the mile-long net; of sudden perils, noise of +breakers on a moonless night, or the tall bows of the great liner taking shape +overhead through the fog; of the merry home-coming, the headland rounded, the +harbour lights opened out; the groups seen dimly on the quay, the cheery hail, +the splash of the hawser; the trudge up the steep little street towards the +comforting glow of red-curtained windows. +</p> + +<p> +Lastly, in his waking dream it seemed to him that the Adventurer had risen to +his feet, but was still speaking, still holding him fast with his sea-grey +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“And now,” he was softly saying, “I take to the road again, +holding on southwestwards for many a long and dusty day; till at last I reach +the little grey sea town I know so well, that clings along one steep side of +the harbour. There through dark doorways you look down flights of stone steps, +overhung by great pink tufts of valerian and ending in a patch of sparkling +blue water. The little boats that lie tethered to the rings and stanchions of +the old sea-wall are gaily painted as those I clambered in and out of in my own +childhood; the salmon leap on the flood tide, schools of mackerel flash and +play past quay-sides and foreshores, and by the windows the great vessels +glide, night and day, up to their moorings or forth to the open sea. There, +sooner or later, the ships of all seafaring nations arrive; and there, at its +destined hour, the ship of my choice will let go its anchor. I shall take my +time, I shall tarry and bide, till at last the right one lies waiting for me, +warped out into midstream, loaded low, her bowsprit pointing down harbour. I +shall slip on board, by boat or along hawser; and then one morning I shall wake +to the song and tramp of the sailors, the clink of the capstan, and the rattle +of the anchor-chain coming merrily in. We shall break out the jib and the +foresail, the white houses on the harbour side will glide slowly past us as she +gathers steering-way, and the voyage will have begun! As she forges towards the +headland she will clothe herself with canvas; and then, once outside, the +sounding slap of great green seas as she heels to the wind, pointing South! +</p> + +<p> +“And you, you will come too, young brother; for the days pass, and never +return, and the South still waits for you. Take the Adventure, heed the call, +now ere the irrevocable moment passes! ’Tis but a banging of the door +behind you, a blithesome step forward, and you are out of the old life and into +the new! Then some day, some day long hence, jog home here if you will, when +the cup has been drained and the play has been played, and sit down by your +quiet river with a store of goodly memories for company. You can easily +overtake me on the road, for you are young, and I am ageing and go softly. I +will linger, and look back; and at last I will surely see you coming, eager and +light-hearted, with all the South in your face!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Mechanically he rose and proceeded to repack the luncheon-basket, carefully and +without haste. Mechanically he returned home, gathered together a few small +necessaries and special treasures he was fond of, and put them in a satchel; +acting with slow deliberation, moving about the room like a sleep-walker; +listening ever with parted lips. He swung the satchel over his shoulder, +carefully selected a stout stick for his wayfaring, and with no haste, but with +no hesitation at all, he stepped across the threshold just as the Mole appeared +at the door. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, where are you off to, Ratty?” asked the Mole in great +surprise, grasping him by the arm. +</p> + +<p> +“Going South, with the rest of them,” murmured the Rat in a dreamy +monotone, never looking at him. “Seawards first and then on shipboard, +and so to the shores that are calling me!” +</p> + +<p> +He pressed resolutely forward, still without haste, but with dogged fixity of +purpose; but the Mole, now thoroughly alarmed, placed himself in front of him, +and looking into his eyes saw that they were glazed and set and turned a +streaked and shifting grey—not his friend’s eyes, but the eyes of +some other animal! Grappling with him strongly he dragged him inside, threw him +down, and held him. +</p> + +<p> +The Rat struggled desperately for a few moments, and then his strength seemed +suddenly to leave him, and he lay still and exhausted, with closed eyes, +trembling. Presently the Mole assisted him to rise and placed him in a chair, +where he sat collapsed and shrunken into himself, his body shaken by a violent +shivering, passing in time into an hysterical fit of dry sobbing. Mole made the +door fast, threw the satchel into a drawer and locked it, and sat down quietly +on the table by his friend, waiting for the strange seizure to pass. Gradually +the Rat sank into a troubled doze, broken by starts and confused murmurings of +things strange and wild and foreign to the unenlightened Mole; and from that he +passed into a deep slumber. +</p> + +<p> +Very anxious in mind, the Mole left him for a time and busied himself with +household matters; and it was getting dark when he returned to the parlour and +found the Rat where he had left him, wide awake indeed, but listless, silent, +and dejected. He took one hasty glance at his eyes; found them, to his great +gratification, clear and dark and brown again as before; and then sat down and +tried to cheer him up and help him to relate what had happened to him. +</p> + +<p> +Poor Ratty did his best, by degrees, to explain things; but how could he put +into cold words what had mostly been suggestion? How recall, for +another’s benefit, the haunting sea voices that had sung to him, how +reproduce at second-hand the magic of the Seafarer’s hundred +reminiscences? Even to himself, now the spell was broken and the glamour gone, +he found it difficult to account for what had seemed, some hours ago, the +inevitable and only thing. It is not surprising, then, that he failed to convey +to the Mole any clear idea of what he had been through that day. +</p> + +<p> +To the Mole this much was plain: the fit, or attack, had passed away, and had +left him sane again, though shaken and cast down by the reaction. But he seemed +to have lost all interest for the time in the things that went to make up his +daily life, as well as in all pleasant forecastings of the altered days and +doings that the changing season was surely bringing. +</p> + +<p> +Casually, then, and with seeming indifference, the Mole turned his talk to the +harvest that was being gathered in, the towering wagons and their straining +teams, the growing ricks, and the large moon rising over bare acres dotted with +sheaves. He talked of the reddening apples around, of the browning nuts, of +jams and preserves and the distilling of cordials; till by easy stages such as +these he reached midwinter, its hearty joys and its snug home life, and then he +became simply lyrical. +</p> + +<p> +By degrees the Rat began to sit up and to join in. His dull eye brightened, and +he lost some of his listening air. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the tactful Mole slipped away and returned with a pencil and a few +half-sheets of paper, which he placed on the table at his friend’s elbow. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s quite a long time since you did any poetry,” he +remarked. “You might have a try at it this evening, instead +of—well, brooding over things so much. I’ve an idea that +you’ll feel a lot better when you’ve got something jotted +down—if it’s only just the rhymes.” +</p> + +<p> +The Rat pushed the paper away from him wearily, but the discreet Mole took +occasion to leave the room, and when he peeped in again some time later, the +Rat was absorbed and deaf to the world; alternately scribbling and sucking the +top of his pencil. It is true that he sucked a good deal more than he +scribbled; but it was joy to the Mole to know that the cure had at least begun. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap10"></a>X.<br> +THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF TOAD</h2> + +<p> +The front door of the hollow tree faced eastwards, so Toad was called at an +early hour; partly by the bright sunlight streaming in on him, partly by the +exceeding coldness of his toes, which made him dream that he was at home in bed +in his own handsome room with the Tudor window, on a cold winter’s night, +and his bedclothes had got up, grumbling and protesting they couldn’t +stand the cold any longer, and had run downstairs to the kitchen fire to warm +themselves; and he had followed, on bare feet, along miles and miles of icy +stone-paved passages, arguing and beseeching them to be reasonable. He would +probably have been aroused much earlier, had he not slept for some weeks on +straw over stone flags, and almost forgotten the friendly feeling of thick +blankets pulled well up round the chin. +</p> + +<p> +Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes first and his complaining toes next, wondered +for a moment where he was, looking round for familiar stone wall and little +barred window; then, with a leap of the heart, remembered everything—his +escape, his flight, his pursuit; remembered, first and best thing of all, that +he was free! +</p> + +<p> +Free! The word and the thought alone were worth fifty blankets. He was warm +from end to end as he thought of the jolly world outside, waiting eagerly for +him to make his triumphal entrance, ready to serve him and play up to him, +anxious to help him and to keep him company, as it always had been in days of +old before misfortune fell upon him. He shook himself and combed the dry leaves +out of his hair with his fingers; and, his toilet complete, marched forth into +the comfortable morning sun, cold but confident, hungry but hopeful, all +nervous terrors of yesterday dispelled by rest and sleep and frank and +heartening sunshine. +</p> + +<p> +He had the world all to himself, that early summer morning. The dewy woodland, +as he threaded it, was solitary and still: the green fields that succeeded the +trees were his own to do as he liked with; the road itself, when he reached it, +in that loneliness that was everywhere, seemed, like a stray dog, to be looking +anxiously for company. Toad, however, was looking for something that could +talk, and tell him clearly which way he ought to go. It is all very well, when +you have a light heart, and a clear conscience, and money in your pocket, and +nobody scouring the country for you to drag you off to prison again, to follow +where the road beckons and points, not caring whither. The practical Toad cared +very much indeed, and he could have kicked the road for its helpless silence +when every minute was of importance to him. +</p> + +<p> +The reserved rustic road was presently joined by a shy little brother in the +shape of a canal, which took its hand and ambled along by its side in perfect +confidence, but with the same tongue-tied, uncommunicative attitude towards +strangers. “Bother them!” said Toad to himself. “But, anyhow, +one thing’s clear. They must both be coming <i>from</i> somewhere, and going <i>to</i> +somewhere. You can’t get over that. Toad, my boy!” So he marched on +patiently by the water’s edge. +</p> + +<p> +Round a bend in the canal came plodding a solitary horse, stooping forward as +if in anxious thought. From rope traces attached to his collar stretched a long +line, taut, but dipping with his stride, the further part of it dripping pearly +drops. Toad let the horse pass, and stood waiting for what the fates were +sending him. +</p> + +<p> +With a pleasant swirl of quiet water at its blunt bow the barge slid up +alongside of him, its gaily painted gunwale level with the towing-path, its +sole occupant a big stout woman wearing a linen sun-bonnet, one brawny arm laid +along the tiller. +</p> + +<p> +“A nice morning, ma’am!” she remarked to Toad, as she drew up +level with him. +</p> + +<p> +“I dare say it is, ma’am!” responded Toad politely, as he +walked along the tow-path abreast of her. “I dare it <i>is</i> a nice morning to +them that’s not in sore trouble, like what I am. Here’s my married +daughter, she sends off to me post-haste to come to her at once; so off I +comes, not knowing what may be happening or going to happen, but fearing the +worst, as you will understand, ma’am, if you’re a mother, too. And +I’ve left my business to look after itself—I’m in the washing +and laundering line, you must know, ma’am—and I’ve left my +young children to look after themselves, and a more mischievous and troublesome +set of young imps doesn’t exist, ma’am; and I’ve lost all my +money, and lost my way, and as for what may be happening to my married +daughter, why, I don’t like to think of it, ma’am!” +</p> + +<p> +“Where might your married daughter be living, ma’am?” asked +the barge-woman. +</p> + +<p> +“She lives near to the river, ma’am,” replied Toad. +“Close to a fine house called Toad Hall, that’s somewheres +hereabouts in these parts. Perhaps you may have heard of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Toad Hall? Why, I’m going that way myself,” replied the +barge-woman. “This canal joins the river some miles further on, a little +above Toad Hall; and then it’s an easy walk. You come along in the barge +with me, and I’ll give you a lift.” +</p> + +<p> +She steered the barge close to the bank, and Toad, with many humble and +grateful acknowledgments, stepped lightly on board and sat down with great +satisfaction. “Toad’s luck again!” thought he. “I +always come out on top!” +</p> + +<p> +“So you’re in the washing business, ma’am?” said the +barge-woman politely, as they glided along. “And a very good business +you’ve got too, I dare say, if I’m not making too free in saying +so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Finest business in the whole country,” said Toad airily. +“All the gentry come to me—wouldn’t go to any one else if +they were paid, they know me so well. You see, I understand my work thoroughly, +and attend to it all myself. Washing, ironing, clear-starching, making up +gents’ fine shirts for evening wear—everything’s done under +my own eye!” +</p> + +<p> +“But surely you don’t <i>do</i> all that work yourself, +ma’am?” asked the barge-woman respectfully. +</p> + +<p> +“O, I have girls,” said Toad lightly: “twenty girls or +thereabouts, always at work. But you know what <i>girls</i> are, ma’am! Nasty +little hussies, that’s what <i>I</i> call ’em!” +</p> + +<p> +“So do I, too,” said the barge-woman with great heartiness. +“But I dare say you set yours to rights, the idle trollops! And are you +<i>very</i> fond of washing?” +</p> + +<p> +“I love it,” said Toad. “I simply dote on it. Never so happy +as when I’ve got both arms in the wash-tub. But, then, it comes so easy +to me! No trouble at all! A real pleasure, I assure you, ma’am!” +</p> + +<p> +“What a bit of luck, meeting you!” observed the barge-woman, +thoughtfully. “A regular piece of good fortune for both of us!