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The Wind in the Willows

by Kenneth Grahame · English · Gutenberg #289 · 344,109 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Wind in the Willows

Author: Kenneth Grahame


        
Release date: July 1, 1995 [eBook #289]
                Most recently updated: November 30, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/289

Credits: Mike Lough and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS ***

[Illustration]




The Wind in the Willows

by Kenneth Grahame

Author Of “The Golden Age,” “Dream Days,” Etc.


Contents

 CHAPTER I. THE RIVER BANK
 CHAPTER II. THE OPEN ROAD
 CHAPTER III. THE WILD WOOD
 CHAPTER IV. MR. BADGER
 CHAPTER V. DULCE DOMUM
 CHAPTER VI. MR. TOAD
 CHAPTER VII. THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN
 CHAPTER VIII. TOAD’S ADVENTURES
 CHAPTER IX. WAYFARERS ALL
 CHAPTER X. THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF TOAD
 CHAPTER XI. “LIKE SUMMER TEMPESTS CAME HIS TEARS”
 CHAPTER XII. THE RETURN OF ULYSSES




I.
THE RIVER BANK


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.

“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.

“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 _stupid_ you are! Why didn’t you tell
him——” “Well, why didn’t _you_ 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.

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.

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.

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.

A brown little face, with whiskers.

A grave round face, with the same twinkle in its eye that had first
attracted his notice.

Small neat ears and thick silky hair.

It was the Water Rat!

Then the two animals stood and regarded each other cautiously.

“Hullo, Mole!” said the Water Rat.

“Hullo, Rat!” said the Mole.

“Would you like to come over?” enquired the Rat presently.

“Oh, its all very well to _talk_,” said the Mole, rather pettishly, he
being new to a river and riverside life and its ways.

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.

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.

“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.”

“What?” cried the Rat, open-mouthed: “Never been in a—you never—well
I—what have you been doing, then?”

“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.

“Nice? It’s the _only_ thing,” said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant
forward for his stroke. “Believe me, my young friend, there is
_nothing_—absolute nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing
about in boats. Simply messing,” he went on dreamily:
“messing—about—in—boats; messing——”

“Look ahead, Rat!” cried the Mole suddenly.

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.

“—about in boats—or _with_ 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?”

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. “_What_ a day I’m having!” he said. “Let us start at once!”

“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.

“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.

“What’s inside it?” asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosity.

“There’s cold chicken inside it,” replied the Rat briefly; “
coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscresssandwiches
pottedme atgingerbeerlemonadesodawater——”

“O stop, stop,” cried the Mole in ecstacies: “This is too much!”

“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 _very_ fine!”

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.

“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.”

“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!”

“_The_ River,” corrected the Rat.

“And you really live by the river? What a jolly life!”

“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!”

“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?”

“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 _do_ something—as if a fellow had no business of his own to
attend to!”

“What lies over _there?_” asked the Mole, waving a paw towards a
background of woodland that darkly framed the water-meadows on one side
of the river.

“That? O, that’s just the Wild Wood,” said the Rat shortly. “We don’t
go there very much, we river-bankers.”

“Aren’t they—aren’t they very _nice_ people in there?” said the Mole, a
trifle nervously.

“W-e-ll,” replied the Rat, “let me see. The squirrels are all right.
_And_ 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 _him_. They’d better not,” he added
significantly.

“Why, who _should_ interfere with him?” asked the Mole.

“Well, of course—there—are others,” explained the Rat in a hesitating
sort of way.

“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.”

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.

“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?”

“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.”

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!”

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 _will_ 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.

“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.

“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.”

“Bubbles? Oho!” said the Rat, and chirruped cheerily in an inviting
sort of way.

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.

“Greedy beggars!” he observed, making for the provender. “Why didn’t
you invite me, Ratty?”

“This was an impromptu affair,” explained the Rat. “By the way—my
friend Mr. Mole.”

“Proud, I’m sure,” said the Otter, and the two animals were friends
forthwith.

“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.”

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.

“Come on, old Badger!” shouted the Rat.

The Badger trotted forward a pace or two; then grunted, “H’m! Company,”
and turned his back and disappeared from view.

