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Chapter 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
'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 *** 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 *** 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 ***, 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.
>
Chapter 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.
>
Chapter 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 *** 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 *** 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 *** 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 *** 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 searching warders, closing in on him.
An owl, swooping noiselessly towards him, brushed his shoulder with its wing, making
him jump with the horrid certainty that it was a hand; then flitted off, moth-like,
laughing its low ho! ho! ho; which Toad thought in very poor taste.
Once he met a fox, who stopped, looked him up and down in a sarcastic sort of way, and
said, 'Hullo, washerwoman!
Half a pair of socks and a pillow-case short this week!
Mind it doesn't occur again!' and swaggered off, sniggering.
Toad looked about for a stone to throw at him, but could not succeed in finding one,
which vexed him more than anything.
At last, cold, hungry, and tired out, he sought the shelter of a hollow tree, where
with branches and dead leaves he made himself as comfortable a bed as he could,
and slept soundly till the morning.
>
Chapter IX. Wayfarers All
The Water Rat was restless, and he did not exactly know why.
To all appearance the summer's pomp was still at fullest height, and although in
the tilled acres green had given way to gold, though rowans were reddening, and the
woods were dashed here and there with a
tawny fierceness, yet light and warmth and colour were still present in undiminished
measure, clean of any chilly premonitions of the passing year.
But the constant chorus of the orchards and hedges had shrunk to a casual evensong from
a few yet unwearied performers; the robin was beginning to assert himself once more;
and there was a feeling in the air of change and departure.
The cuckoo, of course, had long been silent; but many another feathered friend,
for months a part of the familiar landscape and its small society, was missing too and
it seemed that the ranks thinned steadily day by day.
Rat, ever observant of all winged movement, saw that it was taking daily a southing
tendency; and even as he lay in bed at night he thought he could make out, passing
in the darkness overhead, the beat and
quiver of impatient pinions, obedient to the peremptory call.
Nature's Grand Hotel has its Season, like the others.
As the guests one by one pack, pay, and depart, and the seats at the table-d'hote
shrink pitifully at each succeeding meal; as suites of rooms are closed, carpets
taken up, and waiters sent away; those
boarders who are staying on, en pension, until the next year's full re-opening,
cannot help being somewhat affected by all these flittings and farewells, this eager
discussion of plans, routes, and fresh
quarters, this daily shrinkage in the stream of comradeship.
One gets unsettled, depressed, and inclined to be querulous.
Why this craving for change?
Why not stay on quietly here, like us, and be jolly?
You don't know this hotel out of the season, and what fun we have among
ourselves, we fellows who remain and see the whole interesting year out.
All very true, no doubt the others always reply; we quite envy you--and some other
year perhaps--but just now we have engagements--and there's the bus at the
door--our time is up!
So they depart, with a smile and a nod, and we miss them, and feel resentful.
The Rat was a self-sufficing sort of animal, rooted to the land, and, whoever
went, he stayed; still, he could not help noticing what was in the air, and feeling
some of its influence in his bones.
It was difficult to settle down to anything seriously, with all this flitting going on.
Leaving the water-side, where rushes stood thick and tall in a stream that was
becoming sluggish and low, he wandered country-wards, crossed a field or two of
pasturage already looking dusty and
parched, and thrust into the great sea of wheat, yellow, wavy, and murmurous, full of
quiet motion and small whisperings.
Here he often loved to wander, through the forest of stiff strong stalks that carried
their own golden sky away over his head-- a sky that was always dancing, shimmering,
softly talking; or swaying strongly to the
passing wind and recovering itself with a toss and a merry laugh.
Here, too, he had many small friends, a society complete in itself, leading full
and busy lives, but always with a spare moment to gossip, and exchange news with a
visitor.
Today, however, though they were civil enough, the field-mice and harvest-mice
seemed preoccupied.
Many were digging and tunnelling busily; others, gathered together in small groups,
examined plans and drawings of small flats, stated to be desirable and compact, and
situated conveniently near the Stores.
Some were hauling out dusty trunks and dress-baskets, others were already elbow-
deep packing their belongings; while everywhere piles and bundles of wheat,
oats, barley, beech-mast and nuts, lay about ready for transport.
'Here's old Ratty!' they cried as soon as they saw him.