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what do you mean?” asked Toad, nervously. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, look at me, now,” replied the barge-woman. “<i>I</i> +like washing, too, just the same as you do; and for that matter, whether I like +it or not I have got to do all my own, naturally, moving about as I do. Now my +husband, he’s such a fellow for shirking his work and leaving the barge +to me, that never a moment do I get for seeing to my own affairs. By rights he +ought to be here now, either steering or attending to the horse, though luckily +the horse has sense enough to attend to himself. Instead of which, he’s +gone off with the dog, to see if they can’t pick up a rabbit for dinner +somewhere. Says he’ll catch me up at the next lock. Well, that’s as +may be—I don’t trust him, once he gets off with that dog, +who’s worse than he is. But meantime, how am I to get on with my +washing?” +</p> + +<p> +“O, never mind about the washing,” said Toad, not liking the +subject. “Try and fix your mind on that rabbit. A nice fat young rabbit, +I’ll be bound. Got any onions?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t fix my mind on anything but my washing,” said the +barge-woman, “and I wonder you can be talking of rabbits, with such a +joyful prospect before you. There’s a heap of things of mine that +you’ll find in a corner of the cabin. If you’ll just take one or +two of the most necessary sort—I won’t venture to describe them to +a lady like you, but you’ll recognise them at a glance—and put them +through the wash-tub as we go along, why, it’ll be a pleasure to you, as +you rightly say, and a real help to me. You’ll find a tub handy, and +soap, and a kettle on the stove, and a bucket to haul up water from the canal +with. Then I shall know you’re enjoying yourself, instead of sitting here +idle, looking at the scenery and yawning your head off.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here, you let me steer!” said Toad, now thoroughly frightened, +“and then you can get on with your washing your own way. I might spoil +your things, or not do ’em as you like. I’m more used to +gentlemen’s things myself. It’s my special line.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let you steer?” replied the barge-woman, laughing. “It takes +some practice to steer a barge properly. Besides, it’s dull work, and I +want you to be happy. No, you shall do the washing you are so fond of, and +I’ll stick to the steering that I understand. Don’t try and deprive +me of the pleasure of giving you a treat!” +</p> + +<p> +Toad was fairly cornered. He looked for escape this way and that, saw that he +was too far from the bank for a flying leap, and sullenly resigned himself to +his fate. “If it comes to that,” he thought in desperation, +“I suppose any fool can <i>wash!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +He fetched tub, soap, and other necessaries from the cabin, selected a few +garments at random, tried to recollect what he had seen in casual glances +through laundry windows, and set to. +</p> + +<p> +A long half-hour passed, and every minute of it saw Toad getting crosser and +crosser. Nothing that he could do to the things seemed to please them or do +them good. He tried coaxing, he tried slapping, he tried punching; they smiled +back at him out of the tub unconverted, happy in their original sin. Once or +twice he looked nervously over his shoulder at the barge-woman, but she +appeared to be gazing out in front of her, absorbed in her steering. His back +ached badly, and he noticed with dismay that his paws were beginning to get all +crinkly. Now Toad was very proud of his paws. He muttered under his breath +words that should never pass the lips of either washerwomen or Toads; and lost +the soap, for the fiftieth time. +</p> + +<p> +A burst of laughter made him straighten himself and look round. The barge-woman +was leaning back and laughing unrestrainedly, till the tears ran down her +cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve been watching you all the time,” she gasped. “I +thought you must be a humbug all along, from the conceited way you talked. +Pretty washerwoman you are! Never washed so much as a dish-clout in your life, +I’ll lay!” +</p> + +<p> +Toad’s temper which had been simmering viciously for some time, now +fairly boiled over, and he lost all control of himself. +</p> + +<p> +“You common, low, <i>fat</i> barge-woman!” he shouted; “don’t +you dare to talk to your betters like that! Washerwoman indeed! I would have +you to know that I am a Toad, a very well-known, respected, distinguished Toad! +I may be under a bit of a cloud at present, but I will <i>not</i> be laughed at by a +bargewoman!” +</p> + +<p> +The woman moved nearer to him and peered under his bonnet keenly and closely. +“Why, so you are!” she cried. “Well, I never! A horrid, +nasty, crawly Toad! And in my nice clean barge, too! Now that is a thing that I +will <i>not</i> have.” +</p> + +<p> +She relinquished the tiller for a moment. One big mottled arm shot out and +caught Toad by a fore-leg, while the other-gripped him fast by a hind-leg. Then +the world turned suddenly upside down, the barge seemed to flit lightly across +the sky, the wind whistled in his ears, and Toad found himself flying through +the air, revolving rapidly as he went. +</p> + +<p> +The water, when he eventually reached it with a loud splash, proved quite cold +enough for his taste, though its chill was not sufficient to quell his proud +spirit, or slake the heat of his furious temper. He rose to the surface +spluttering, and when he had wiped the duck-weed out of his eyes the first +thing he saw was the fat barge-woman looking back at him over the stern of the +retreating barge and laughing; and he vowed, as he coughed and choked, to be +even with her. +</p> + +<p> +He struck out for the shore, but the cotton gown greatly impeded his efforts, +and when at length he touched land he found it hard to climb up the steep bank +unassisted. He had to take a minute or two’s rest to recover his breath; +then, gathering his wet skirts well over his arms, he started to run after the +barge as fast as his legs would carry him, wild with indignation, thirsting for +revenge. +</p> + +<p> +The barge-woman was still laughing when he drew up level with her. “Put +yourself through your mangle, washerwoman,” she called out, “and +iron your face and crimp it, and you’ll pass for quite a decent-looking +Toad!” +</p> + +<p> +Toad never paused to reply. Solid revenge was what he wanted, not cheap, windy, +verbal triumphs, though he had a thing or two in his mind that he would have +liked to say. He saw what he wanted ahead of him. Running swiftly on he +overtook the horse, unfastened the towrope and cast off, jumped lightly on the +horse’s back, and urged it to a gallop by kicking it vigorously in the +sides. He steered for the open country, abandoning the tow-path, and swinging +his steed down a rutty lane. Once he looked back, and saw that the barge had +run aground on the other side of the canal, and the barge-woman was +gesticulating wildly and shouting, “Stop, stop, stop!” +“I’ve heard that song before,” said Toad, laughing, as he +continued to spur his steed onward in its wild career. +</p> + +<p> +The barge-horse was not capable of any very sustained effort, and its gallop +soon subsided into a trot, and its trot into an easy walk; but Toad was quite +contented with this, knowing that he, at any rate, was moving, and the barge +was not. He had quite recovered his temper, now that he had done something he +thought really clever; and he was satisfied to jog along quietly in the sun, +steering his horse along by-ways and bridle-paths, and trying to forget how +very long it was since he had had a square meal, till the canal had been left +very far behind him. +</p> + +<p> +He had travelled some miles, his horse and he, and he was feeling drowsy in the +hot sunshine, when the horse stopped, lowered his head, and began to nibble the +grass; and Toad, waking up, just saved himself from falling off by an effort. +He looked about him and found he was on a wide common, dotted with patches of +gorse and bramble as far as he could see. Near him stood a dingy gipsy caravan, +and beside it a man was sitting on a bucket turned upside down, very busy +smoking and staring into the wide world. A fire of sticks was burning near by, +and over the fire hung an iron pot, and out of that pot came forth bubblings +and gurglings, and a vague suggestive steaminess. Also smells—warm, rich, +and varied smells—that twined and twisted and wreathed themselves at last +into one complete, voluptuous, perfect smell that seemed like the very soul of +Nature taking form and appearing to her children, a true Goddess, a mother of +solace and comfort. Toad now knew well that he had not been really hungry +before. What he had felt earlier in the day had been a mere trifling qualm. +This was the real thing at last, and no mistake; and it would have to be dealt +with speedily, too, or there would be trouble for somebody or something. He +looked the gipsy over carefully, wondering vaguely whether it would be easier +to fight him or cajole him. So there he sat, and sniffed and sniffed, and +looked at the gipsy; and the gipsy sat and smoked, and looked at him. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the gipsy took his pipe out of his mouth and remarked in a careless +way, “Want to sell that there horse of yours?” +</p> + +<p> +Toad was completely taken aback. He did not know that gipsies were very fond of +horse-dealing, and never missed an opportunity, and he had not reflected that +caravans were always on the move and took a deal of drawing. It had not +occurred to him to turn the horse into cash, but the gipsy’s suggestion +seemed to smooth the way towards the two things he wanted so badly—ready +money, and a solid breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +“What?” he said, “me sell this beautiful young horse of mine? +O, no; it’s out of the question. Who’s going to take the washing +home to my customers every week? Besides, I’m too fond of him, and he +simply dotes on me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Try and love a donkey,” suggested the gipsy. “Some people +do.