“That’s _just_ 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, _who’s_ out on the river?”

“Toad’s out, for one,” replied the Otter. “In his brand-new wager-boat;
new togs, new everything!”

The two animals looked at each other and laughed.

“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.”

“Such a good fellow, too,” remarked the Otter reflectively: “But no
stability—especially in a boat!”

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.

“He’ll be out of the boat in a minute if he rolls like that,” said the
Rat, sitting down again.

“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....”

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.

Neither was the Otter.

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.

But again there was a streak of bubbles on the surface of the river.

The Rat hummed a tune, and the Mole recollected that animal-etiquette
forbade any sort of comment on the sudden disappearance of one’s
friends at any moment, for any reason or no reason whatever.

“Well, well,” said the Rat, “I suppose we ought to be moving. I wonder
which of us had better pack the luncheon-basket?” He did not speak as
if he was frightfully eager for the treat.

“O, please let me,” said the Mole. So, of course, the Rat let him.

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.

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_ want to row, now!”

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.”

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.

“Stop it, you _silly_ ass!” cried the Rat, from the bottom of the boat.
“You can’t do it! You’ll have us over!”

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!

Over went the boat, and he found himself struggling in the river.

O my, how cold the water was, and O, how _very_ 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 _feel_ him laughing, right down his
arm and through his paw, and so into his—the Mole’s—neck.

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.

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.”

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.

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?”

“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.”

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.

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 _from_ steamers, so presumably _by_
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.

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.




II.
THE OPEN ROAD


“Ratty,” said the Mole suddenly, one bright summer morning, “if you
please, I want to ask you a favour.”

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 _all_ 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

“DUCKS’ DITTY.”

All along the backwater,
Through the rushes tall,
Ducks are a-dabbling,
Up tails all!
Ducks’ tails, drakes’ tails,
Yellow feet a-quiver,
Yellow bills all out of sight
Busy in the river!

Slushy green undergrowth
Where the roach swim—
Here we keep our larder,
Cool and full and dim.

Everyone for what he likes!
_We_ like to be
Heads down, tails up,
Dabbling free!

High in the blue above
Swifts whirl and call—
_We_ are down a-dabbling
Uptails all!


“I don’t know that I think so _very_ 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.

“Nor don’t the ducks neither,” replied the Rat cheerfully. “They say,
‘_Why_ can’t fellows be allowed to do what they like _when_ they like
and _as_ 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 _nonsense_ it all is!’ That’s what the ducks say.”

“So it is, so it is,” said the Mole, with great heartiness.

“No, it isn’t!” cried the Rat indignantly.

“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.”

“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!”

“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.

“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.”

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.

“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.”

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.

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.”

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.

“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 _kind_ 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!”

“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.”

“Finest house on the whole river,” cried Toad boisterously. “Or
anywhere else, for that matter,” he could not help adding.

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!”

“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——”

“O, pooh! boating!” interrupted the Toad, in great disgust. “Silly
boyish amusement. I’ve given that up _long_ 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!”

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.

“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!”

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.

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.

“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.”

“I beg your pardon,” said the Rat slowly, as he chewed a straw, “but
did I overhear you say something about ‘_we_,’ and ‘_start_,’ and
‘_this afternoon?_’”

“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
_got_ 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 _boat?_ I want to show you the
world! I’m going to make an _animal_ of you, my boy!”

“I don’t care,” said the Rat, doggedly. “I’m not coming, and that’s
flat. And I _am_ going to stick to my old river, _and_ live in a hole,
_and_ 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?”

“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.

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.

“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_ don’t really care. I only want to give pleasure to you fellows.
‘Live for others!’ That’s my motto in life.”

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.

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!”

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!”

“I _don’t_ talk about my river,” replied the patient Rat. “You _know_ I
don’t, Toad. But I _think_ about it,” he added pathetically, in a lower
tone: “I think about it—all the time!”

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—_very_ early—and go back to our dear old hole on the river?”

“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!”

The end was indeed nearer than even the Rat suspected.

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.

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.

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 _you_ say to _him?_”—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.

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.

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.

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!”

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.

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!”

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!”