'Come and bear a hand, Rat, and don't stand about idle!'
'What sort of games are you up to?' said the Water Rat severely.
'You know it isn't time to be thinking of winter quarters yet, by a long way!'
'O yes, we know that,' explained a field- mouse rather shamefacedly; 'but it's always
as well to be in good time, isn't it?
We really MUST get all the furniture and baggage and stores moved out of this before
those horrid machines begin clicking round the fields; and then, you know, the best
flats get picked up so quickly nowadays,
and if you're late you have to put up with ANYTHING; and they want such a lot of doing
up, too, before they're fit to move into. Of course, we're early, we know that; but
we're only just making a start.'
'O, bother STARTS,' said the Rat. 'It's a splendid day.
Come for a row, or a stroll along the hedges, or a picnic in the woods, or
something.'
'Well, I THINK not TO-DAY, thank you,' replied the field-mouse hurriedly.
'Perhaps some OTHER day--when we've more TIME----'
The Rat, with a snort of contempt, swung round to go, tripped over a hat-box, and
fell, with undignified remarks.
'If people would be more careful,' said a field-mouse rather stiffly, 'and look where
they're going, people wouldn't hurt themselves--and forget themselves.
Mind that hold-all, Rat!
You'd better sit down somewhere. In an hour or two we may be more free to
attend to you.'
'You won't be "free" as you call it much this side of Christmas, I can see that,'
retorted the Rat grumpily, as he picked his way out of the field.
He returned somewhat despondently to his river again--his faithful, steady-going old
river, which never packed up, flitted, or went into winter quarters.
In the osiers which fringed the bank he spied a swallow sitting.
Presently it was joined by another, and then by a third; and the birds, fidgeting
restlessly on their bough, talked together earnestly and low.
'What, ALREADY,' said the Rat, strolling up to them.
'What's the hurry? I call it simply ridiculous.'
'O, we're not off yet, if that's what you mean,' replied the first swallow.
'We're only making plans and arranging things.
Talking it over, you know--what route we're taking this year, and where we'll stop, and
so on. That's half the fun!'
'Fun?' said the Rat; 'now that's just what I don't understand.
If you've GOT to leave this pleasant place, and your friends who will miss you, and
your snug homes that you've just settled into, why, when the hour strikes I've no
doubt you'll go bravely, and face all the
trouble and discomfort and change and newness, and make believe that you're not
very unhappy. But to want to talk about it, or even think
about it, till you really need----'
'No, you don't understand, naturally,' said the second swallow.
'First, we feel it stirring within us, a sweet unrest; then back come the
recollections one by one, like homing pigeons.
They flutter through our dreams at night, they fly with us in our wheelings and
circlings by day.
We hunger to inquire of each other, to compare notes and assure ourselves that it
was all really true, as one by one the scents and sounds and names of long-
forgotten places come gradually back and beckon to us.'
'Couldn't you stop on for just this year?' suggested the Water Rat, wistfully.
'We'll all do our best to make you feel at home.
You've no idea what good times we have here, while you are far away.'
'I tried "stopping on" one year,' said the third swallow.
'I had grown so fond of the place that when the time came I hung back and let the
others go on without me.
For a few weeks it was all well enough, but afterwards, O the weary length of the
nights! The shivering, sunless days!
The air so clammy and chill, and not an insect in an acre of it!
No, it was no good; my courage broke down, and one cold, stormy night I took wing,
flying well inland on account of the strong easterly gales.
It was snowing hard as I beat through the passes of the great mountains, and I had a
stiff fight to win through; but never shall I forget the blissful feeling of the hot
sun again on my back as I sped down to the
lakes that lay so blue and placid below me, and the taste of my first fat insect!
The past was like a bad dream; the future was all happy holiday as I moved southwards
week by week, easily, lazily, lingering as long as I dared, but always heeding the
call!
No, I had had my warning; never again did I think of disobedience.'
'Ah, yes, the call of the South, of the South!' twittered the other two dreamily.
'Its songs its hues, its radiant air!
O, do you remember----' and, forgetting the Rat, they slid into passionate
reminiscence, while he listened fascinated, and his heart burned within him.
In himself, too, he knew that it was vibrating at last, that chord hitherto
dormant and unsuspected.