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t seem to see,” continued Toad, “that this +fine horse of mine is a cut above you altogether. He’s a blood horse, he +is, partly; not the part you see, of course—another part. And he’s +been a Prize Hackney, too, in his time—that was the time before you knew +him, but you can still tell it on him at a glance, if you understand anything +about horses. No, it’s not to be thought of for a moment. All the same, +how much might you be disposed to offer me for this beautiful young horse of +mine?” +</p> + +<p> +The gipsy looked the horse over, and then he looked Toad over with equal care, +and looked at the horse again. “Shillin’ a leg,” he said +briefly, and turned away, continuing to smoke and try to stare the wide world +out of countenance. +</p> + +<p> +“A shilling a leg?” cried Toad. “If you please, I must take a +little time to work that out, and see just what it comes to.” +</p> + +<p> +He climbed down off his horse, and left it to graze, and sat down by the gipsy, +and did sums on his fingers, and at last he said, “A shilling a leg? Why, +that comes to exactly four shillings, and no more. O, no; I could not think of +accepting four shillings for this beautiful young horse of mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” said the gipsy, “I’ll tell you what I will do. +I’ll make it five shillings, and that’s three-and-sixpence more +than the animal’s worth. And that’s my last word.” +</p> + +<p> +Then Toad sat and pondered long and deeply. For he was hungry and quite +penniless, and still some way—he knew not how far—from home, and +enemies might still be looking for him. To one in such a situation, five +shillings may very well appear a large sum of money. On the other hand, it did +not seem very much to get for a horse. But then, again, the horse hadn’t +cost him anything; so whatever he got was all clear profit. At last he said +firmly, “Look here, gipsy! I tell you what we will do; and this is <i>my</i> +last word. You shall hand me over six shillings and sixpence, cash down; and +further, in addition thereto, you shall give me as much breakfast as I can +possibly eat, at one sitting of course, out of that iron pot of yours that +keeps sending forth such delicious and exciting smells. In return, I will make +over to you my spirited young horse, with all the beautiful harness and +trappings that are on him, freely thrown in. If that’s not good enough +for you, say so, and I’ll be getting on. I know a man near here +who’s wanted this horse of mine for years.” +</p> + +<p> +The gipsy grumbled frightfully, and declared if he did a few more deals of that +sort he’d be ruined. But in the end he lugged a dirty canvas bag out of +the depths of his trouser pocket, and counted out six shillings and sixpence +into Toad’s paw. Then he disappeared into the caravan for an instant, and +returned with a large iron plate and a knife, fork, and spoon. He tilted up the +pot, and a glorious stream of hot rich stew gurgled into the plate. It was, +indeed, the most beautiful stew in the world, being made of partridges, and +pheasants, and chickens, and hares, and rabbits, and pea-hens, and +guinea-fowls, and one or two other things. Toad took the plate on his lap, +almost crying, and stuffed, and stuffed, and stuffed, and kept asking for more, +and the gipsy never grudged it him. He thought that he had never eaten so good +a breakfast in all his life. +</p> + +<p> +When Toad had taken as much stew on board as he thought he could possibly hold, +he got up and said good-bye to the gipsy, and took an affectionate farewell of +the horse; and the gipsy, who knew the riverside well, gave him directions +which way to go, and he set forth on his travels again in the best possible +spirits. He was, indeed, a very different Toad from the animal of an hour ago. +The sun was shining brightly, his wet clothes were quite dry again, he had +money in his pocket once more, he was nearing home and friends and safety, and, +most and best of all, he had had a substantial meal, hot and nourishing, and +felt big, and strong, and careless, and self-confident. +</p> + +<p> +As he tramped along gaily, he thought of his adventures and escapes, and how +when things seemed at their worst he had always managed to find a way out; and +his pride and conceit began to swell within him. “Ho, ho!” he said +to himself as he marched along with his chin in the air, “what a clever +Toad I am! There is surely no animal equal to me for cleverness in the whole +world! My enemies shut me up in prison, encircled by sentries, watched night +and day by warders; I walk out through them all, by sheer ability coupled with +courage. They pursue me with engines, and policemen, and revolvers; I snap my +fingers at them, and vanish, laughing, into space. I am, unfortunately, thrown +into a canal by a woman fat of body and very evil-minded. What of it? I swim +ashore, I seize her horse, I ride off in triumph, and I sell the horse for a +whole pocketful of money and an excellent breakfast! Ho, ho! I am The Toad, the +handsome, the popular, the successful Toad!” He got so puffed up with +conceit that he made up a song as he walked in praise of himself, and sang it +at the top of his voice, though there was no one to hear it but him. It was +perhaps the most conceited song that any animal ever composed. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“The world has held great Heroes,<br> + As history-books have showed;<br> +But never a name to go down to fame<br> + Compared with that of Toad!<br> +<br> +“The clever men at Oxford<br> + Know all that there is to be knowed.<br> +But they none of them know one half as much<br> + As intelligent Mr. Toad!<br> +<br> +“The animals sat in the Ark and cried,<br> + Their tears in torrents flowed.<br> +Who was it said, ‘There’s land ahead?’<br> + Encouraging Mr. Toad!<br> +<br> +“The army all saluted<br> + As they marched along the road.<br> +Was it the King? Or Kitchener?<br> + No. It was Mr. Toad.<br> +<br> +“The Queen and her Ladies-in-waiting<br> + Sat at the window and sewed.<br> +She cried, ‘Look! who’s that <i>handsome</i> man?’<br> + They answered, ‘Mr. Toad.’” +</p> + +<p> +There was a great deal more of the same sort, but too dreadfully conceited to +be written down. These are some of the milder verses. +</p> + +<p> +He sang as he walked, and he walked as he sang, and got more inflated every +minute. But his pride was shortly to have a severe fall. +</p> + +<p> +After some miles of country lanes he reached the high road, and as he turned +into it and glanced along its white length, he saw approaching him a speck that +turned into a dot and then into a blob, and then into something very familiar; +and a double note of warning, only too well known, fell on his delighted ear. +</p> + +<p> +“This is something like!” said the excited Toad. “This is +real life again, this is once more the great world from which I have been +missed so long! I will hail them, my brothers of the wheel, and pitch them a +yarn, of the sort that has been so successful hitherto; and they will give me a +lift, of course, and then I will talk to them some more; and, perhaps, with +luck, it may even end in my driving up to Toad Hall in a motor-car! That will +be one in the eye for Badger!” +</p> + +<p> +He stepped confidently out into the road to hail the motor-car, which came +along at an easy pace, slowing down as it neared the lane; when suddenly he +became very pale, his heart turned to water, his knees shook and yielded under +him, and he doubled up and collapsed with a sickening pain in his interior. And +well he might, the unhappy animal; for the approaching car was the very one he +had stolen out of the yard of the Red Lion Hotel on that fatal day when all his +troubles began! And the people in it were the very same people he had sat and +watched at luncheon in the coffee-room! +</p> + +<p> +He sank down in a shabby, miserable heap in the road, murmuring to himself in +his despair, “It’s all up! It’s all over now! Chains and +policemen again! Prison again! Dry bread and water again! O, what a fool I have +been! What did I want to go strutting about the country for, singing conceited +songs, and hailing people in broad day on the high road, instead of hiding till +nightfall and slipping home quietly by back ways! O hapless Toad! O ill-fated +animal!” +</p> + +<p> +The terrible motor-car drew slowly nearer and nearer, till at last he heard it +stop just short of him. Two gentlemen got out and walked round the trembling +heap of crumpled misery lying in the road, and one of them said, “O dear! +this is very sad! Here is a poor old thing—a washerwoman +apparently—who has fainted in the road! Perhaps she is overcome by the +heat, poor creature; or possibly she has not had any food to-day. Let us lift +her into the car and take her to the nearest village, where doubtless she has +friends.” +</p> + +<p> +They tenderly lifted Toad into the motor-car and propped him up with soft +cushions, and proceeded on their way. +</p> + +<p> +When Toad heard them talk in so kind and sympathetic a way, and knew that he +was not recognised, his courage began to revive, and he cautiously opened first +one eye and then the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Look!” said one of the gentlemen, “she is better already. +The fresh air is doing her good. How do you feel now, ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you kindly, Sir,” said Toad in a feeble voice, +“I’m feeling a great deal better!” “That’s +right,” said the gentleman. “Now keep quite still, and, above all, +don’t try to talk.” +</p> + +<p> +“I won’t,” said Toad. “I was only thinking, if I might +sit on the front seat there, beside the driver, where I could get the fresh air +full in my face, I should soon be all right again.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a very sensible woman!” said the gentleman. “Of course +you shall.” So they carefully helped Toad into the front seat beside the +driver, and on they went again. +</p> + +<p> +Toad was almost himself again by now. He sat up, looked about him, and tried to +beat down the tremors, the yearnings, the old cravings that rose up and beset +him and took possession of him entirely. +</p> + +<p> +“It is fate!” he said to himself. “Why strive? why +struggle?” and he turned to the driver at his side. +</p> + +<p> +“Please, Sir,” he said, “I wish you would kindly let me try +and drive the car for a little. I’ve been watching you carefully, and it +looks so easy and so interesting, and I should like to be able to tell my +friends that once I had driven a motor-car!” +</p> + +<p> +The driver laughed at the proposal, so heartily that the gentleman inquired +what the matter was. When he heard, he said, to Toad’s delight, +“Bravo, ma’am! I like your spirit. Let her have a try, and look +after her. She won’t do any harm.” +</p> + +<p> +Toad eagerly scrambled into the seat vacated by the driver, took the +steering-wheel in his hands, listened with affected humility to the +instructions given him, and set the car in motion, but very slowly and +carefully at first, for he was determined to be prudent. +</p> + +<p> +The gentlemen behind clapped their hands and applauded, and Toad heard them +saying, “How well she does it! Fancy a washerwoman driving a car as well +as that, the first time!” +</p> + +<p> +Toad went a little faster; then faster still, and faster. +</p> + +<p> +He heard the gentlemen call out warningly, “Be careful, +washerwoman!” And this annoyed him, and he began to lose his head. +</p> + +<p> +The driver tried to interfere, but he pinned him down in his seat with one +elbow, and put on full speed. The rush of air in his face, the hum of the +engines, and the light jump of the car beneath him intoxicated his weak brain. +“Washerwoman, indeed!” he shouted recklessly. “Ho! ho! I am +the Toad, the motor-car snatcher, the prison-breaker, the Toad who always +escapes! Sit still, and you shall know what driving really is, for you are in +the hands of the famous, the skilful, the entirely fearless Toad!” +</p> + +<p> +With a cry of horror the whole party rose and flung themselves on him. +“Seize him!” they cried, “seize the Toad, the wicked animal +who stole our motor-car! Bind him, chain him, drag him to the nearest +police-station! Down with the desperate and dangerous Toad!” +</p> + +<p> +Alas! they should have thought, they ought to have been more prudent, they +should have remembered to stop the motor-car somehow before playing any pranks +of that sort. With a half-turn of the wheel the Toad sent the car crashing +through the low hedge that ran along the roadside. One mighty bound, a violent +shock, and the wheels of the car were churning up the thick mud of a +horse-pond. +</p> + +<p> +Toad found himself flying through the air with the strong upward rush and +delicate curve of a swallow. He liked the motion, and was just beginning to +wonder whether it would go on until he developed wings and turned into a +Toad-bird, when he landed on his back with a thump, in the soft rich grass of a +meadow. Sitting up, he could just see the motor-car in the pond, nearly +submerged; the gentlemen and the driver, encumbered by their long coats, were +floundering helplessly in the water. +</p> + +<p> +He picked himself up rapidly, and set off running across country as hard as he +could, scrambling through hedges, jumping ditches, pounding across fields, till +he was breathless and weary, and had to settle down into an easy walk. When he +had recovered his breath somewhat, and was able to think calmly, he began to +giggle, and from giggling he took to laughing, and he laughed till he had to +sit down under a hedge. “Ho, ho!” he cried, in ecstasies of +self-admiration, “Toad again! Toad, as usual, comes out on the top! Who +was it got them to give him a lift? Who managed to get on the front seat for +the sake of fresh air? Who persuaded them into letting him see if he could +drive? Who landed them all in a horse-pond? Who escaped, flying gaily and +unscathed through the air, leaving the narrow-minded, grudging, timid +excursionists in the mud where they should rightly be? Why, Toad, of course; +clever Toad, great Toad, <i>good</i> Toad!” +</p> + +<p> +Then he burst into song again, and chanted with uplifted voice— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“The motor-car went Poop-poop-poop,<br> + As it raced along the road.<br> +Who was it steered it into a pond?