The Rat shook him by the shoulder. “Are you coming to help us, Toad?”
he demanded sternly.

“Glorious, stirring sight!” murmured Toad, never offering to move. “The
poetry of motion! The _real_ way to travel! The _only_ 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!”

“O _stop_ being an ass, Toad!” cried the Mole despairingly.

“And to think I never _knew!_” went on the Toad in a dreamy monotone.
“All those wasted years that lie behind me, I never knew, never even
_dreamt!_ But _now_—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!”

“What are we to do with him?” asked the Mole of the Water Rat.

“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.”

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.

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.”

“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?”

“O, _bother_ Toad,” said the Rat savagely; “I’ve done with him!”

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.

“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.”

“Police-station! Complaint!” murmured Toad dreamily. “Me _complain_ of
that beautiful, that heavenly vision that has been vouchsafed me!
_Mend_ the _cart!_ 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!”

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.

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.

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.”




III.
THE WILD WOOD


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
_as_ you find him, but _when_ you find him.”

“Couldn’t you ask him here dinner or something?” said the Mole.

“He wouldn’t come,” replied the Rat simply. “Badger hates Society, and
invitations, and dinner, and all that sort of thing.”

“Well, then, supposing we go and call on _him?_” suggested the Mole.

“O, I’m sure he wouldn’t like that at _all_,” 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.”

“Well, supposing he does,” said the Mole. “You told me the Wild Wood
was all right, you know.”

“O, I know, I know, so it is,” replied the Rat evasively. “But I think
we won’t go there just now. Not _just_ 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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Then the faces began.

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.

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.

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.

Then the whistling began.

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.

Then the pattering began.

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.

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!

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.

But the Mole was not there.

He listened for a time. The house seemed very quiet.

Then he called “Moly!” several times, and, receiving no answer, got up
and went out into the hall.

The Mole’s cap was missing from its accustomed peg. His goloshes, which
always lay by the umbrella-stand, were also gone.

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.

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.

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!”

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?”

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!”

“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.”

“Surely the brave Mr. Toad wouldn’t mind coming here by himself, would
he?” inquired the Mole.

“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.”

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.

“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.”

“Dear Ratty,” said the poor Mole, “I’m dreadfully sorry, but I’m simply
dead beat and that’s a solid fact. You _must_ let me rest here a while
longer, and get my strength back, if I’m to get home at all.”

“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.”

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.

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.”

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!”

“What’s up, Ratty?” asked the Mole.

“_Snow_ is up,” replied the Rat briefly; “or rather, _down_. It’s
snowing hard.”

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

“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.

“Poor old Mole!” said the Rat kindly.

“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.”

“I must have tripped over a hidden branch or a stump,” said the Mole
miserably. “O, my! O, my!”

“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.

“Well, never mind what done it,” said the Mole, forgetting his grammar
in his pain. “It hurts just the same, whatever done it.”

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, _come_ on, Rat!”

Suddenly the Rat cried “Hooray!” and then
“Hooray-oo-ray-oo-ray-oo-ray!” and fell to executing a feeble jig in
the snow.

“What _have_ you found, Ratty?” asked the Mole, still nursing his leg.

“Come and see!” said the delighted Rat, as he jigged on.

The Mole hobbled up to the spot and had a good look.

“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?”

“But don’t you see what it _means_, you—you dull-witted animal?” cried
the Rat impatiently.

“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, _just_ where it’s _sure_ to
trip _everybody_ 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!”

“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.

After some further toil his efforts were rewarded, and a very shabby
door-mat lay exposed to view.

“There, what did I tell you?” exclaimed the Rat in great triumph.

“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?”

“Do—you—mean—to—say,” cried the excited Rat, “that this door-mat
doesn’t _tell_ you anything?”

“Really, Rat,” said the Mole, quite pettishly, “I think we’d had enough
of this folly. Who ever heard of a door-mat _telling_ anyone anything?
They simply don’t do it. They are not that sort at all. Door-mats know
their place.”

“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!”

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.

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.

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

MR. BADGER.


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——”

“But as you haven’t,” interrupted the Rat, rather unkindly, “I suppose
you’re going to sit on the snow all night and _talk?_ 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!”