The mere chatter of these southern-bound birds, their pale and second-hand reports,
had yet power to awaken this wild new sensation and thrill him through and
through with it; what would one moment of
the real thing work in him--one passionate touch of the real southern sun, one waft of
the authentic odor?
With closed eyes he dared to dream a moment in full abandonment, and when he looked
again the river seemed steely and chill, the green fields grey and lightless.
Then his loyal heart seemed to cry out on his weaker self for its treachery.
'Why do you ever come back, then, at all?' he demanded of the swallows jealously.
'What do you find to attract you in this poor drab little country?'
'And do you think,' said the first swallow, 'that the other call is not for us too, in
its due season?
The call of lush meadow-grass, wet orchards, warm, insect-haunted ponds, of
browsing cattle, of haymaking, and all the farm-buildings clustering round the House
of the perfect Eaves?'
'Do you suppose,' asked the second one, that you are the only living thing that
craves with a hungry longing to hear the cuckoo's note again?'
'In due time,' said the third, 'we shall be home-sick once more for quiet water-lilies
swaying on the surface of an English stream.
But to-day all that seems pale and thin and very far away.
Just now our blood dances to other music.'
They fell a-twittering among themselves once more, and this time their intoxicating
babble was of violet seas, tawny sands, and lizard-haunted walls.
Restlessly the Rat wandered off once more, climbed the slope that rose gently from the
north bank of the river, and lay looking out towards the great ring of Downs that
barred his vision further southwards--his
simple horizon hitherto, his Mountains of the Moon, his limit behind which lay
nothing he had cared to see or to know.
To-day, to him gazing South with a new-born need stirring in his heart, the clear sky
over their long low outline seemed to pulsate with promise; to-day, the unseen
was everything, the unknown the only real fact of life.
On this side of the hills was now the real blank, on the other lay the crowded and
coloured panorama that his inner eye was seeing so clearly.
What seas lay beyond, green, leaping, and crested!
What sun-bathed coasts, along which the white villas glittered against the olive
woods!
What quiet harbours, thronged with gallant shipping bound for purple islands of wine
and spice, islands set low in languorous waters!
He rose and descended river-wards once more; then changed his mind and sought the
side of the dusty lane.
There, lying half-buried in the thick, cool under-hedge tangle that bordered it, he
could muse on the metalled road and all the wondrous world that it led to; on all the
wayfarers, too, that might have trodden it,
and the fortunes and adventures they had gone to seek or found unseeking--out there,
beyond--beyond!
Footsteps fell on his ear, and the figure of one that walked somewhat wearily came
into view; and he saw that it was a Rat, and a very dusty one.
The wayfarer, as he reached him, saluted with a gesture of courtesy that had
something foreign about it--hesitated a moment--then with a pleasant smile turned
from the track and sat down by his side in the cool herbage.
He seemed tired, and the Rat let him rest unquestioned, understanding something of
what was in his thoughts; knowing, too, the value all animals attach at times to mere
silent companionship, when the weary muscles slacken and the mind marks time.
The wayfarer was lean and keen-featured, and somewhat bowed at the shoulders; his
paws were thin and long, his eyes much wrinkled at the corners, and he wore small
gold ear rings in his neatly-set well- shaped ears.
His knitted jersey was of a faded blue, his breeches, patched and stained, were based
on a blue foundation, and his small belongings that he carried were tied up in
a blue cotton handkerchief.
When he had rested awhile the stranger sighed, snuffed the air, and looked about
him.
'That was clover, that warm whiff on the breeze,' he remarked; 'and those are cows
we hear cropping the grass behind us and blowing softly between mouthfuls.
There is a sound of distant reapers, and yonder rises a blue line of cottage smoke
against the woodland.
The river runs somewhere close by, for I hear the call of a moorhen, and I see by
your build that you're a freshwater mariner.
Everything seems asleep, and yet going on all the time.
It is a goodly life that you lead, friend; no doubt the best in the world, if only you
are strong enough to lead it!'
'Yes, it's THE life, the only life, to live,' responded the Water Rat dreamily,
and without his usual whole-hearted conviction.
'I did not say exactly that,' replied the stranger cautiously; 'but no doubt it's the
best. I've tried it, and I know.
