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Title: The Wind in the Willows

Author: Kenneth Grahame

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

Language: English

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

Credits: Mike Lough and David Widger

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

T h e Wi n d i n t h e Wi l l o w s

by Kenneth Grahame

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

Contents

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

I.
THE RIVER BANK

The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning
his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and
steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his
throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an
aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the
earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little
house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder,
then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said “Bother!” and
“O blow!” and also “Hang spring-cleaning!” and bolted out of the house
without even waiting to put on his coat. Something up above was calling
him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in
his case to the gravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences
are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and
scrooged and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and
scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, “Up
we go! Up we go!” till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and
he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.
“This is fine!” he said to himself. “This is better than whitewashing!”
The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes caressed his heated brow,
and after the seclusion of the cellarage he had lived in so long the carol of
happy birds fell on his dulled hearing almost like a shout. Jumping off all
his four legs at once, in the joy of living and the delight of spring without its
cleaning, he pursued his way across the meadow till he reached the hedge
on the further side.
“Hold up!” said an elderly rabbit at the gap. “Sixpence for the privilege
of passing by the private road!” He was bowled over in an instant by the
impatient and contemptuous Mole, who trotted along the side of the hedge

chaffing the other rabbits as they peeped hurriedly from their holes to see
what the row was about. “Onion-sauce! Onion-sauce!” he remarked
jeeringly, and was gone before they could think of a thoroughly satisfactory
reply. Then they all started grumbling at each other. “How stupid you are!
Why didn’t you tell him——” “Well, why didn’t you say——” “You might
have reminded him——” and so on, in the usual way; but, of course, it was
then much too late, as is always the case.
It all seemed too good to be true. Hither and thither through the meadows
he rambled busily, along the hedgerows, across the copses, finding
everywhere birds building, flowers budding, leaves thrusting—everything
happy, and progressive, and occupied. And instead of having an uneasy
conscience pricking him and whispering “whitewash!” he somehow could
only feel how jolly it was to be the only idle dog among all these busy
citizens. After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be
resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.
He thought his happiness was complete when, as he meandered aimlessly
along, suddenly he stood by the edge of a full-fed river. Never in his life
had he seen a river before—this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing
and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh,
to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were
caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver—glints and gleams and
sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched,
entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when
very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting
stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still
chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world,
sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.
As he sat on the grass and looked across the river, a dark hole in the bank
opposite, just above the water’s edge, caught his eye, and dreamily he fell to
considering what a nice snug dwelling-place it would make for an animal
with few wants and fond of a bijou riverside residence, above flood level
and remote from noise and dust. As he gazed, something bright and small
seemed to twinkle down in the heart of it, vanished, then twinkled once
more like a tiny star. But it could hardly be a star in such an unlikely
situation; and it was too glittering and small for a glow-worm. Then, as he

looked, it winked at him, and so declared itself to be an eye; and a small
face began gradually to grow up round it, like a frame round a picture.
A brown little face, with whiskers.
A grave round face, with the same twinkle in its eye that had first
attracted his notice.
Small neat ears and thick silky hair.
It was the Water Rat!
Then the two animals stood and regarded each other cautiously.
“Hullo, Mole!” said the Water Rat.
“Hullo, Rat!” said the Mole.
“Would you like to come over?” enquired the Rat presently.
“Oh, its all very well to talk,” said the Mole, rather pettishly, he being
new to a river and riverside life and its ways.
The Rat said nothing, but stooped and unfastened a rope and hauled on it;
then lightly stepped into a little boat which the Mole had not observed. It
was painted blue outside and white within, and was just the size for two
animals; and the Mole’s whole heart went out to it at once, even though he
did not yet fully understand its uses.
The Rat sculled smartly across and made fast. Then he held up his
forepaw as the Mole stepped gingerly down. “Lean on that!” he said. “Now
then, step lively!” and the Mole to his surprise and rapture found himself
actually seated in the stern of a real boat.
“This has been a wonderful day!” said he, as the Rat shoved off and took
to the sculls again. “Do you know, I’ve never been in a boat before in all
my life.”
“What?” cried the Rat, open-mouthed: “Never been in a—you never—
well I—what have you been doing, then?”
“Is it so nice as all that?” asked the Mole shyly, though he was quite
prepared to believe it as he leant back in his seat and surveyed the cushions,
the oars, the rowlocks, and all the fascinating fittings, and felt the boat sway
lightly under him.
“Nice? It’s the only thing,” said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant
forward for his stroke. “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing—
absolute nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in