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.




IV.
MR. BADGER


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.

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.

“Now, the _very_ next time this happens,” said a gruff and suspicious
voice, “I shall be exceedingly angry. Who is it _this_ time, disturbing
people on such a night? Speak up!”

“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.”

“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.”

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 _so_ late, and _so_ independent, and _so_ 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?”

“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.”

“How many has he had?” inquired the Badger gloomily.

“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.”

“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.”

“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?”

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
_now?_”

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.

“Very well then!” continued the Badger. “_But_, 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—_you_ know!——”

Both animals nodded gravely. _They_ knew!

“Well, _then_,” 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 _make_ him be a sensible Toad. We’ll—you’re asleep, Rat!”

“Not me!” said the Rat, waking up with a jerk.

“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.

“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!”

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.

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.

“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?”

“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 _would_ 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——”

“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.

“O, terrible bad, sir, terrible deep the snow is,” said the hedgehog.
“No getting out for the likes of you gentlemen to-day.”

“Where’s Mr. Badger?” inquired the Mole, as he warmed the coffee-pot
before the fire.

“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.”

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.

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.

“Get off!” spluttered the Rat, with his mouth full.

“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 _do_
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,
_us?_’ he merely said: ‘_do_ 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 _they_ would.”

“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.

“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.”

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.

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.”

“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.”

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.

“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.”

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.

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.”

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 _weather_. 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, _as_ 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 _hate_ 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 _home!_”

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.”

After luncheon, accordingly, when the other two had settled themselves
into the chimney-corner and had started a heated argument on the
subject of _eels_, 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!”

“It _would_ be astonishing indeed,” said the Badger simply, “if I _had_
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.”

“But what has become of them all?” asked the Mole.

“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.”

“Well, and when they went at last, those people?” said the Mole.

“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.”

“I do indeed,” said the Mole, with a slight shiver.

“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 _mine_ walks
where he likes in this country, or I’ll know the reason why!”

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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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.

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.

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.




V.
DULCE DOMUM


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; _this_ leads home!”

“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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!”

“Oh, _come_ along, Mole, do!” replied the Rat cheerfully, still
plodding along.

“_Please_ 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
_must_ go to it, I must, I must! Oh, come back, Ratty! Please, please
come back!”

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.

“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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.”

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 _wanted_ it!—O dear, O dear!—and when you _wouldn’t_ 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!”

Recollection brought fresh waves of sorrow, and sobs again took full
charge of him, preventing further speech.

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 _pig_ I have been! A pig—that’s me! Just a pig—a
plain pig!”

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.

“Wherever are you (hic) going to (hic), Ratty?” cried the tearful Mole,
looking up in alarm.

“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.”

“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!”

“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.”

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.”

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.

The signals were coming through!

Mole stood a moment rigid, while his uplifted nose, quivering slightly,
felt the air.

Then a short, quick run forward—a fault—a check—a try back; and then a
slow, steady, confident advance.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!”

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!”

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!”

“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.”

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.

“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!”

“No bread!” groaned the Mole dolorously; “no butter, no——”

“No _pâté de foie gras_, 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.”

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.”

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.

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——”

“What’s up?” inquired the Rat, pausing in his labours.

“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.”

“Let’s have a look at them!” cried the Rat, jumping up and running to
the door.

It was a pretty sight, and a seasonable one, that met their eyes when
they flung the door open. In the fore-court, lit by the dim rays of a
horn lantern, some eight or ten little 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.

CAROL

Villagers all, this frosty tide,
Let your doors swing open wide,
Though wind may follow, and snow beside,
Yet draw us in by your fire to bide;
    Joy shall be yours in the morning!

Here we stand in the cold and the sleet,
Blowing fingers and stamping feet,
Come from far away you to greet—
You by the fire and we in the street—
    Bidding you joy in the morning!

For ere one half of the night was gone,
Sudden a star has led us on,
Raining bliss and benison—
Bliss to-morrow and more anon,
    Joy for every morning!

Goodman Joseph toiled through the snow—
Saw the star o’er a stable low;
Mary she might not further go—
Welcome thatch, and litter below!
    Joy was hers in the morning!