And because I've just tried it--six months of it--and know it's the best, here am I,
footsore and hungry, tramping away from it, tramping southward, following the old call,
back to the old life, THE life which is mine and which will not let me go.'
'Is this, then, yet another of them?' mused the Rat.
'And where have you just come from?' he asked.
He hardly dared to ask where he was bound for; he seemed to know the answer only too
well.
'Nice little farm,' replied the wayfarer, briefly.
'Upalong in that direction'--he nodded northwards.
'Never mind about it.
I had everything I could want--everything I had any right to expect of life, and more;
and here I am! Glad to be here all the same, though, glad
to be here!
So many miles further on the road, so many hours nearer to my heart's desire!'
His shining eyes held fast to the horizon, and he seemed to be listening for some
sound that was wanting from that inland acreage, vocal as it was with the cheerful
music of pasturage and farmyard.
'You are not one of US,' said the Water Rat, 'nor yet a farmer; nor even, I should
judge, of this country.' 'Right,' replied the stranger.
'I'm a seafaring rat, I am, and the port I originally hail from is Constantinople,
though I'm a sort of a foreigner there too, in a manner of speaking.
You will have heard of Constantinople, friend?
A fair city, and an ancient and glorious one.
And you may have heard, too, of Sigurd, King of Norway, and how he sailed thither
with sixty ships, and how he and his men rode up through streets all canopied in
their honour with purple and gold; and how
the Emperor and Empress came down and banqueted with him on board his ship.
When Sigurd returned home, many of his Northmen remained behind and entered the
Emperor's body-guard, and my ancestor, a Norwegian born, stayed behind too, with the
ships that Sigurd gave the Emperor.
Seafarers we have ever been, and no wonder; as for me, the city of my birth is no more
my home than any pleasant port between there and the London River.
I know them all, and they know me.
Set me down on any of their quays or foreshores, and I am home again.'
'I suppose you go great voyages,' said the Water Rat with growing interest.
'Months and months out of sight of land, and provisions running short, and
allowanced as to water, and your mind communing with the mighty ocean, and all
that sort of thing?'
'By no means,' said the Sea Rat frankly. 'Such a life as you describe would not suit
me at all. I'm in the coasting trade, and rarely out
of sight of land.
It's the jolly times on shore that appeal to me, as much as any seafaring.
O, those southern seaports! The smell of them, the riding-lights at
night, the glamour!'
'Well, perhaps you have chosen the better way,' said the Water Rat, but rather
doubtfully.
'Tell me something of your coasting, then, if you have a mind to, and what sort of
harvest an animal of spirit might hope to bring home from it to warm his latter days
with gallant memories by the fireside; for
my life, I confess to you, feels to me to- day somewhat narrow and circumscribed.'
'My last voyage,' began the Sea Rat, 'that landed me eventually in this country, bound
with high hopes for my inland farm, will serve as a good example of any of them,
and, indeed, as an epitome of my highly- coloured life.
Family troubles, as usual, began it.
The domestic storm-cone was hoisted, and I shipped myself on board a small trading
vessel bound from Constantinople, by classic seas whose every wave throbs with a
deathless memory, to the Grecian Islands and the Levant.
Those were golden days and balmy nights!
In and out of harbour all the time--old friends everywhere--sleeping in some cool
temple or ruined cistern during the heat of the day--feasting and song after sundown,
under great stars set in a velvet sky!
Thence we turned and coasted up the Adriatic, its shores swimming in an
atmosphere of amber, rose, and aquamarine; we lay in wide land-locked harbours, we
roamed through ancient and noble cities,
until at last one morning, as the sun rose royally behind us, we rode into Venice down
a path of gold. O, Venice is a fine city, wherein a rat can
wander at his ease and take his pleasure!
Or, when weary of wandering, can sit at the edge of the Grand Canal at night, feasting
with his friends, when the air is full of music and the sky full of stars, and the
lights flash and shimmer on the polished
steel prows of the swaying gondolas, packed so that you could walk across the canal on
them from side to side! And then the food--do you like shellfish?
Well, well, we won't linger over that now.'
He was silent for a time; and the Water Rat, silent too and enthralled, floated on
dream-canals and heard a phantom song pealing high between vaporous grey wave-
lapped walls.