boats. Simply messing,” he went on dreamily: “messing—about—in—
boats; messing——”
“Look ahead, Rat!” cried the Mole suddenly.
It was too late. The boat struck the bank full tilt. The dreamer, the joyous
oarsman, lay on his back at the bottom of the boat, his heels in the air.
“—about in boats—or with boats,” the Rat went on composedly, picking
himself up with a pleasant laugh. “In or out of ’em, it doesn’t matter.
Nothing seems really to matter, that’s the charm of it. Whether you get
away, or whether you don’t; whether you arrive at your destination or
whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at
all, you’re always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when
you’ve done it there’s always something else to do, and you can do it if you
like, but you’d much better not. Look here! If you’ve really nothing else on
hand this morning, supposing we drop down the river together, and have a
long day of it?”
The Mole waggled his toes from sheer happiness, spread his chest with a
sigh of full contentment, and leaned back blissfully into the soft cushions.
“What a day I’m having!” he said. “Let us start at once!”
“Hold hard a minute, then!” said the Rat. He looped the painter through a
ring in his landing-stage, climbed up into his hole above, and after a short
interval reappeared staggering under a fat, wicker luncheon-basket.
“Shove that under your feet,” he observed to the Mole, as he passed it
down into the boat. Then he untied the painter and took the sculls again.
“What’s inside it?” asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosity.
“There’s cold chicken inside it,” replied the Rat briefly; “
coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscresssandwiche
spottedme atgingerbeerlemonadesodawater——”
“O stop, stop,” cried the Mole in ecstacies: “This is too much!”
“Do you really think so?” enquired the Rat seriously. “It’s only what I
always take on these little excursions; and the other animals are always
telling me that I’m a mean beast and cut it very fine!”
The Mole never heard a word he was saying. Absorbed in the new life he
was entering upon, intoxicated with the sparkle, the ripple, the scents and
the sounds and the sunlight, he trailed a paw in the water and dreamed long

waking dreams. The Water Rat, like the good little fellow he was, sculled
steadily on and forebore to disturb him.
“I like your clothes awfully, old chap,” he remarked after some half an
hour or so had passed. “I’m going to get a black velvet smoking-suit myself
some day, as soon as I can afford it.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the Mole, pulling himself together with an
effort. “You must think me very rude; but all this is so new to me. So—this
—is—a—River!”
“The River,” corrected the Rat.
“And you really live by the river? What a jolly life!”
“By it and with it and on it and in it,” said the Rat. “It’s brother and sister
to me, and aunts, and company, and food and drink, and (naturally)
washing. It’s my world, and I don’t want any other. What it hasn’t got is not
worth having, and what it doesn’t know is not worth knowing. Lord! the
times we’ve had together! Whether in winter or summer, spring or autumn,
it’s always got its fun and its excitements. When the floods are on in
February, and my cellars and basement are brimming with drink that’s no
good to me, and the brown water runs by my best bedroom window; or
again when it all drops away and, shows patches of mud that smells like
plum-cake, and the rushes and weed clog the channels, and I can potter
about dry shod over most of the bed of it and find fresh food to eat, and
things careless people have dropped out of boats!”
“But isn’t it a bit dull at times?” the Mole ventured to ask. “Just you and
the river, and no one else to pass a word with?”
“No one else to—well, I mustn’t be hard on you,” said the Rat with
forbearance. “You’re new to it, and of course you don’t know. The bank is
so crowded nowadays that many people are moving away altogether: O no,
it isn’t what it used to be, at all. Otters, kingfishers, dabchicks, moorhens,
all of them about all day long and always wanting you to do something—as
if a fellow had no business of his own to attend to!”
“What lies over there?” asked the Mole, waving a paw towards a
background of woodland that darkly framed the water-meadows on one side
of the river.
“That? O, that’s just the Wild Wood,” said the Rat shortly. “We don’t go
there very much, we river-bankers.”