<br> + Ingenious Mr. Toad! +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +O, how clever I am! How clever, how clever, how very clev——” +</p> + +<p> +A slight noise at a distance behind him made him turn his head and look. O +horror! O misery! O despair! +</p> + +<p> +About two fields off, a chauffeur in his leather gaiters and two large rural +policemen were visible, running towards him as hard as they could go! +</p> + +<p> +Poor Toad sprang to his feet and pelted away again, his heart in his mouth. O, +my!” he gasped, as he panted along, “what an <i>ass</i> I am! What a +<i>conceited</i> and heedless ass! Swaggering again! Shouting and singing songs again! +Sitting still and gassing again! O my! O my! O my!” +</p> + +<p> +He glanced back, and saw to his dismay that they were gaining on him. On he ran +desperately, but kept looking back, and saw that they still gained steadily. He +did his best, but he was a fat animal, and his legs were short, and still they +gained. He could hear them close behind him now. Ceasing to heed where he was +going, he struggled on blindly and wildly, looking back over his shoulder at +the now triumphant enemy, when suddenly the earth failed under his feet, he +grasped at the air, and, splash! he found himself head over ears in deep water, +rapid water, water that bore him along with a force he could not contend with; +and he knew that in his blind panic he had run straight into the river! +</p> + +<p> +He rose to the surface and tried to grasp the reeds and the rushes that grew +along the water’s edge close under the bank, but the stream was so strong +that it tore them out of his hands. “O my!” gasped poor Toad, +“if ever I steal a motor-car again! If ever I sing another conceited +song”—then down he went, and came up breathless and spluttering. +Presently he saw that he was approaching a big dark hole in the bank, just +above his head, and as the stream bore him past he reached up with a paw and +caught hold of the edge and held on. Then slowly and with difficulty he drew +himself up out of the water, till at last he was able to rest his elbows on the +edge of the hole. There he remained for some minutes, puffing and panting, for +he was quite exhausted. +</p> + +<p> +As he sighed and blew and stared before him into the dark hole, some bright +small thing shone and twinkled in its depths, moving towards him. As it +approached, a face grew up gradually around it, and it was a familiar face! +</p> + +<p> +Brown and small, with whiskers. +</p> + +<p> +Grave and round, with neat ears and silky hair. +</p> + +<p> +It was the Water Rat! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap11"></a>XI.<br> +“LIKE SUMMER TEMPESTS CAME HIS TEARS”</h2> + +<p> +The Rat put out a neat little brown paw, gripped Toad firmly by the scruff of +the neck, and gave a great hoist and a pull; and the water-logged Toad came up +slowly but surely over the edge of the hole, till at last he stood safe and +sound in the hall, streaked with mud and weed to be sure, and with the water +streaming off him, but happy and high-spirited as of old, now that he found +himself once more in the house of a friend, and dodgings and evasions were +over, and he could lay aside a disguise that was unworthy of his position and +wanted such a lot of living up to. +</p> + +<p> +“O, Ratty!” he cried. “I’ve been through such times +since I saw you last, you can’t think! Such trials, such sufferings, and +all so nobly borne! Then such escapes, such disguises such subterfuges, and all +so cleverly planned and carried out! Been in prison—got out of it, of +course! Been thrown into a canal—swam ashore! Stole a horse—sold +him for a large sum of money! Humbugged everybody—made ’em all do +exactly what I wanted! Oh, I <i>am</i> a smart Toad, and no mistake! What do you think +my last exploit was? Just hold on till I tell you——” +</p> + +<p> +“Toad,” said the Water Rat, gravely and firmly, “you go off +upstairs at once, and take off that old cotton rag that looks as if it might +formerly have belonged to some washerwoman, and clean yourself thoroughly, and +put on some of my clothes, and try and come down looking like a gentleman if +you <i>can;</i> for a more shabby, bedraggled, disreputable-looking object than you +are I never set eyes on in my whole life! Now, stop swaggering and arguing, and +be off! I’ll have something to say to you later!” +</p> + +<p> +Toad was at first inclined to stop and do some talking back at him. He had had +enough of being ordered about when he was in prison, and here was the thing +being begun all over again, apparently; and by a Rat, too! However, he caught +sight of himself in the looking-glass over the hat-stand, with the rusty black +bonnet perched rakishly over one eye, and he changed his mind and went very +quickly and humbly upstairs to the Rat’s dressing-room. There he had a +thorough wash and brush-up, changed his clothes, and stood for a long time +before the glass, contemplating himself with pride and pleasure, and thinking +what utter idiots all the people must have been to have ever mistaken him for +one moment for a washerwoman. +</p> + +<p> +By the time he came down again luncheon was on the table, and very glad Toad +was to see it, for he had been through some trying experiences and had taken +much hard exercise since the excellent breakfast provided for him by the gipsy. +While they ate Toad told the Rat all his adventures, dwelling chiefly on his +own cleverness, and presence of mind in emergencies, and cunning in tight +places; and rather making out that he had been having a gay and highly-coloured +experience. But the more he talked and boasted, the more grave and silent the +Rat became. +</p> + +<p> +When at last Toad had talked himself to a standstill, there was silence for a +while; and then the Rat said, “Now, Toady, I don’t want to give you +pain, after all you’ve been through already; but, seriously, don’t +you see what an awful ass you’ve been making of yourself? On your own +admission you have been handcuffed, imprisoned, starved, chased, terrified out +of your life, insulted, jeered at, and ignominiously flung into the +water—by a woman, too! Where’s the amusement in that? Where does +the fun come in? And all because you must needs go and steal a motor-car. You +know that you’ve never had anything but trouble from motor-cars from the +moment you first set eyes on one. But if you <i>will</i> be mixed up with +them—as you generally are, five minutes after you’ve +started—why <i>steal</i> them? Be a cripple, if you think it’s exciting; +be a bankrupt, for a change, if you’ve set your mind on it: but why +choose to be a convict? When are you going to be sensible, and think of your +friends, and try and be a credit to them? Do you suppose it’s any +pleasure to me, for instance, to hear animals saying, as I go about, that +I’m the chap that keeps company with gaol-birds?” +</p> + +<p> +Now, it was a very comforting point in Toad’s character that he was a +thoroughly good-hearted animal and never minded being jawed by those who were +his real friends. And even when most set upon a thing, he was always able to +see the other side of the question. So although, while the Rat was talking so +seriously, he kept saying to himself mutinously, “But it <i>was</i> fun, though! +Awful fun!” and making strange suppressed noises inside him, +k-i-ck-ck-ck, and poop-p-p, and other sounds resembling stifled snorts, or the +opening of soda-water bottles, yet when the Rat had quite finished, he heaved a +deep sigh and said, very nicely and humbly, “Quite right, Ratty! How +<i>sound</i> you always are! Yes, I’ve been a conceited old ass, I can quite see +that; but now I’m going to be a good Toad, and not do it any more. As for +motor-cars, I’ve not been at all so keen about them since my last ducking +in that river of yours. The fact is, while I was hanging on to the edge of your +hole and getting my breath, I had a sudden idea—a really brilliant +idea—connected with motor-boats—there, there! don’t take on +so, old chap, and stamp, and upset things; it was only an idea, and we +won’t talk any more about it now. We’ll have our coffee, <i>and</i> a +smoke, and a quiet chat, and then I’m going to stroll quietly down to +Toad Hall, and get into clothes of my own, and set things going again on the +old lines. I’ve had enough of adventures. I shall lead a quiet, steady, +respectable life, pottering about my property, and improving it, and doing a +little landscape gardening at times. There will always be a bit of dinner for +my friends when they come to see me; and I shall keep a pony-chaise to jog +about the country in, just as I used to in the good old days, before I got +restless, and wanted to <i>do</i> things.” +</p> + +<p> +“Stroll quietly down to Toad Hall?” cried the Rat, greatly excited. +“What are you talking about? Do you mean to say you haven’t +<i>heard?</i>” +</p> + +<p> +“Heard what?” said Toad, turning rather pale. “Go on, Ratty! +Quick! Don’t spare me! What haven’t I heard?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean to tell me,” shouted the Rat, thumping with his little +fist upon the table, “that you’ve heard nothing about the Stoats +and Weasels?” +</p> + +<p> +What, the Wild Wooders?” cried Toad, trembling in every limb. “No, +not a word! What have they been doing?” +</p> + +<p> +“—And how they’ve been and taken Toad Hall?” continued +the Rat. +</p> + +<p> +Toad leaned his elbows on the table, and his chin on his paws; and a large tear +welled up in each of his eyes, overflowed and splashed on the table, plop! +plop! +</p> + +<p> +“Go on, Ratty,” he murmured presently; “tell me all. The +worst is over. I am an animal again. I can bear it.” +</p> + +<p> +“When you—got—into that—that—trouble of +yours,” said the Rat, slowly and impressively; “I mean, when +you—disappeared from society for a time, over that misunderstanding about +a—a machine, you know—” +</p> + +<p> +Toad merely nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it was a good deal talked about down here, naturally,” +continued the Rat, “not only along the river-side, but even in the Wild +Wood. Animals took sides, as always happens. The River-bankers stuck up for +you, and said you had been infamously treated, and there was no justice to be +had in the land nowadays. But the Wild Wood animals said hard things, and +served you right, and it was time this sort of thing was stopped. And they got +very cocky, and went about saying you were done for this time! You would never +come back again, never, never!” +</p> + +<p> +Toad nodded once more, keeping silence. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s the sort of little beasts they are,” the Rat went on. +“But Mole and Badger, they stuck out, through thick and thin, that you +would come back again soon, somehow. They didn’t know exactly how, but +somehow!” +</p> + +<p> +Toad began to sit up in his chair again, and to smirk a little. +</p> + +<p> +“They argued from history,” continued the Rat. “They said +that no criminal laws had ever been known to prevail against cheek and +plausibility such as yours, combined with the power of a long purse. So they +arranged to move their things in to Toad Hall, and sleep there, and keep it +aired, and have it all ready for you when you turned up. They didn’t +guess what was going to happen, of course; still, they had their suspicions of +the Wild Wood animals. Now I come to the most painful and tragic part of my +story. One dark night—it was a <i>very</i> dark night, and blowing hard, too, +and raining simply cats and dogs—a band of weasels, armed to the teeth, +crept silently up the carriage-drive to the front entrance. Simultaneously, a +body of desperate ferrets, advancing through the kitchen-garden, possessed +themselves of the backyard and offices; while a company of skirmishing stoats +who stuck at nothing occupied the conservatory and the billiard-room, and held +the French windows opening on to the lawn. +</p> + +<p> +“The Mole and the Badger were sitting by the fire in the smoking-room, +telling stories and suspecting nothing, for it wasn’t a night for any +animals to be out in, when those bloodthirsty villains broke down the doors and +rushed in upon them from every side. They made the best fight they could, but +what was the good? They were unarmed, and taken by surprise, and what can two +animals do against hundreds? They took and beat them severely with sticks, +those two poor faithful creatures, and turned them out into the cold and the +wet, with many insulting and uncalled-for remarks!” +</p> + +<p> +Here the unfeeling Toad broke into a snigger, and then pulled himself together +and tried to look particularly solemn. +</p> + +<p> +“And the Wild Wooders have been living in Toad Hall ever since,” +continued the Rat; “and going on simply anyhow! Lying in bed half the +day, and breakfast at all hours, and the place in such a mess (I’m told) +it’s not fit to be seen! Eating your grub, and drinking your drink, and +making bad jokes about you, and singing vulgar songs, about—well, about +prisons and magistrates, and policemen; horrid personal songs, with no humour +in them. And they’re telling the tradespeople and everybody that +they’ve come to stay for good.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, have they!” said Toad getting up and seizing a stick. +“I’ll jolly soon see about that!