'Southwards we sailed again at last,' continued the Sea Rat, 'coasting down the
Italian shore, till finally we made Palermo, and there I quitted for a long,
happy spell on shore.
I never stick too long to one ship; one gets narrow-minded and prejudiced.
Besides, Sicily is one of my happy hunting- grounds.
I know everybody there, and their ways just suit me.
I spent many jolly weeks in the island, staying with friends up country.
When I grew restless again I took advantage of a ship that was trading to Sardinia and
Corsica; and very glad I was to feel the fresh breeze and the sea-spray in my face
once more.'
'But isn't it very hot and stuffy, down in the--hold, I think you call it?' asked the
Water Rat. The seafarer looked at him with the
suspicion go a wink.
'I'm an old hand,' he remarked with much simplicity.
'The captain's cabin's good enough for me.' 'It's a hard life, by all accounts,'
murmured the Rat, sunk in deep thought.
'For the crew it is,' replied the seafarer gravely, again with the ghost of a wink.
'From Corsica,' he went on, 'I made use of a ship that was taking wine to the
mainland.
We made Alassio in the evening, lay to, hauled up our wine-casks, and hove them
overboard, tied one to the other by a long line.
Then the crew took to the boats and rowed shorewards, singing as they went, and
drawing after them the long bobbing procession of casks, like a mile of
porpoises.
On the sands they had horses waiting, which dragged the casks up the steep street of
the little town with a fine rush and clatter and scramble.
When the last cask was in, we went and refreshed and rested, and sat late into the
night, drinking with our friends, and next morning I took to the great olive-woods for
a spell and a rest.
For now I had done with islands for the time, and ports and shipping were
plentiful; so I led a lazy life among the peasants, lying and watching them work, or
stretched high on the hillside with the blue Mediterranean far below me.
And so at length, by easy stages, and partly on foot, partly by sea, to
Marseilles, and the meeting of old shipmates, and the visiting of great ocean-
bound vessels, and feasting once more.
Talk of shell-fish! Why, sometimes I dream of the shell-fish of
Marseilles, and wake up crying!'
'That reminds me,' said the polite Water Rat; 'you happened to mention that you were
hungry, and I ought to have spoken earlier. Of course, you will stop and take your
midday meal with me?
My hole is close by; it is some time past noon, and you are very welcome to whatever
there is.' 'Now I call that kind and brotherly of
you,' said the Sea Rat.
'I was indeed hungry when I sat down, and ever since I inadvertently happened to
mention shell-fish, my pangs have been extreme.
But couldn't you fetch it along out here?
I am none too fond of going under hatches, unless I'm obliged to; and then, while we
eat, I could tell you more concerning my voyages and the pleasant life I lead--at
least, it is very pleasant to me, and by
your attention I judge it commends itself to you; whereas if we go indoors it is a
hundred to one that I shall presently fall asleep.'
'That is indeed an excellent suggestion,' said the Water Rat, and hurried off home.
There he got out the luncheon-basket and packed a simple meal, in which, remembering
the stranger's origin and preferences, he took care to include a yard of long French
bread, a sausage out of which the garlic
sang, some cheese which lay down and cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask
wherein lay bottled sunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes.
Thus laden, he returned with all speed, and blushed for pleasure at the old ***'s
commendations of his taste and judgment, as together they unpacked the basket and laid
out the contents on the grass by the roadside.
The Sea Rat, as soon as his hunger was somewhat assuaged, continued the history of
his latest voyage, conducting his simple hearer from port to port of Spain, landing
him at Lisbon, Oporto, and Bordeaux,
introducing him to the pleasant harbours of Cornwall and Devon, and so up the Channel
to that final quayside, where, landing after winds long contrary, storm-driven and
weather-beaten, he had caught the first
magical hints and heraldings of another Spring, and, fired by these, had sped on a
long *** inland, hungry for the experiment of life on some quiet farmstead,
very far from the weary beating of any sea.
Spell-bound and quivering with excitement, the Water Rat followed the Adventurer
league by league, over stormy bays, through crowded roadsteads, across harbour bars on
a racing tide, up winding rivers that hid
their busy little towns round a sudden turn; and left him with a regretful sigh
planted at his dull inland farm, about which he desired to hear nothing.