And then they heard the angels tell
“Who were the first to cry _Nowell?_
Animals all, as it befell,
In the stable where they did dwell!
    Joy shall be theirs in the morning!”


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.

“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!”

“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!”

“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?”

“Why, certainly, sir,” replied the field-mouse respectfully. “At this
time of the year our shops keep open to all sorts of hours.”

“Then look here!” said the Rat. “You go off at once, you and your
lantern, and you get me——”

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.

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.

The Rat, meanwhile, was busy examining the label on one of the
beer-bottles. “I perceive this to be Old Burton,” he remarked
approvingly. “_Sensible_ Mole! The very thing! Now we shall be able to
mull some ale! Get the things ready, Mole, while I draw the corks.”

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.

“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, _you!_ You were in it, I remember. Get
up and recite a bit.”

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.

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.

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!”

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.

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.




VI.
MR. TOAD


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.

“Bother!” said the Rat, all over egg. “See who it is, Mole, like a good
chap, since you’ve finished.”

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!”

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.

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.

“The hour has come!” said the Badger at last with great solemnity.

“What hour?” asked the Rat uneasily, glancing at the clock on the
mantelpiece.

“_Whose_ 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!”

“Toad’s hour, of course!” cried the Mole delightedly. “Hooray! I
remember now! _We’ll_ teach him to be a sensible Toad!”

“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.”

“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!”

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.

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.

“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——”

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.

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 _chauffeur_ in charge of the new
motor-car.

“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.

“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!”

“Shan’t!” replied Toad, with great spirit. “What is the meaning of this
gross outrage? I demand an instant explanation.”

“Take them off him, then, you two,” ordered the Badger briefly.

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.

“You knew it must come to this, sooner or later, Toad,” the Badger
explained severely.

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.”

He took Toad firmly by the arm, led him into the smoking-room, and
closed the door behind them.

“_That’s_ no good!” said the Rat contemptuously. “_Talking_ to Toad’ll
never cure him. He’ll _say_ anything.”

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.

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.

“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.”

“That is very good news,” said the Mole gravely.

“Very good news indeed,” observed the Rat dubiously, “if only—_if_
only——”

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.

“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?”

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.

“No!” he said, a little sullenly, but stoutly; “I’m _not_ sorry. And it
wasn’t folly at all! It was simply glorious!”

“What?” cried the Badger, greatly scandalised. “You backsliding animal,
didn’t you tell me just now, in there——”

“Oh, yes, yes, in _there_,” said Toad impatiently. “I’d have said
anything in _there_. 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 _there_, 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?”

“Then you don’t promise,” said the Badger, “never to touch a motor-car
again?”

“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!”

“Told you so, didn’t I?” observed the Rat to the Mole.

“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.”

“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!”

“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.”

“No more of those regrettable incidents with the police, Toad,” said
the Rat, as they thrust him into his bedroom.

“And no more weeks in hospital, being ordered about by female nurses,
Toad,” added the Mole, turning the key on him.

They descended the stair, Toad shouting abuse at them through the
keyhole; and the three friends then met in conference on the situation.

“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.”

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.

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.”

“How are you to-day, old chap?” inquired the Rat cheerfully, as he
approached Toad’s bedside.

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?”

“O, _we’re_ 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!”

“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.”

“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.”

“I’m afraid it _is_ 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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.

“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.”

“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.”

“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 _hate_ 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 _a_ moment—when one
must face disagreeable tasks, at whatever cost to exhausted nature!”

“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.

Outside, he stopped to consider. The other two were far away, and he
had no one to consult.

“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.

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.

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!”

“He did it awfully well,” said the crestfallen Rat.

“He did _you_ 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.”

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

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 _looking_ at it!”

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.

“I wonder,” he said to himself presently, “I wonder if this sort of car
_starts_ easily?”

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.


“To my mind,” observed the Chairman of the Bench of Magistrates
cheerfully, “the _only_ 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.”

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——”

“First-rate!” said the Chairman.

“—So you had better make it a round twenty years and be on the safe
side,” concluded the Clerk.

“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!”

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.

“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!”

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.




VII.
THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN


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.