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s no good, Toad!” called the Rat after him. +“You’d better come back and sit down; you’ll only get into +trouble.” +</p> + +<p> +But the Toad was off, and there was no holding him. He marched rapidly down the +road, his stick over his shoulder, fuming and muttering to himself in his +anger, till he got near his front gate, when suddenly there popped up from +behind the palings a long yellow ferret with a gun. +</p> + +<p> +“Who comes there?” said the ferret sharply. +</p> + +<p> +“Stuff and nonsense!” said Toad, very angrily. “What do you +mean by talking like that to me? Come out of that at once, or +I’ll——” +</p> + +<p> +The ferret said never a word, but he brought his gun up to his shoulder. Toad +prudently dropped flat in the road, and <i>Bang!</i> a bullet whistled over his head. +</p> + +<p> +The startled Toad scrambled to his feet and scampered off down the road as hard +as he could; and as he ran he heard the ferret laughing and other horrid thin +little laughs taking it up and carrying on the sound. +</p> + +<p> +He went back, very crestfallen, and told the Water Rat. +</p> + +<p> +“What did I tell you?” said the Rat. “It’s no good. +They’ve got sentries posted, and they are all armed. You must just +wait.” +</p> + +<p> +Still, Toad was not inclined to give in all at once. So he got out the boat, +and set off rowing up the river to where the garden front of Toad Hall came +down to the waterside. +</p> + +<p> +Arriving within sight of his old home, he rested on his oars and surveyed the +land cautiously. All seemed very peaceful and deserted and quiet. He could see +the whole front of Toad Hall, glowing in the evening sunshine, the pigeons +settling by twos and threes along the straight line of the roof; the garden, a +blaze of flowers; the creek that led up to the boat-house, the little wooden +bridge that crossed it; all tranquil, uninhabited, apparently waiting for his +return. He would try the boat-house first, he thought. Very warily he paddled +up to the mouth of the creek, and was just passing under the bridge, when ... +<i>Crash!</i> +</p> + +<p> +A great stone, dropped from above, smashed through the bottom of the boat. It +filled and sank, and Toad found himself struggling in deep water. Looking up, +he saw two stoats leaning over the parapet of the bridge and watching him with +great glee. “It will be your head next time, Toady!” they called +out to him. The indignant Toad swam to shore, while the stoats laughed and +laughed, supporting each other, and laughed again, till they nearly had two +fits—that is, one fit each, of course. +</p> + +<p> +The Toad retraced his weary way on foot, and related his disappointing +experiences to the Water Rat once more. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, <i>what</i> did I tell you?” said the Rat very crossly. “And, +now, look here! See what you’ve been and done! Lost me my boat that I was +so fond of, that’s what you’ve done! And simply ruined that nice +suit of clothes that I lent you! Really, Toad, of all the trying +animals—I wonder you manage to keep any friends at all!” +</p> + +<p> +The Toad saw at once how wrongly and foolishly he had acted. He admitted his +errors and wrong-headedness and made a full apology to Rat for losing his boat +and spoiling his clothes. And he wound up by saying, with that frank +self-surrender which always disarmed his friend’s criticism and won them +back to his side, “Ratty! I see that I have been a headstrong and a +wilful Toad! Henceforth, believe me, I will be humble and submissive, and will +take no action without your kind advice and full approval!” +</p> + +<p> +“If that is really so,” said the good-natured Rat, already +appeased, “then my advice to you is, considering the lateness of the +hour, to sit down and have your supper, which will be on the table in a minute, +and be very patient. For I am convinced that we can do nothing until we have +seen the Mole and the Badger, and heard their latest news, and held conference +and taken their advice in this difficult matter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ah, yes, of course, the Mole and the Badger,” said Toad, +lightly. “What’s become of them, the dear fellows? I had forgotten +all about them.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well may you ask!” said the Rat reproachfully. “While you +were riding about the country in expensive motor-cars, and galloping proudly on +blood-horses, and breakfasting on the fat of the land, those two poor devoted +animals have been camping out in the open, in every sort of weather, living +very rough by day and lying very hard by night; watching over your house, +patrolling your boundaries, keeping a constant eye on the stoats and the +weasels, scheming and planning and contriving how to get your property back for +you. You don’t deserve to have such true and loyal friends, Toad, you +don’t, really. Some day, when it’s too late, you’ll be sorry +you didn’t value them more while you had them!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m an ungrateful beast, I know,” sobbed Toad, shedding +bitter tears. “Let me go out and find them, out into the cold, dark +night, and share their hardships, and try and prove by——Hold on a +bit! Surely I heard the chink of dishes on a tray! Supper’s here at last, +hooray! Come on, Ratty!” +</p> + +<p> +The Rat remembered that poor Toad had been on prison fare for a considerable +time, and that large allowances had therefore to be made. He followed him to +the table accordingly, and hospitably encouraged him in his gallant efforts to +make up for past privations. +</p> + +<p> +They had just finished their meal and resumed their arm-chairs, when there came +a heavy knock at the door. +</p> + +<p> +Toad was nervous, but the Rat, nodding mysteriously at him, went straight up to +the door and opened it, and in walked Mr. Badger. +</p> + +<p> +He had all the appearance of one who for some nights had been kept away from +home and all its little comforts and conveniences. His shoes were covered with +mud, and he was looking very rough and touzled; but then he had never been a +very smart man, the Badger, at the best of times. He came solemnly up to Toad, +shook him by the paw, and said, “Welcome home, Toad! Alas! what am I +saying? Home, indeed! This is a poor home-coming. Unhappy Toad!” Then he +turned his back on him, sat down to the table, drew his chair up, and helped +himself to a large slice of cold pie. +</p> + +<p> +Toad was quite alarmed at this very serious and portentous style of greeting; +but the Rat whispered to him, “Never mind; don’t take any notice; +and don’t say anything to him just yet. He’s always rather low and +despondent when he’s wanting his victuals. In half an hour’s time +he’ll be quite a different animal.” +</p> + +<p> +So they waited in silence, and presently there came another and a lighter +knock. The Rat, with a nod to Toad, went to the door and ushered in the Mole, +very shabby and unwashed, with bits of hay and straw sticking in his fur. +</p> + +<p> +“Hooray! Here’s old Toad!” cried the Mole, his face beaming. +“Fancy having you back again!” And he began to dance round him. +“We never dreamt you would turn up so soon! Why, you must have managed to +escape, you clever, ingenious, intelligent Toad!” +</p> + +<p> +The Rat, alarmed, pulled him by the elbow; but it was too late. Toad was +puffing and swelling already. +</p> + +<p> +“Clever? O, no!” he said. “I’m not really clever, +according to my friends. I’ve only broken out of the strongest prison in +England, that’s all! And captured a railway train and escaped on it, +that’s all! And disguised myself and gone about the country humbugging +everybody, that’s all! O, no! I’m a stupid ass, I am! I’ll +tell you one or two of my little adventures, Mole, and you shall judge for +yourself!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well,” said the Mole, moving towards the supper-table; +“supposing you talk while I eat. Not a bite since breakfast! O my! O +my!” And he sat down and helped himself liberally to cold beef and +pickles. +</p> + +<p> +Toad straddled on the hearth-rug, thrust his paw into his trouser-pocket and +pulled out a handful of silver. “Look at that!” he cried, +displaying it. “That’s not so bad, is it, for a few minutes’ +work? And how do you think I done it, Mole? Horse-dealing! That’s how I +done it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Go on, Toad,” said the Mole, immensely interested. +</p> + +<p> +“Toad, do be quiet, please!” said the Rat. “And don’t +you egg him on, Mole, when you know what he is; but please tell us as soon as +possible what the position is, and what’s best to be done, now that Toad +is back at last.” +</p> + +<p> +“The position’s about as bad as it can be,” replied the Mole +grumpily; “and as for what’s to be done, why, blest if I know! The +Badger and I have been round and round the place, by night and by day; always +the same thing. Sentries posted everywhere, guns poked out at us, stones thrown +at us; always an animal on the look-out, and when they see us, my! how they do +laugh! That’s what annoys me most!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a very difficult situation,” said the Rat, reflecting +deeply. “But I think I see now, in the depths of my mind, what Toad +really ought to do. I will tell you. He ought to——” +</p> + +<p> +“No, he oughtn’t!” shouted the Mole, with his mouth full. +“Nothing of the sort! You don’t understand. What he ought to do is, +he ought to——” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I shan’t do it, anyway!” cried Toad, getting excited. +“I’m not going to be ordered about by you fellows! It’s my +house we’re talking about, and I know exactly what to do, and I’ll +tell you. I’m going to——” +</p> + +<p> +By this time they were all three talking at once, at the top of their voices, +and the noise was simply deafening, when a thin, dry voice made itself heard, +saying, “Be quiet at once, all of you!” and instantly every one was +silent. +</p> + +<p> +It was the Badger, who, having finished his pie, had turned round in his chair +and was looking at them severely. When he saw that he had secured their +attention, and that they were evidently waiting for him to address them, he +turned back to the table again and reached out for the cheese. And so great was +the respect commanded by the solid qualities of that admirable animal, that not +another word was uttered until he had quite finished his repast and brushed the +crumbs from his knees. The Toad fidgeted a good deal, but the Rat held him +firmly down. +</p> + +<p> +When the Badger had quite done, he got up from his seat and stood before the +fireplace, reflecting deeply. At last he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Toad!” he said severely. “You bad, troublesome little +animal! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself? What do you think your father, my +old friend, would have said if he had been here to-night, and had known of all +your goings on?” +</p> + +<p> +Toad, who was on the sofa by this time, with his legs up, rolled over on his +face, shaken by sobs of contrition. +</p> + +<p> +“There, there!” went on the Badger, more kindly. “Never mind. +Stop crying. We’re going to let bygones be bygones, and try and turn over +a new leaf. But what the Mole says is quite true. The stoats are on guard, at +every point, and they make the best sentinels in the world. It’s quite +useless to think of attacking the place. They’re too strong for +us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it’s all over,” sobbed the Toad, crying into the sofa +cushions. “I shall go and enlist for a soldier, and never see my dear +Toad Hall any more!” +</p> + +<p> +“Come, cheer up, Toady!” said the Badger. “There are more +ways of getting back a place than taking it by storm. I haven’t said my +last word yet. Now I’m going to tell you a great secret.” +</p> + +<p> +Toad sat up slowly and dried his eyes. Secrets had an immense attraction for +him, because he never could keep one, and he enjoyed the sort of unhallowed +thrill he experienced when he went and told another animal, after having +faithfully promised not to. +</p> + +<p> +“There—is—an—underground—passage,” said the +Badger, impressively, “that leads from the river-bank, quite near here, +right up into the middle of Toad Hall.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, nonsense! Badger,” said Toad, rather airily. +“You’ve been listening to some of the yarns they spin in the +public-houses about here. I know every inch of Toad Hall, inside and out. +Nothing of the sort, I do assure you!” +</p> + +<p> +“My young friend,” said the Badger, with great severity, +“your father, who was a worthy animal—a lot worthier than some +others I know—was a particular friend of mine, and told me a great deal +he wouldn’t have dreamt of telling you. He discovered that +passage—he didn’t make it, of course; that was done hundreds of +years before he ever came to live there—and he repaired it and cleaned it +out, because he thought it might come in useful some day, in case of trouble or +danger; and he showed it to me. ‘Don’t let my son know about +it,’ he said. ‘He’s a good boy, but very light and volatile +in character, and simply cannot hold his tongue. If he’s ever in a real +fix, and it would be of use to him, you may tell him about the secret passage; +but not before.’” +</p> + +<p> +The other animals looked hard at Toad to see how he would take it. Toad was +inclined to be sulky at first; but he brightened up immediately, like the good +fellow he was. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well,” he said; “perhaps I am a bit of a talker. A +popular fellow such as I am—my friends get round me—we chaff, we +sparkle, we tell witty stories—and somehow my tongue gets wagging. I have +the gift of conversation. I’ve been told I ought to have a <i>salon</i>, +whatever that may be. Never mind. Go on, Badger. How’s this passage of +yours going to help us?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve found out a thing or two lately,” continued the Badger. +“I got Otter to disguise himself as a sweep and call at the back-door +with brushes over his shoulder, asking for a job. There’s going to be a +big banquet to-morrow night. It’s somebody’s birthday—the +Chief Weasel’s, I believe—and all the weasels will be gathered +together in the dining-hall, eating and drinking and laughing and carrying on, +suspecting nothing. No guns, no swords, no sticks, no arms of any sort +whatever!” +</p> + +<p> +“But the sentinels will be posted as usual,” remarked the Rat. +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly,” said the Badger; “that is my point. The weasels +will trust entirely to their excellent sentinels. And that is where the passage +comes in. That very useful tunnel leads right up under the butler’s +pantry, next to the dining-hall!” +</p> + +<p> +“Aha! that squeaky board in the butler’s pantry!” said Toad. +“Now I understand it!” +</p> + +<p> +“We shall creep out quietly into the butler’s pantry—” +cried the Mole. +</p> + +<p> +“—with our pistols and swords and sticks—” shouted the +Rat. +</p> + +<p> +“—and rush in upon them,” said the Badger. +</p> + +<p> +“—and whack ’em, and whack ’em, and whack +’em!” cried the Toad in ecstasy, running round and round the room, +and jumping over the chairs. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, then,” said the Badger, resuming his usual dry manner, +“our plan is settled, and there’s nothing more for you to argue and +squabble about. So, as it’s getting very late, all of you go right off to +bed at once. We will make all the necessary arrangements in the course of the +morning to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +Toad, of course, went off to bed dutifully with the rest—he knew better +than to refuse—though he was feeling much too excited to sleep. But he +had had a long day, with many events crowded into it; and sheets and blankets +were very friendly and comforting things, after plain straw, and not too much +of it, spread on the stone floor of a draughty cell; and his head had not been +many seconds on his pillow before he was snoring happily. Naturally, he dreamt +a good deal; about roads that ran away from him just when he wanted them, and +canals that chased him and caught him, and a barge that sailed into the +banqueting-hall with his week’s washing, just as he was giving a +dinner-party; and he was alone in the secret passage, pushing onwards, but it +twisted and turned round and shook itself, and sat up on its end; yet somehow, +at the last, he found himself back in Toad Hall, safe and triumphant, with all +his friends gathered round about him, earnestly assuring him that he really was +a clever Toad. +</p> + +<p> +He slept till a late hour next morning, and by the time he got down he found +that the other animals had finished their breakfast some time before. The Mole +had slipped off somewhere by himself, without telling any one where he was +going to. The Badger sat in the arm-chair, reading the paper, and not +concerning himself in the slightest about what was going to happen that very +evening. The Rat, on the other hand, was running round the room busily, with +his arms full of weapons of every kind, distributing them in four little heaps +on the floor, and saying excitedly under his breath, as he ran, +“Here’s-a-sword-for-the-Rat, here’s-a-sword-for-the Mole, +here’s-a-sword-for-the-Toad, here’s-a-sword-for-the-Badger! +Here’s-a-pistol-for-the-Rat, here’s-a-pistol-for-the-Mole, +here’s-a-pistol-for-the-Toad, +here’s-a-pistol-for-the-Badger!” And so on, in a regular, +rhythmical way, while the four little heaps gradually grew and grew. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s all very well, Rat,” said the Badger presently, +looking at the busy little animal over the edge of his newspaper; +“I’m not blaming you. But just let us once get past the stoats, +with those detestable guns of theirs, and I assure you we shan’t want any +swords or pistols. We four, with our sticks, once we’re inside the +dining-hall, why, we shall clear the floor of all the lot of them in five +minutes. I’d have done the whole thing by myself, only I didn’t +want to deprive you fellows of the fun!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s as well to be on the safe side,” said the Rat +reflectively, polishing a pistol-barrel on his sleeve and looking along it. +</p> + +<p> +The Toad, having finished his breakfast, picked up a stout stick and swung it +vigorously, belabouring imaginary animals. “I’ll learn ’em to +steal my house!” he cried. “I’ll learn ’em, I’ll +learn ’em!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t say ‘learn ’em,’ Toad,” said the +Rat, greatly shocked. “It’s not good English.” +</p> + +<p> +“What are you always nagging at Toad for?” inquired the Badger, +rather peevishly. “What’s the matter with his English? It’s +the same what I use myself, and if it’s good enough for me, it ought to +be good enough for you!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m very sorry,” said the Rat humbly. “Only I <i>think</i> it +ought to be ‘teach ’em,’ not ‘learn +’em.’” +</p> + +<p> +“But we don’t <i>want</i> to teach ’em,” replied the Badger. +“We want to <i>learn</i> ’em—learn ’em, learn ’em! And +what’s more, we’re going to <i>do</i> it, too!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, very well, have it your own way,” said the Rat. He was getting +rather muddled about it himself, and presently he retired into a corner, where +he could be heard muttering, “Learn ’em, teach ’em, teach +’em, learn ’em!” till the Badger told him rather sharply to +leave off. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the Mole came tumbling into the room, evidently very pleased with +himself. “I’ve been having such fun!” he began at once; +“I’ve been getting a rise out of the stoats!” +</p> + +<p> +“I hope you’ve been very careful, Mole?” said the Rat +anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“I should hope so, too,” said the Mole confidently. “I got +the idea when I went into the kitchen, to see about Toad’s breakfast +being kept hot for him. I found that old washerwoman-dress that he came home in +yesterday, hanging on a towel-horse before the fire. So I put it on, and the +bonnet as well, and the shawl, and off I went to Toad Hall, as bold as you +please. The sentries were on the look-out, of course, with their guns and their +‘Who comes there?’ and all the rest of their nonsense. ‘Good +morning, gentlemen!’ says I, very respectful. ‘Want any washing +done to-day?’ +</p> + +<p> +“They looked at me very proud and stiff and haughty, and said, ‘Go +away, washerwoman! We don’t do any washing on duty.’ ‘Or any +other time?’ says I. Ho, ho, ho! Wasn’t I <i>funny</i>, Toad?” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor, frivolous animal!” said Toad, very loftily. The fact is, he +felt exceedingly jealous of Mole for what he had just done. It was exactly what +he would have liked to have done himself, if only he had thought of it first, +and hadn’t gone and overslept himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Some of the stoats turned quite pink,” continued the Mole, +“and the Sergeant in charge, he said to me, very short, he said, +‘Now run away, my good woman, run away! Don’t keep my men idling +and talking on their posts.’ ‘Run away?’ says I; ‘it +won’t be me that’ll be running away, in a very short time from +now!’” +</p> + +<p> +“O <i>Moly</i>, how could you?” said the Rat, dismayed. +</p> + +<p> +The Badger laid down his paper. +</p> + +<p> +“I could see them pricking up their ears and looking at each +other,” went on the Mole; “and the Sergeant said to them, +‘Never mind <i>her;</i> she doesn’t know what she’s talking +about.’” +</p> + +<p> +“‘O! don’t I?’” said I. “‘Well, let +me tell you this. My daughter, she washes for Mr. Badger, and that’ll +show you whether I know what I’m talking about; and <i>you’ll</i> know +pretty soon, too! A hundred bloodthirsty badgers, armed with rifles, are going +to attack Toad Hall this very night, by way of the paddock. Six boatloads of +Rats, with pistols and cutlasses, will come up the river and effect a landing +in the garden; while a picked body of Toads, known at the Die-hards, or the +Death-or-Glory Toads, will storm the orchard and carry everything before them, +yelling for vengeance. There won’t be much left of you to wash, by the +time they’ve done with you, unless you clear out while you have the +chance!’ Then I ran away, and when I was out of sight I hid; and +presently I came creeping back along the ditch and took a peep at them through +the hedge. They were all as nervous and flustered as could be, running all ways +at once, and falling over each other, and every one giving orders to everybody +else and not listening; and the Sergeant kept sending off parties of stoats to +distant parts of the grounds, and then sending other fellows to fetch ’em +back again; and I heard them saying to each other, ‘That’s just +like the weasels; they’re to stop comfortably in the banqueting-hall, and +have feasting and toasts and songs and all sorts of fun, while we must stay on +guard in the cold and the dark, and in the end be cut to pieces by bloodthirsty +Badgers!”’ +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you silly ass, Mole!” cried Toad, “You’ve been and +spoilt everything!” +</p> + +<p> +“Mole,” said the Badger, in his dry, quiet way, “I perceive +you have more sense in your little finger than some other animals have in the +whole of their fat bodies. You have managed excellently, and I begin to have +great hopes of you. Good Mole! Clever Mole!” +</p> + +<p> +The Toad was simply wild with jealousy, more especially as he couldn’t +make out for the life of him what the Mole had done that was so particularly +clever; but, fortunately for him, before he could show temper or expose himself +to the Badger’s sarcasm, the bell rang for luncheon. +</p> + +<p> +It was a simple but sustaining meal—bacon and broad beans, and a macaroni +pudding; and when they had quite done, the Badger settled himself into an +arm-chair, and said, “Well, we’ve got our work cut out for us +to-night, and it will probably be pretty late before we’re quite through +with it; so I’m just going to take forty winks, while I can.” And +he drew a handkerchief over his face and was soon snoring. +</p> + +<p> +The anxious and laborious Rat at once resumed his preparations, and started +running between his four little heaps, muttering, +“Here’s-a-belt-for-the-Rat, here’s-a-belt-for-the-Mole, +here’s-a-belt-for-the-Toad, here’s-a-belt-for-the-Badger!” +and so on, with every fresh accoutrement he produced, to which there seemed +really no end; so the Mole drew his arm through Toad’s, led him out into +the open air, shoved him into a wicker chair, and made him tell him all his +adventures from beginning to end, which Toad was only too willing to do. The +Mole was a good listener, and Toad, with no one to check his statements or to +criticise in an unfriendly spirit, rather let himself go. Indeed, much that he +related belonged more properly to the category of +what-might-have-happened-had-I-only-thought-of-it-in-time-instead-of +ten-minutes-afterwards. Those are always the best and the raciest adventures; +and why should they not be truly ours, as much as the somewhat inadequate +things that really come off? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a id="chap12"></a>XII.<br> +THE RETURN OF ULYSSES</h2> + +<p> +When it began to grow dark, the Rat, with an air of excitement and mystery, +summoned them back into the parlour, stood each of them up alongside of his +little heap, and proceeded to dress them up for the coming expedition. He was +very earnest and thoroughgoing about it, and the affair took quite a long time. +First, there was a belt to go round each animal, and then a sword to be stuck +into each belt, and then a cutlass on the other side to balance it. Then a pair +of pistols, a policeman’s truncheon, several sets of handcuffs, some +bandages and sticking-plaster, and a flask and a sandwich-case. The Badger +laughed good-humouredly and said, “All right, Ratty! It amuses you and it +doesn’t hurt me. I’m going to do all I’ve got to do with this +here stick.” But the Rat only said, “<i>please</i>, Badger. You know I +shouldn’t like you to blame me afterwards and say I had forgotten +<i>anything!