“Aren’t they—aren’t they very nice people in there?” said the Mole, a
trifle nervously.
“W-e-ll,” replied the Rat, “let me see. The squirrels are all right. And the
rabbits—some of ’em, but rabbits are a mixed lot. And then there’s Badger,
of course. He lives right in the heart of it; wouldn’t live anywhere else,
either, if you paid him to do it. Dear old Badger! Nobody interferes with
him. They’d better not,” he added significantly.
“Why, who should interfere with him?” asked the Mole.
“Well, of course—there—are others,” explained the Rat in a hesitating
sort of way.
“Weasels—and stoats—and foxes—and so on. They’re all right in a way
—I’m very good friends with them—pass the time of day when we meet,
and all that—but they break out sometimes, there’s no denying it, and then
—well, you can’t really trust them, and that’s the fact.”
The Mole knew well that it is quite against animal-etiquette to dwell on
possible trouble ahead, or even to allude to it; so he dropped the subject.
“And beyond the Wild Wood again?” he asked: “Where it’s all blue and
dim, and one sees what may be hills or perhaps they mayn’t, and something
like the smoke of towns, or is it only cloud-drift?”
“Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,” said the Rat. “And
that’s something that doesn’t matter, either to you or me. I’ve never been
there, and I’m never going, nor you either, if you’ve got any sense at all.
Don’t ever refer to it again, please. Now then! Here’s our backwater at last,
where we’re going to lunch.”
Leaving the main stream, they now passed into what seemed at first sight
like a little land-locked lake. Green turf sloped down to either edge, brown
snaky tree-roots gleamed below the surface of the quiet water, while ahead
of them the silvery shoulder and foamy tumble of a weir, arm-in-arm with a
restless dripping mill-wheel, that held up in its turn a grey-gabled mill-
house, filled the air with a soothing murmur of sound, dull and smothery,
yet with little clear voices speaking up cheerfully out of it at intervals. It
was so very beautiful that the Mole could only hold up both forepaws and
gasp, “O my! O my! O my!”
The Rat brought the boat alongside the bank, made her fast, helped the
still awkward Mole safely ashore, and swung out the luncheon-basket. The

Mole begged as a favour to be allowed to unpack it all by himself; and the
Rat was very pleased to indulge him, and to sprawl at full length on the
grass and rest, while his excited friend shook out the table-cloth and spread
it, took out all the mysterious packets one by one and arranged their
contents in due order, still gasping, “O my! O my!” at each fresh revelation.
When all was ready, the Rat said, “Now, pitch in, old fellow!” and the Mole
was indeed very glad to obey, for he had started his spring-cleaning at a
very early hour that morning, as people will do, and had not paused for bite
or sup; and he had been through a very great deal since that distant time
which now seemed so many days ago.
“What are you looking at?” said the Rat presently, when the edge of their
hunger was somewhat dulled, and the Mole’s eyes were able to wander off
the table-cloth a little.
“I am looking,” said the Mole, “at a streak of bubbles that I see travelling
along the surface of the water. That is a thing that strikes me as funny.”
“Bubbles? Oho!” said the Rat, and chirruped cheerily in an inviting sort
of way.
A broad glistening muzzle showed itself above the edge of the bank, and
the Otter hauled himself out and shook the water from his coat.
“Greedy beggars!” he observed, making for the provender. “Why didn’t
you invite me, Ratty?”
“This was an impromptu affair,” explained the Rat. “By the way—my
friend Mr. Mole.”
“Proud, I’m sure,” said the Otter, and the two animals were friends
forthwith.
“Such a rumpus everywhere!” continued the Otter. “All the world seems
out on the river to-day. I came up this backwater to try and get a moment’s
peace, and then stumble upon you fellows!—At least—I beg pardon—I
don’t exactly mean that, you know.”
There was a rustle behind them, proceeding from a hedge wherein last
year’s leaves still clung thick, and a stripy head, with high shoulders behind
it, peered forth on them.
“Come on, old Badger!” shouted the Rat.
The Badger trotted forward a pace or two; then grunted, “H’m!
Company,” and turned his back and disappeared from view.