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.

“You stayed to supper, of course?” said the Mole presently.

“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.”

“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!”

“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—_you_ know. Otter’s not the fellow to be nervous about any son
of his before it’s time. And now he _is_ 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?”

“I know it well,” said the Mole. “But why should Otter choose to watch
there?”

“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 _is_ 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!”

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.

“Well, well,” said the Rat presently, “I suppose we ought to be
thinking about turning in.” But he never offered to move.

“Rat,” said the Mole, “I simply can’t go and turn in, and go to sleep,
and _do_ 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 _nothing_.”

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

“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.”

The Mole, greatly wondering, obeyed. “I hear nothing myself,” he said,
“but the wind playing in the reeds and rushes and osiers.”

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.

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.

“Clearer and nearer still,” cried the Rat joyously. “Now you must
surely hear it! Ah—at last—I see you do!”

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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!”

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.

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.

“Rat!” he found breath to whisper, shaking. “Are you afraid?”

“Afraid?” murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love.
“Afraid! Of _Him?_ O, never, never! And yet—and yet—O, Mole, I am
afraid!”

Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did
worship.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

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.

The Mole ran quickly to comfort the little animal; but Rat, lingering,
looked long and doubtfully at certain hoof-marks deep in the sward.

“Some—great—animal—has been here,” he murmured slowly and thoughtfully;
and stood musing, musing; his mind strangely stirred.

“Come along, Rat!” called the Mole. “Think of poor Otter, waiting up
there by the ford!”

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.

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.

“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.”

“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!”

“It’s like music—far away music,” said the Mole nodding drowsily.

“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.”

“You hear better than I,” said the Mole sadly. “I cannot catch the
words.”

“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—_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!_ Now the reeds
take it up—_forget, forget_, they sigh, and it dies away in a rustle
and a whisper. Then the voice returns—

“_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!_
Row nearer, Mole, nearer to the reeds! It is hard to catch, and grows
each minute fainter.

“_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!_ Nearer, Mole,
nearer! No, it is no good; the song has died away into reed-talk.”

“But what do the words mean?” asked the wondering Mole.

“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——”

“Well, let’s have it, then,” said the Mole, after he had waited
patiently for a few minutes, half-dozing in the hot sun.

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.




VIII.
TOAD’S ADVENTURES


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.

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.”

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.

“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!”

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.

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.

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.

“Tell me about Toad Hall,” said she. “It sounds beautiful.”

“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——”

“Bless the animal,” said the girl, laughing, “I don’t want to _take_
it. Tell me something _real_ about it. But first wait till I fetch you
some more tea and toast.”

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 _pets_, 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.

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.

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.

“Toad,” she said presently, “just listen, please. I have an aunt who is
a washerwoman.”

“There, there,” said Toad, graciously and affably, “never mind; think
no more about it. _I_ have several aunts who _ought_ to be
washerwomen.”

“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.”

“We’re _not_,” said the Toad in a huff. “I have a very elegant
figure—for what I am.”

“So has my aunt,” replied the girl, “for what _she_ is. But have it
your own way. You horrid, proud, ungrateful animal, when I’m sorry for
you, and trying to help you!”

“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!”

“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!”

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.”

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.

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.

“Now it’s your turn, Toad,” said the girl. “Take off that coat and
waistcoat of yours; you’re fat enough as it is.”

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.

“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.”

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.

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!

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.

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.”

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.

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!

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.

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.”

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!”

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.

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.

“Hullo, mother!” said the engine-driver, “what’s the trouble? You don’t
look particularly cheerful.”

“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 _must_
get home to-night somehow, and whatever I am to do I don’t know. O
dear, O dear!”

“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?”

“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!”

“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.”

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.”

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.

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!”

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.

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.

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!”

The miserable Toad, crouching in the coal-dust, tried hard to think of
something to do, with dismal want of success.

“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!’”

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!”

The engine-driver looked down upon him very sternly, and said, “Now
tell the truth; what were you put in prison for?”

“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.”

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!”

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!”

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!”

Toad jumped, rolled down a short embankment, picked himself up unhurt,
scrambled into the wood and hid.

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.

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.

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 searchin

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