</i>” +</p> + +<p> +When all was quite ready, the Badger took a dark lantern in one paw, grasped +his great stick with the other, and said, “Now then, follow me! Mole +first, “cos I’m very pleased with him; Rat next; Toad last. And +look here, Toady! Don’t you chatter so much as usual, or you’ll be +sent back, as sure as fate!” +</p> + +<p> +The Toad was so anxious not to be left out that he took up the inferior +position assigned to him without a murmur, and the animals set off. The Badger +led them along by the river for a little way, and then suddenly swung himself +over the edge into a hole in the river-bank, a little above the water. The Mole +and the Rat followed silently, swinging themselves successfully into the hole +as they had seen the Badger do; but when it came to Toad’s turn, of +course he managed to slip and fall into the water with a loud splash and a +squeal of alarm. He was hauled out by his friends, rubbed down and wrung out +hastily, comforted, and set on his legs; but the Badger was seriously angry, +and told him that the very next time he made a fool of himself he would most +certainly be left behind. +</p> + +<p> +So at last they were in the secret passage, and the cutting-out expedition had +really begun! +</p> + +<p> +It was cold, and dark, and damp, and low, and narrow, and poor Toad began to +shiver, partly from dread of what might be before him, partly because he was +wet through. The lantern was far ahead, and he could not help lagging behind a +little in the darkness. Then he heard the Rat call out warningly, “<i>Come</i> +on, Toad!” and a terror seized him of being left behind, alone in the +darkness, and he “came on” with such a rush that he upset the Rat +into the Mole and the Mole into the Badger, and for a moment all was confusion. +The Badger thought they were being attacked from behind, and, as there was no +room to use a stick or a cutlass, drew a pistol, and was on the point of +putting a bullet into Toad. When he found out what had really happened he was +very angry indeed, and said, “Now this time that tiresome Toad <i>shall</i> be +left behind!” +</p> + +<p> +But Toad whimpered, and the other two promised that they would be answerable +for his good conduct, and at last the Badger was pacified, and the procession +moved on; only this time the Rat brought up the rear, with a firm grip on the +shoulder of Toad. +</p> + +<p> +So they groped and shuffled along, with their ears pricked up and their paws on +their pistols, till at last the Badger said, “We ought by now to be +pretty nearly under the Hall.” +</p> + +<p> +Then suddenly they heard, far away as it might be, and yet apparently nearly +over their heads, a confused murmur of sound, as if people were shouting and +cheering and stamping on the floor and hammering on tables. The Toad’s +nervous terrors all returned, but the Badger only remarked placidly, +“They <i>are</i> going it, the Weasels!” +</p> + +<p> +The passage now began to slope upwards; they groped onward a little further, +and then the noise broke out again, quite distinct this time, and very close +above them. “Ooo-ray-ooray-oo-ray-ooray!” they heard, and the +stamping of little feet on the floor, and the clinking of glasses as little +fists pounded on the table. “<i>What</i> a time they’re having!” +said the Badger. “Come on!” They hurried along the passage till it +came to a full stop, and they found themselves standing under the trap-door +that led up into the butler’s pantry. +</p> + +<p> +Such a tremendous noise was going on in the banqueting-hall that there was +little danger of their being overheard. The Badger said, “Now, boys, all +together!” and the four of them put their shoulders to the trap-door and +heaved it back. Hoisting each other up, they found themselves standing in the +pantry, with only a door between them and the banqueting-hall, where their +unconscious enemies were carousing. +</p> + +<p> +The noise, as they emerged from the passage, was simply deafening. At last, as +the cheering and hammering slowly subsided, a voice could be made out saying, +“Well, I do not propose to detain you much longer”—(great +applause)—“but before I resume my seat”—(renewed +cheering)—“I should like to say one word about our kind host, Mr. +Toad. We all know Toad!”—(great laughter)—“<i>Good</i> Toad, +<i>modest</i> Toad, <i>honest</i> Toad!” (shrieks of merriment). +</p> + +<p> +“Only just let me get at him!” muttered Toad, grinding his teeth. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold hard a minute!” said the Badger, restraining him with +difficulty. “Get ready, all of you!” +</p> + +<p> +“—Let me sing you a little song,” went on the voice, +“which I have composed on the subject of Toad”—(prolonged +applause). +</p> + +<p> +Then the Chief Weasel—for it was he—began in a high, squeaky +voice— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Toad he went a-pleasuring<br> +Gaily down the street—” +</p> + +<p> +The Badger drew himself up, took a firm grip of his stick with both paws, +glanced round at his comrades, and cried— +</p> + +<p> +“The hour is come! Follow me!” +</p> + +<p> +And flung the door open wide. +</p> + +<p> +My! +</p> + +<p> +What a squealing and a squeaking and a screeching filled the air! +</p> + +<p> +Well might the terrified weasels dive under the tables and spring madly up at +the windows! Well might the ferrets rush wildly for the fireplace and get +hopelessly jammed in the chimney! Well might tables and chairs be upset, and +glass and china be sent crashing on the floor, in the panic of that terrible +moment when the four Heroes strode wrathfully into the room! The mighty Badger, +his whiskers bristling, his great cudgel whistling through the air; Mole, black +and grim, brandishing his stick and shouting his awful war-cry, “A Mole! +A Mole!” Rat; desperate and determined, his belt bulging with weapons of +every age and every variety; Toad, frenzied with excitement and injured pride, +swollen to twice his ordinary size, leaping into the air and emitting +Toad-whoops that chilled them to the marrow! “Toad he went +a-pleasuring!” he yelled. “<i>I’ll</i> pleasure ’em!” +and he went straight for the Chief Weasel. They were but four in all, but to +the panic-stricken weasels the hall seemed full of monstrous animals, grey, +black, brown and yellow, whooping and flourishing enormous cudgels; and they +broke and fled with squeals of terror and dismay, this way and that, through +the windows, up the chimney, anywhere to get out of reach of those terrible +sticks. +</p> + +<p> +The affair was soon over. Up and down, the whole length of the hall, strode the +four Friends, whacking with their sticks at every head that showed itself; and +in five minutes the room was cleared. Through the broken windows the shrieks of +terrified weasels escaping across the lawn were borne faintly to their ears; on +the floor lay prostrate some dozen or so of the enemy, on whom the Mole was +busily engaged in fitting handcuffs. The Badger, resting from his labours, +leant on his stick and wiped his honest brow. +</p> + +<p> +“Mole,” he said,” “you’re the best of fellows! +Just cut along outside and look after those stoat-sentries of yours, and see +what they’re doing. I’ve an idea that, thanks to you, we +shan’t have much trouble from <i>them</i> to-night!” +</p> + +<p> +The Mole vanished promptly through a window; and the Badger bade the other two +set a table on its legs again, pick up knives and forks and plates and glasses +from the <i>débris</i> on the floor, and see if they could find materials for a +supper. “I want some grub, I do,” he said, in that rather common +way he had of speaking. “Stir your stumps, Toad, and look lively! +We’ve got your house back for you, and you don’t offer us so much +as a sandwich.” Toad felt rather hurt that the Badger didn’t say +pleasant things to him, as he had to the Mole, and tell him what a fine fellow +he was, and how splendidly he had fought; for he was rather particularly +pleased with himself and the way he had gone for the Chief Weasel and sent him +flying across the table with one blow of his stick. But he bustled about, and +so did the Rat, and soon they found some guava jelly in a glass dish, and a +cold chicken, a tongue that had hardly been touched, some trifle, and quite a +lot of lobster salad; and in the pantry they came upon a basketful of French +rolls and any quantity of cheese, butter, and celery. They were just about to +sit down when the Mole clambered in through the window, chuckling, with an +armful of rifles. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all over,” he reported. “From what I can make +out, as soon as the stoats, who were very nervous and jumpy already, heard the +shrieks and the yells and the uproar inside the hall, some of them threw down +their rifles and fled. The others stood fast for a bit, but when the weasels +came rushing out upon them they thought they were betrayed; and the stoats +grappled with the weasels, and the weasels fought to get away, and they +wrestled and wriggled and punched each other, and rolled over and over, till +most of ’em rolled into the river! They’ve all disappeared by now, +one way or another; and I’ve got their rifles. So <i>that’s</i> all +right!” +</p> + +<p> +“Excellent and deserving animal!” said the Badger, his mouth full +of chicken and trifle. “Now, there’s just one more thing I want you +to do, Mole, before you sit down to your supper along of us; and I +wouldn’t trouble you only I know I can trust you to see a thing done, and +I wish I could say the same of every one I know. I’d send Rat, if he +wasn’t a poet. I want you to take those fellows on the floor there +upstairs with you, and have some bedrooms cleaned out and tidied up and made +really comfortable. See that they sweep <i>under</i> the beds, and put clean sheets +and pillow-cases on, and turn down one corner of the bed-clothes, just as you +know it ought to be done; and have a can of hot water, and clean towels, and +fresh cakes of soap, put in each room. And then you can give them a licking +a-piece, if it’s any satisfaction to you, and put them out by the +back-door, and we shan’t see any more of <i>them</i>, I fancy. And then come +along and have some of this cold tongue. It’s first rate. I’m very +pleased with you, Mole!” +</p> + +<p> +The goodnatured Mole picked up a stick, formed his prisoners up in a line on +the floor, gave them the order “Quick march!” and led his squad off +to the upper floor. After a time, he appeared again, smiling, and said that +every room was ready, and as clean as a new pin. “And I didn’t have +to lick them, either,” he added. “I thought, on the whole, they had +had licking enough for one night, and the weasels, when I put the point to +them, quite agreed with me, and said they wouldn’t think of troubling me. +They were very penitent, and said they were extremely sorry for what they had +done, but it was all the fault of the Chief Weasel and the stoats, and if ever +they could do anything for us at any time to make up, we had only got to +mention it. So I gave them a roll a-piece, and let them out at the back, and +off they ran, as hard as they could!” +</p> + +<p> +Then the Mole pulled his chair up to the table, and pitched into the cold +tongue; and Toad, like the gentleman he was, put all his jealousy from him, and +said heartily, “Thank you kindly, dear Mole, for all your pains and +trouble tonight, and especially for your cleverness this morning!” The +Badger was pleased at that, and said, “There spoke my brave Toad!” +So they finished their supper in great joy and contentment, and presently +retired to rest between clean sheets, safe in Toad’s ancestral home, won +back by matchless valour, consummate strategy, and a proper handling of sticks. +</p> + +<p> +The following morning, Toad, who had overslept himself as usual, came down to +breakfast disgracefully late, and found on the table a certain quantity of +egg-shells, some fragments of cold and leathery toast, a coffee-pot +three-fourths empty, and really very little else; which did not tend to improve +his temper, considering that, after all, it was his own house. Through the +French windows of the breakfast-room he could see the Mole and the Water Rat +sitting in wicker-chairs out on the lawn, evidently telling each other stories; +roaring with laughter and kicking their short legs up in the air. The Badger, +who was in an arm-chair and deep in the morning paper, merely looked up and +nodded when Toad entered the room. But Toad knew his man, so he sat down and +made the best breakfast he could, merely observing to himself that he would get +square with the others sooner or later. When he had nearly finished, the Badger +looked up and remarked rather shortly: “I’m sorry, Toad, but +I’m afraid there’s a heavy morning’s work in front of you. +You see, we really ought to have a Banquet at once, to celebrate this affair. +It’s expected of you—in fact, it’s the rule.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, all right!” said the Toad, readily. “Anything to oblige. +Though why on earth you should want to have a Banquet in the morning I cannot +understand. But you know I do not live to please myself, but merely to find out +what my friends want, and then try and arrange it for ’em, you dear old +Badger!” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t pretend to be stupider than you really are,” replied +the Badger, crossly; “and don’t chuckle and splutter in your coffee +while you’re talking; it’s not manners. What I mean is, the Banquet +will be at night, of course, but the invitations will have to be written and +got off at once, and you’ve got to write ’em. Now, sit down at that +table—there’s stacks of letter-paper on it, with ‘Toad +Hall’ at the top in blue and gold—and write invitations to all our +friends, and if you stick to it we shall get them out before luncheon. And +<i>I’ll</i> bear a hand, too; and take my share of the burden. <i>I’ll</i> order +the Banquet.” +</p> + +<p> +“What!” cried Toad, dismayed. “Me stop indoors and write a +lot of rotten letters on a jolly morning like this, when I want to go around my +property, and set everything and everybody to rights, and swagger about and +enjoy myself! Certainly not! I’ll be—I’ll see +you——Stop a minute, though! Why, of course, dear Badger! What is my +pleasure or convenience compared with that of others! You wish it done, and it +shall be done. Go, Badger, order the Banquet, order what you like; then join +our young friends outside in their innocent mirth, oblivious of me and my cares +and toils. I sacrifice this fair morning on the altar of duty and +friendship!” +</p> + +<p> +The Badger looked at him very suspiciously, but Toad’s frank, open +countenance made it difficult to suggest any unworthy motive in this change of +attitude. He quitted the room, accordingly, in the direction of the kitchen, +and as soon as the door had closed behind him, Toad hurried to the +writing-table. A fine idea had occurred to him while he was talking. He <i>would</i> +write the invitations; and he would take care to mention the leading part he +had taken in the fight, and how he had laid the Chief Weasel flat; and he would +hint at his adventures, and what a career of triumph he had to tell about; and +on the fly-leaf he would set out a sort of a programme of entertainment for the +evening—something like this, as he sketched it out in his head:— +</p> + +<p class="center"> +S<small>PEECH</small>. . . . B<small>Y</small> T<small>OAD</small>.<br> +(There will be other speeches by T<small>OAD</small> during the evening.) +</p> + +<p class="center"> +A<small>DDRESS</small>. . . B<small>Y</small> T<small>OAD</small><br> +S<small>YNOPSIS</small>—Our Prison System—the Waterways of Old +England—Horse-dealing, and how to deal—Property, its rights and its +duties—Back to the Land—A Typical English Squire. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +S<small>ONG</small>. . . . B<small>Y</small> T<small>OAD</small>.<br> +(Composed by himself.) +</p> + +<p class="center"> +O<small>THER</small> C<small>OMPOSITIONS</small>. B<small>Y</small> +T<small>OAD</small><br> +will be sung in the course of the evening by the. . . C<small>OMPOSER</small>. +</p> + +<p> +The idea pleased him mightily, and he worked very hard and got all the letters +finished by noon, at which hour it was reported to him that there was a small +and rather bedraggled weasel at the door, inquiring timidly whether he could be +of any service to the gentlemen. Toad swaggered out and found it was one of the +prisoners of the previous evening, very respectful and anxious to please. He +patted him on the head, shoved the bundle of invitations into his paw, and told +him to cut along quick and deliver them as fast as he could, and if he liked to +come back again in the evening, perhaps there might be a shilling for him, or, +again, perhaps there mightn’t; and the poor weasel seemed really quite +grateful, and hurried off eagerly to do his mission. +</p> + +<p> +When the other animals came back to luncheon, very boisterous and breezy after +a morning on the river, the Mole, whose conscience had been pricking him, +looked doubtfully at Toad, expecting to find him sulky or depressed. Instead, +he was so uppish and inflated that the Mole began to suspect something; while +the Rat and the Badger exchanged significant glances. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as the meal was over, Toad thrust his paws deep into his +trouser-pockets, remarked casually, “Well, look after yourselves, you +fellows! Ask for anything you want!” and was swaggering off in the +direction of the garden, where he wanted to think out an idea or two for his +coming speeches, when the Rat caught him by the arm. +</p> + +<p> +Toad rather suspected what he was after, and did his best to get away; but when +the Badger took him firmly by the other arm he began to see that the game was +up. The two animals conducted him between them into the small smoking-room that +opened out of the entrance-hall, shut the door, and put him into a chair. Then +they both stood in front of him, while Toad sat silent and regarded them with +much suspicion and ill-humour. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, look here, Toad,” said the Rat. “It’s about this +Banquet, and very sorry I am to have to speak to you like this. But we want you +to understand clearly, once and for all, that there are going to be no speeches +and no songs. Try and grasp the fact that on this occasion we’re not +arguing with you; we’re just telling you.” +</p> + +<p> +Toad saw that he was trapped. They understood him, they saw through him, they +had got ahead of him. His pleasant dream was shattered. +</p> + +<p> +“Mayn’t I sing them just one <i>little</i> song?” he pleaded +piteously. +</p> + +<p> +“No, not <i>one</i> little song,” replied the Rat firmly, though his heart +bled as he noticed the trembling lip of the poor disappointed Toad. +“It’s no good, Toady; you know well that your songs are all conceit +and boasting and vanity; and your speeches are all self-praise +and—and—well, and gross exaggeration +and—and——” +</p> + +<p> +“And gas,” put in the Badger, in his common way. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s for your own good, Toady,” went on the Rat. “You +know you <i>must</i> turn over a new leaf sooner or later, and now seems a splendid +time to begin; a sort of turning-point in your career. Please don’t think +that saying all this doesn’t hurt me more than it hurts you.” +</p> + +<p> +Toad remained a long while plunged in thought. At last he raised his head, and +the traces of strong emotion were visible on his features. “You have +conquered, my friends,” he said in broken accents. “It was, to be +sure, but a small thing that I asked—merely leave to blossom and expand +for yet one more evening, to let myself go and hear the tumultuous applause +that always seems to me—somehow—to bring out my best qualities. +However, you are right, I know, and I am wrong. Hence forth I will be a very +different Toad. My friends, you shall never have occasion to blush for me +again. But, O dear, O dear, this is a hard world!” +</p> + +<p> +And, pressing his handkerchief to his face, he left the room, with faltering +footsteps. +</p> + +<p> +“Badger,” said the Rat, “<i>I</i> feel like a brute; I wonder +what <i>you</i> feel like?” +</p> + +<p> +“O, I know, I know,” said the Badger gloomily. “But the thing +had to be done. This good fellow has got to live here, and hold his own, and be +respected. Would you have him a common laughing-stock, mocked and jeered at by +stoats and weasels?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course not,” said the Rat. “And, talking of weasels, +it’s lucky we came upon that little weasel, just as he was setting out +with Toad’s invitations. I suspected something from what you told me, and +had a look at one or two; they were simply disgraceful. I confiscated the lot, +and the good Mole is now sitting in the blue boudoir, filling up plain, simple +invitation cards.” +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +At last the hour for the banquet began to draw near, and Toad, who on leaving +the others had retired to his bedroom, was still sitting there, melancholy and +thoughtful. His brow resting on his paw, he pondered long and deeply. Gradually +his countenance cleared, and he began to smile long, slow smiles. Then he took +to giggling in a shy, self-conscious manner. At last he got up, locked the +door, drew the curtains across the windows, collected all the chairs in the +room and arranged them in a semicircle, and took up his position in front of +them, swelling visibly. Then he bowed, coughed twice, and, letting himself go, +with uplifted voice he sang, to the enraptured audience that his imagination so +clearly saw. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +TOAD’S LAST LITTLE SONG!<br> +<br> +The Toad—came—home!<br> +There was panic in the parlours and howling in the halls,<br> +There was crying in the cow-sheds and shrieking in the stalls,<br> +When the Toad—came—home!<br> +<br> +When the Toad—came—home!<br> +There was smashing in of window and crashing in of door,<br> +There was chivvying of weasels that fainted on the floor,<br> +When the Toad—came—home!<br> +<br> +Bang! go the drums!<br> +The trumpeters are tooting and the soldiers are saluting,<br> +And the cannon they are shooting and the motor-cars are hooting,<br> +As the—Hero—comes!<br> +<br> +Shout—Hoo-ray!<br> +And let each one of the crowd try and shout it very loud,<br> +In honour of an animal of whom you’re justly proud,<br> +For it’s Toad’s—great—day! +</p> + +<p> +He sang this very loud, with great unction and expression; and when he had +done, he sang it all over again. +</p> + +<p> +Then he heaved a deep sigh; a long, long, long sigh. +</p> + +<p> +Then he dipped his hairbrush in the water-jug, parted his hair in the middle, +and plastered it down very straight and sleek on each side of his face; and, +unlocking the door, went quietly down the stairs to greet his guests, who he +knew must be assembling in the drawing-room. +</p> + +<p> +All the animals cheered when he entered, and crowded round to congratulate him +and say nice things about his courage, and his cleverness, and his fighting +qualities; but Toad only smiled faintly, and murmured, “Not at +all!” Or, sometimes, for a change, “On the contrary!” Otter, +who was standing on the hearthrug, describing to an admiring circle of friends +exactly how he would have managed things had he been there, came forward with a +shout, threw his arm round Toad’s neck, and tried to take him round the +room in triumphal progress; but Toad, in a mild way, was rather snubby to him, +remarking gently, as he disengaged himself, “Badger’s was the +mastermind; the Mole and the Water Rat bore the brunt of the fighting; I merely +served in the ranks and did little or nothing.” The animals were +evidently puzzled and taken aback by this unexpected attitude of his; and Toad +felt, as he moved from one guest to the other, making his modest responses, +that he was an object of absorbing interest to every one. +</p> + +<p> +The Badger had ordered everything of the best, and the banquet was a great +success. There was much talking and laughter and chaff among the animals, but +through it all Toad, who of course was in the chair, looked down his nose and +murmured pleasant nothings to the animals on either side of him. At intervals +he stole a glance at the Badger and the Rat, and always when he looked they +were staring at each other with their mouths open; and this gave him the +greatest satisfaction. Some of the younger and livelier animals, as the evening +wore on, got whispering to each other that things were not so amusing as they +used to be in the good old days; and there were some knockings on the table and +cries of “Toad! Speech! Speech from Toad! Song! Mr. Toad’s +song!” But Toad only shook his head gently, raised one paw in mild +protest, and, by pressing delicacies on his guests, by topical small-talk, and +by earnest inquiries after members of their families not yet old enough to +appear at social functions, managed to convey to them that this dinner was +being run on strictly conventional lines. +</p> + +<p> +He was indeed an altered Toad! +</p> + +<hr> + +<p> +After this climax, the four animals continued to lead their lives, so rudely +broken in upon by civil war, in great joy and contentment, undisturbed by +further risings or invasions. Toad, after due consultation with his friends, +selected a handsome gold chain and locket set with pearls, which he dispatched +to the gaoler’s daughter with a letter that even the Badger admitted to +be modest, grateful, and appreciative; and the engine-driver, in his turn, was +properly thanked and compensated for all his pains and trouble. Under severe +compulsion from the Badger, even the barge-woman was, with some trouble, sought +out and the value of her horse discreetly made good to her; though Toad kicked +terribly at this, holding himself to be an instrument of Fate, sent to punish +fat women with mottled arms who couldn’t tell a real gentleman when they +saw one. The amount involved, it was true, was not very burdensome, the +gipsy’s valuation being admitted by local assessors to be approximately +correct. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes, in the course of long summer evenings, the friends would take a +stroll together in the Wild Wood, now successfully tamed so far as they were +concerned; and it was pleasing to see how respectfully they were greeted by the +inhabitants, and how the mother-weasels would bring their young ones to the +mouths of their holes, and say, pointing, “Look, baby! There goes the +great Mr. Toad! And that’s the gallant Water Rat, a terrible fighter, +walking along o’ him! And yonder comes the famous Mr. Mole, of whom you +so often have heard your father tell!” But when their infants were +fractious and quite beyond control, they would quiet them by telling how, if +they didn’t hush them and not fret them, the terrible grey Badger would +up and get them. This was a base libel on Badger, who, though he cared little +about Society, was rather fond of children; but it never failed to have its +full effect. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 289 ***</div> +</body> + +</html> + diff --git a/289-h/images/cover.jpg b/289-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd55c02 --- /dev/null +++ b/289-h/images/cover.jpg |