“That’s just the sort of fellow he is!” observed the disappointed Rat.
“Simply hates Society! Now we shan’t see any more of him to-day. Well,
tell us, who’s out on the river?”
“Toad’s out, for one,” replied the Otter. “In his brand-new wager-boat;
new togs, new everything!”
The two animals looked at each other and laughed.
“Once, it was nothing but sailing,” said the Rat, “Then he tired of that
and took to punting. Nothing would please him but to punt all day and
every day, and a nice mess he made of it. Last year it was house-boating,
and we all had to go and stay with him in his house-boat, and pretend we
liked it. He was going to spend the rest of his life in a house-boat. It’s all the
same, whatever he takes up; he gets tired of it, and starts on something
fresh.”
“Such a good fellow, too,” remarked the Otter reflectively: “But no
stability—especially in a boat!”
From where they sat they could get a glimpse of the main stream across
the island that separated them; and just then a wager-boat flashed into view,
the rower—a short, stout figure—splashing badly and rolling a good deal,
but working his hardest. The Rat stood up and hailed him, but Toad—for it
was he—shook his head and settled sternly to his work.
“He’ll be out of the boat in a minute if he rolls like that,” said the Rat,
sitting down again.
“Of course he will,” chuckled the Otter. “Did I ever tell you that good
story about Toad and the lock-keeper? It happened this way. Toad....”
An errant May-fly swerved unsteadily athwart the current in the
intoxicated fashion affected by young bloods of May-flies seeing life. A
swirl of water and a “cloop!” and the May-fly was visible no more.
Neither was the Otter.
The Mole looked down. The voice was still in his ears, but the turf
whereon he had sprawled was clearly vacant. Not an Otter to be seen, as far
as the distant horizon.
But again there was a streak of bubbles on the surface of the river.
The Rat hummed a tune, and the Mole recollected that animal-etiquette
forbade any sort of comment on the sudden disappearance of one’s friends

at any moment, for any reason or no reason whatever.
“Well, well,” said the Rat, “I suppose we ought to be moving. I wonder
which of us had better pack the luncheon-basket?” He did not speak as if he
was frightfully eager for the treat.
“O, please let me,” said the Mole. So, of course, the Rat let him.
Packing the basket was not quite such pleasant work as unpacking the
basket. It never is. But the Mole was bent on enjoying everything, and
although just when he had got the basket packed and strapped up tightly he
saw a plate staring up at him from the grass, and when the job had been
done again the Rat pointed out a fork which anybody ought to have seen,
and last of all, behold! the mustard pot, which he had been sitting on
without knowing it—still, somehow, the thing got finished at last, without
much loss of temper.
The afternoon sun was getting low as the Rat sculled gently homewards
in a dreamy mood, murmuring poetry-things over to himself, and not
paying much attention to Mole. But the Mole was very full of lunch, and
self-satisfaction, and pride, and already quite at home in a boat (so he
thought) and was getting a bit restless besides: and presently he said,
“Ratty! Please, I want to row, now!”
The Rat shook his head with a smile. “Not yet, my young friend,” he said
—“wait till you’ve had a few lessons. It’s not so easy as it looks.”
The Mole was quiet for a minute or two. But he began to feel more and
more jealous of Rat, sculling so strongly and so easily along, and his pride
began to whisper that he could do it every bit as well. He jumped up and
seized the sculls, so suddenly, that the Rat, who was gazing out over the
water and saying more poetry-things to himself, was taken by surprise and
fell backwards off his seat with his legs in the air for the second time, while
the triumphant Mole took his place and grabbed the sculls with entire
confidence.
“Stop it, you silly ass!” cried the Rat, from the bottom of the boat. “You
can’t do it! You’ll have us over!”
The Mole flung his sculls back with a flourish, and made a great dig at
the water. He missed the surface altogether, his legs flew up above his head,
and he found himself lying on the top of the prostrate Rat. Greatly alarmed,
he made a grab at the side of the boat, and the next moment—Sploosh!