By this time their meal was over, and the Seafarer, refreshed and strengthened, his
voice more vibrant, his eye lit with a brightness that seemed caught from some
far-away sea-beacon, filled his glass with
the red and glowing vintage of the South, and, leaning towards the Water Rat,
compelled his gaze and held him, body and soul, while he talked.
Those eyes were of the changing foam- streaked grey-green of leaping Northern
seas; in the glass shone a hot ruby that seemed the very heart of the South, beating
for him who had courage to respond to its pulsation.
The twin lights, the shifting grey and the steadfast red, mastered the Water Rat and
held him bound, fascinated, powerless.
The quiet world outside their rays receded far away and ceased to be.
And the talk, the wonderful talk flowed on- -or was it speech entirely, or did it pass
at times into song--chanty of the sailors weighing the dripping anchor, sonorous hum
of the shrouds in a tearing North-Easter,
ballad of the fisherman hauling his nets at sundown against an apricot sky, chords of
guitar and mandoline from gondola or caique?
Did it change into the cry of the wind, plaintive at first, angrily shrill as it
freshened, rising to a tearing whistle, sinking to a musical trickle of air from
the leech of the bellying sail?
All these sounds the spell-bound listener seemed to hear, and with them the hungry
complaint of the gulls and the sea-mews, the soft thunder of the breaking wave, the
cry of the protesting shingle.
Back into speech again it passed, and with beating heart he was following the
adventures of a dozen seaports, the fights, the escapes, the rallies, the comradeships,
the gallant undertakings; or he searched
islands for treasure, fished in still lagoons and dozed day-long on warm white
sand.
Of deep-sea fishings he heard tell, and mighty silver gatherings of the mile-long
net; of sudden perils, noise of breakers on a moonless night, or the tall bows of the
great liner taking shape overhead through
the fog; of the merry home-coming, the headland rounded, the harbour lights opened
out; the groups seen dimly on the quay, the cheery hail, the splash of the hawser; the
trudge up the steep little street towards
the comforting glow of red-curtained windows.
Lastly, in his waking dream it seemed to him that the Adventurer had risen to his
feet, but was still speaking, still holding him fast with his sea-grey eyes.
'And now,' he was softly saying, 'I take to the road again, holding on southwestwards
for many a long and dusty day; till at last I reach the little grey sea town I know so
well, that clings along one steep side of the harbour.
There through dark doorways you look down flights of stone steps, overhung by great
pink tufts of valerian and ending in a patch of sparkling blue water.
The little boats that lie tethered to the rings and stanchions of the old sea-wall
are gaily painted as those I clambered in and out of in my own childhood; the salmon
leap on the flood tide, schools of mackerel
flash and play past quay-sides and foreshores, and by the windows the great
vessels glide, night and day, up to their moorings or forth to the open sea.
There, sooner or later, the ships of all seafaring nations arrive; and there, at its
destined hour, the ship of my choice will let go its anchor.
I shall take my time, I shall tarry and bide, till at last the right one lies
waiting for me, warped out into midstream, loaded low, her bowsprit pointing down
harbour.
I shall slip on board, by boat or along hawser; and then one morning I shall wake
to the song and *** of the sailors, the clink of the capstan, and the rattle of the
anchor-chain coming merrily in.
We shall break out the jib and the foresail, the white houses on the harbour
side will glide slowly past us as she gathers steering-way, and the voyage will
have begun!
As she forges towards the headland she will clothe herself with canvas; and then, once
outside, the sounding slap of great green seas as she heels to the wind, pointing
South!
'And you, you will come too, young brother; for the days pass, and never return, and
the South still waits for you. Take the Adventure, heed the call, now ere
the irrevocable moment passes!'
'Tis but a banging of the door behind you, a blithesome step forward, and you are out
of the old life and into the new!
Then some day, some day long hence, jog home here if you will, when the cup has
been drained and the play has been played, and sit down by your quiet river with a
store of goodly memories for company.
You can easily overtake me on the road, for you are young, and I am ageing and go
softly.
I will linger, and look back; and at last I will surely see you coming, eager and
light-hearted, with all the South in your face!'