Over went the boat, and he found himself struggling in the river.
O my, how cold the water was, and O, how very wet it felt. How it sang
in his ears as he went down, down, down! How bright and welcome the sun
looked as he rose to the surface coughing and spluttering! How black was
his despair when he felt himself sinking again! Then a firm paw gripped
him by the back of his neck. It was the Rat, and he was evidently laughing
—the Mole could feel him laughing, right down his arm and through his
paw, and so into his—the Mole’s—neck.
The Rat got hold of a scull and shoved it under the Mole’s arm; then he
did the same by the other side of him and, swimming behind, propelled the
helpless animal to shore, hauled him out, and set him down on the bank, a
squashy, pulpy lump of misery.
When the Rat had rubbed him down a bit, and wrung some of the wet out
of him, he said, “Now, then, old fellow! Trot up and down the towing-path
as hard as you can, till you’re warm and dry again, while I dive for the
luncheon-basket.”
So the dismal Mole, wet without and ashamed within, trotted about till he
was fairly dry, while the Rat plunged into the water again, recovered the
boat, righted her and made her fast, fetched his floating property to shore by
degrees, and finally dived successfully for the luncheon-basket and
struggled to land with it.
When all was ready for a start once more, the Mole, limp and dejected,
took his seat in the stern of the boat; and as they set off, he said in a low
voice, broken with emotion, “Ratty, my generous friend! I am very sorry
indeed for my foolish and ungrateful conduct. My heart quite fails me when
I think how I might have lost that beautiful luncheon-basket. Indeed, I have
been a complete ass, and I know it. Will you overlook it this once and
forgive me, and let things go on as before?”
“That’s all right, bless you!” responded the Rat cheerily. “What’s a little
wet to a Water Rat? I’m more in the water than out of it most days. Don’t
you think any more about it; and, look here! I really think you had better
come and stop with me for a little time. It’s very plain and rough, you know
—not like Toad’s house at all—but you haven’t seen that yet; still, I can
make you comfortable. And I’ll teach you to row, and to swim, and you’ll
soon be as handy on the water as any of us.”

The Mole was so touched by his kind manner of speaking that he could
find no voice to answer him; and he had to brush away a tear or two with
the back of his paw. But the Rat kindly looked in another direction, and
presently the Mole’s spirits revived again, and he was even able to give
some straight back-talk to a couple of moorhens who were sniggering to
each other about his bedraggled appearance.
When they got home, the Rat made a bright fire in the parlour, and
planted the Mole in an arm-chair in front of it, having fetched down a
dressing-gown and slippers for him, and told him river stories till supper-
time. Very thrilling stories they were, too, to an earth-dwelling animal like
Mole. Stories about weirs, and sudden floods, and leaping pike, and
steamers that flung hard bottles—at least bottles were certainly flung, and
from steamers, so presumably by them; and about herons, and how
particular they were whom they spoke to; and about adventures down
drains, and night-fishings with Otter, or excursions far a-field with Badger.
Supper was a most cheerful meal; but very shortly afterwards a terribly
sleepy Mole had to be escorted upstairs by his considerate host, to the best
bedroom, where he soon laid his head on his pillow in great peace and
contentment, knowing that his new-found friend the River was lapping the
sill of his window.
This day was only the first of many similar ones for the emancipated
Mole, each of them longer and full of interest as the ripening summer
moved onward. He learnt to swim and to row, and entered into the joy of
running water; and with his ear to the reed-stems he caught, at intervals,
something of what the wind went whispering so constantly among them.

II.
THE OPEN ROAD

“Ratty,” said the Mole suddenly, one bright summer morning, “if you
please, I want to ask you a favour.”
The Rat was sitting on the river bank, singing a little song. He had just
composed it himself, so he was very taken up with it, and would not pay
proper attention to Mole or anything else. Since early morning he had been
swimming in the river, in company with his friends the ducks. And when
the ducks stood on their heads suddenly, as ducks will, he would dive down
and tickle their necks, just under where their chins would be if ducks had
chins, till they were forced to come to the surface again in a hurry,
spluttering and angry and shaking their feathers at him, for it is impossible
to say quite all you feel when your head is under water. At last they
implored him to go away and attend to his own affairs and leave them to
mind theirs. So the Rat went away, and sat on the river bank in the sun, and
made up a song about them, which he called
“DUCKS’ DITTY.”

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

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

Everyone for what he likes!

We like to be
Heads down, tails up,
Dabbling free!

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

“I don’t know that I think so very much of that little song, Rat,” observed
the Mole cautiously. He was no poet himself and didn’t care who knew it;
and he had a candid nature.
“Nor don’t the ducks neither,” replied the Rat cheerfully. “They say,
‘Why can’t fellows be allowed to do what they like when they like and as
they like, instead of other fellows sitting on banks and watching them all
the time and making remarks and poetry and things about them? What
nonsense it all is!’ That’s what the ducks say.”
“So it is, so it is,” said the Mole, with great heartiness.
“No, it isn’t!” cried the Rat indignantly.
“Well then, it isn’t, it isn’t,” replied the Mole soothingly. “But what I
wanted to ask you was, won’t you take me to call on Mr. Toad? I’ve heard
so much about him, and I do so want to make his acquaintance.”
“Why, certainly,” said the good-natured Rat, jumping to his feet and
dismissing poetry from his mind for the day. “Get the boat out, and we’ll
paddle up there at once. It’s never the wrong time to call on Toad. Early or
late he’s always the same fellow. Always good-tempered, always glad to see
you, always sorry when you go!”
“He must be a very nice animal,” observed the Mole, as he got into the
boat and took the sculls, while the Rat settled himself comfortably in the
stern.
“He is indeed the best of animals,” replied Rat. “So simple, so good-
natured, and so affectionate. Perhaps he’s not very clever—we can’t all be
geniuses; and it may be that he is both boastful and conceited. But he has
got some great qualities, has Toady.”
Rounding a bend in the river, they came in sight of a handsome, dignified
old house of mellowed red brick, with well-kept lawns reaching down to the
water’s edge.

“There’s Toad Hall,” said the Rat; “and that creek on the left, where the
notice-board says, ‘Private. No landing allowed,’ leads to his boat-house,
where we’ll leave the boat. The stables are over there to the right. That’s the
banqueting-hall you’re looking at now—very old, that is. Toad is rather
rich, you know, and this is really one of the nicest houses in these parts,
though we never admit as much to Toad.”
They glided up the creek, and the Mole shipped his sculls as they passed
into the shadow of a large boat-house. Here they saw many handsome
boats, slung from the cross beams or hauled up on a slip, but none in the
water; and the place had an unused and a deserted air.
The Rat looked around him. “I understand,” said he. “Boating is played
out. He’s tired of it, and done with it. I wonder what new fad he has taken
up now? Come along and let’s look him up. We shall hear all about it quite
soon enough.”
They disembarked, and strolled across the gay flower-decked lawns in
search of Toad, whom they presently happened upon resting in a wicker
garden-chair, with a pre-occupied expression of face, and a large map
spread out on his knees.
“Hooray!” he cried, jumping up on seeing them, “this is splendid!” He
shook the paws of both of them warmly, never waiting for an introduction
to the Mole. “How kind of you!” he went on, dancing round them. “I was
just going to send a boat down the river for you, Ratty, with strict orders
that you were to be fetched up here at once, whatever you were doing. I
want you badly—both of you. Now what will you take? Come inside and
have something! You don’t know how lucky it is, your turning up just
now!”
“Let’s sit quiet a bit, Toady!” said the Rat, throwing himself into an easy
chair, while the Mole took another by the side of him and made some civil
remark about Toad’s “delightful residence.”
“Finest house on the whole river,” cried Toad boisterously. “Or anywhere
else, for that matter,” he could not help adding.
Here the Rat nudged the Mole. Unfortunately the Toad saw him do it, and
turned very red. There was a moment’s painful silence. Then Toad burst out
laughing. “All right, Ratty,” he said. “It’s only my way, you know. And it’s
not such a very bad house, is it? You know you rather like it yourself. Now,