The voice died away and ceased as an insect's tiny trumpet dwindles swiftly into
silence; and the Water Rat, paralysed and staring, saw at last but a distant speck on
the white surface of the road.
Mechanically he rose and proceeded to repack the luncheon-basket, carefully and
without haste.
Mechanically he returned home, gathered together a few small necessaries and
special treasures he was fond of, and put them in a satchel; acting with slow
deliberation, moving about the room like a
sleep-walker; listening ever with parted lips.
He swung the satchel over his shoulder, carefully selected a stout stick for his
wayfaring, and with no haste, but with no hesitation at all, he stepped across the
threshold just as the Mole appeared at the door.
'Why, where are you off to, Ratty?' asked the Mole in great surprise, grasping him by
the arm.
'Going South, with the rest of them,' murmured the Rat in a dreamy monotone,
never looking at him. 'Seawards first and then on shipboard, and
so to the shores that are calling me!'
He pressed resolutely forward, still without haste, but with dogged fixity of
purpose; but the Mole, now thoroughly alarmed, placed himself in front of him,
and looking into his eyes saw that they
were glazed and set and turned a streaked and shifting grey--not his friend's eyes,
but the eyes of some other animal! Grappling with him strongly he dragged him
inside, threw him down, and held him.
The Rat struggled desperately for a few moments, and then his strength seemed
suddenly to leave him, and he lay still and exhausted, with closed eyes, trembling.
Presently the Mole assisted him to rise and placed him in a chair, where he sat
collapsed and shrunken into himself, his body shaken by a violent shivering, passing
in time into an hysterical fit of dry sobbing.
Mole made the door fast, threw the satchel into a drawer and locked it, and sat down
quietly on the table by his friend, waiting for the strange seizure to pass.
Gradually the Rat sank into a troubled doze, broken by starts and confused
murmurings of things strange and wild and foreign to the unenlightened Mole; and from
that he passed into a deep slumber.
Very anxious in mind, the Mole left him for a time and busied himself with household
matters; and it was getting dark when he returned to the parlour and found the Rat
where he had left him, wide awake indeed, but listless, silent, and dejected.
He took one hasty glance at his eyes; found them, to his great gratification, clear and
dark and brown again as before; and then sat down and tried to cheer him up and help
him to relate what had happened to him.
Poor Ratty did his best, by degrees, to explain things; but how could he put into
cold words what had mostly been suggestion?
How recall, for another's benefit, the haunting sea voices that had sung to him,
how reproduce at second-hand the magic of the Seafarer's hundred reminiscences?
Even to himself, now the spell was broken and the glamour gone, he found it difficult
to account for what had seemed, some hours ago, the inevitable and only thing.
It is not surprising, then, that he failed to convey to the Mole any clear idea of
what he had been through that day.
To the Mole this much was plain: the fit, or attack, had passed away, and had left
him sane again, though shaken and cast down by the reaction.
But he seemed to have lost all interest for the time in the things that went to make up
his daily life, as well as in all pleasant forecastings of the altered days and doings
that the changing season was surely bringing.
Casually, then, and with seeming indifference, the Mole turned his talk to
the harvest that was being gathered in, the towering wagons and their straining teams,
the growing ricks, and the large moon rising over bare acres dotted with sheaves.
He talked of the reddening apples around, of the browning nuts, of jams and preserves
and the distilling of cordials; till by easy stages such as these he reached
midwinter, its hearty joys and its snug
home life, and then he became simply lyrical.
By degrees the Rat began to sit up and to join in.
His dull eye brightened, and he lost some of his listening air.
Presently the tactful Mole slipped away and returned with a pencil and a few half-
sheets of paper, which he placed on the table at his friend's elbow.
'It's quite a long time since you did any poetry,' he remarked.
'You might have a try at it this evening, instead of--well, brooding over things so
much.
I've an idea that you'll feel a lot better when you've got something jotted down--if
it's only just the rhymes.'
The Rat pushed the paper away from him wearily, but the discreet Mole took
occasion to leave the room, and when he peeped in again some time later, the Rat
was absorbed and deaf to the world;
alternately scribbling and sucking the top of his pencil.
It is true that he sucked a good deal more than he scribbled; but it was joy to the
Mole to know that the cure had at least begun.
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