look here. Let’s be sensible. You are the very animals I wanted. You’ve got
to help me. It’s most important!”
“It’s about your rowing, I suppose,” said the Rat, with an innocent air.
“You’re getting on fairly well, though you splash a good bit still. With a
great deal of patience, and any quantity of coaching, you may——”
“O, pooh! boating!” interrupted the Toad, in great disgust. “Silly boyish
amusement. I’ve given that up long ago. Sheer waste of time, that’s what it
is. It makes me downright sorry to see you fellows, who ought to know
better, spending all your energies in that aimless manner. No, I’ve
discovered the real thing, the only genuine occupation for a life time. I
propose to devote the remainder of mine to it, and can only regret the
wasted years that lie behind me, squandered in trivialities. Come with me,
dear Ratty, and your amiable friend also, if he will be so very good, just as
far as the stable-yard, and you shall see what you shall see!”
He led the way to the stable-yard accordingly, the Rat following with a
most mistrustful expression; and there, drawn out of the coach house into
the open, they saw a gipsy caravan, shining with newness, painted a canary-
yellow picked out with green, and red wheels.
“There you are!” cried the Toad, straddling and expanding himself.
“There’s real life for you, embodied in that little cart. The open road, the
dusty highway, the heath, the common, the hedgerows, the rolling downs!
Camps, villages, towns, cities! Here to-day, up and off to somewhere else
to-morrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement! The whole world before
you, and a horizon that’s always changing! And mind! this is the very finest
cart of its sort that was ever built, without any exception. Come inside and
look at the arrangements. Planned ’em all myself, I did!”
The Mole was tremendously interested and excited, and followed him
eagerly up the steps and into the interior of the caravan. The Rat only
snorted and thrust his hands deep into his pockets, remaining where he was.
It was indeed very compact and comfortable. Little sleeping bunks—a
little table that folded up against the wall—a cooking-stove, lockers,
bookshelves, a bird-cage with a bird in it; and pots, pans, jugs and kettles of
every size and variety.
“All complete!” said the Toad triumphantly, pulling open a locker. “You
see—biscuits, potted lobster, sardines—everything you can possibly want.
Soda-water here—baccy there—letter-paper, bacon, jam, cards and

dominoes—you’ll find,” he continued, as they descended the steps again,
“you’ll find that nothing what ever has been forgotten, when we make our
start this afternoon.”
“I beg your pardon,” said the Rat slowly, as he chewed a straw, “but did I
overhear you say something about ‘we,’ and ‘start,’ and ‘this afternoon?’”
“Now, you dear good old Ratty,” said Toad, imploringly, “don’t begin
talking in that stiff and sniffy sort of way, because you know you’ve got to
come. I can’t possibly manage without you, so please consider it settled,
and don’t argue—it’s the one thing I can’t stand. You surely don’t mean to
stick to your dull fusty old river all your life, and just live in a hole in a
bank, and boat? I want to show you the world! I’m going to make an
animal of you, my boy!”
“I don’t care,” said the Rat, doggedly. “I’m not coming, and that’s flat.
And I am going to stick to my old river, and live in a hole, and boat, as I’ve
always done. And what’s more, Mole’s going to stick to me and do as I do,
aren’t you, Mole?”
“Of course I am,” said the Mole, loyally. “I’ll always stick to you, Rat,
and what you say is to be—has got to be. All the same, it sounds as if it
might have been—well, rather fun, you know!” he added, wistfully. Poor
Mole! The Life Adventurous was so new a thing to him, and so thrilling;
and this fresh aspect of it was so tempting; and he had fallen in love at first
sight with the canary-coloured cart and all its little fitments.
The Rat saw what was passing in his mind, and wavered. He hated
disappointing people, and he was fond of the Mole, and would do almost
anything to oblige him. Toad was watching both of them closely.
“Come along in, and have some lunch,” he said, diplomatically, “and
we’ll talk it over. We needn’t decide anything in a hurry. Of course, I don’t
really care. I only want to give pleasure to you fellows. ‘Live for others!’
That’s my motto in life.”
During luncheon—which was excellent, of course, as everything at Toad
Hall always was—the Toad simply let himself go. Disregarding the Rat, he
proceeded to play upon the inexperienced Mole as on a harp. Naturally a
voluble animal, and always mastered by his imagination, he painted the
prospects of the trip and the joys of the open life and the roadside in such
glowing colours that the Mole could hardly sit in his chair for excitement.
Somehow, it soon seemed taken for granted by all three of them that the trip

was a settled thing; and the Rat, though still unconvinced in his mind,
allowed his good-nature to over-ride his personal objections. He could not
bear to disappoint his two friends, who were already deep in schemes and
anticipations, planning out each day’s separate occupation for several weeks
ahead.
When they were quite ready, the now triumphant Toad led his
companions to the paddock and set them to capture the old grey horse, who,
without having been consulted, and to his own extreme annoyance, had
been told off by Toad for the dustiest job in this dusty expedition. He
frankly preferred the paddock, and took a deal of catching. Meantime Toad
packed the lockers still tighter with necessaries, and hung nosebags, nets of
onions, bundles of hay, and baskets from the bottom of the cart. At last the
horse was caught and harnessed, and they set off, all talking at once, each
animal either trudging by the side of the cart or sitting on the shaft, as the
humour took him. It was a golden afternoon. The smell of the dust they
kicked up was rich and satisfying; out of thick orchards on either side the
road, birds called and whistled to them cheerily; good-natured wayfarers,
passing them, gave them “Good-day,” or stopped to say nice things about
their beautiful cart; and rabbits, sitting at their front doors in the hedgerows,
held up their fore-paws, and said, “O my! O my! O my!”
Late in the evening, tired and happy and miles from home, they drew up
on a remote common far from habitations, turned the horse loose to graze,
and ate their simple supper sitting on the grass by the side of the cart. Toad
talked big about all he was going to do in the days to come, while stars
grew fuller and larger all around them, and a yellow moon, appearing
suddenly and silently from nowhere in particular, came to keep them
company and listen to their talk. At last they turned in to their little bunks in
the cart; and Toad, kicking out his legs, sleepily said, “Well, good night,
you fellows! This is the real life for a gentleman! Talk about your old
river!”
“I don’t talk about my river,” replied the patient Rat. “You know I don’t,
Toad. But I think about it,” he added pathetically, in a lower tone: “I think
about it—all the time!”
The Mole reached out from under his blanket, felt for the Rat’s paw in
the darkness, and gave it a squeeze. “I’ll do whatever you like, Ratty,” he

whispered. “Shall we run away to-morrow morning, quite early—very early
—and go back to our dear old hole on the river?”
“No, no, we’ll see it out,” whispered back the Rat. “Thanks awfully, but I
ought to stick by Toad till this trip is ended. It wouldn’t be safe for him to
be left to himself. It won’t take very long. His fads never do. Good night!”
The end was indeed nearer than even the Rat suspected.
After so much open air and excitement the Toad slept very soundly, and
no amount of shaking could rouse him out of bed next morning. So the
Mole and Rat turned to, quietly and manfully, and while the Rat saw to the
horse, and lit a fire, and cleaned last night’s cups and platters, and got things
ready for breakfast, the Mole trudged off to the nearest village, a long way
off, for milk and eggs and various necessaries the Toad had, of course,
forgotten to provide. The hard work had all been done, and the two animals
were resting, thoroughly exhausted, by the time Toad appeared on the
scene, fresh and gay, remarking what a pleasant easy life it was they were
all leading now, after the cares and worries and fatigues of housekeeping at
home.
They had a pleasant ramble that day over grassy downs and along narrow
by-lanes, and camped as before, on a common, only this time the two guests
took care that Toad should do his fair share of work. In consequence, when
the time came for starting next morning, Toad was by no means so
rapturous about the simplicity of the primitive life, and indeed attempted to
resume his place in his bunk, whence he was hauled by force. Their way
lay, as before, across country by narrow lanes, and it was not till the
afternoon that they came out on the high-road, their first high-road; and
there disaster, fleet and unforeseen, sprang out on them—disaster
momentous indeed to their expedition, but simply overwhelming in its
effect on the after-career of Toad.
They were strolling along the high-road easily, the Mole by the horse’s
head, talking to him, since the horse had complained that he was being
frightfully left out of it, and nobody considered him in the least; the Toad
and the Water Rat walking behind the cart talking together—at least Toad
was talking, and Rat was saying at intervals, “Yes, precisely; and what did
you say to him?”—and thinking all the time of something very different,
when far behind them they heard a faint warning hum; like the drone of a
distant bee. Glancing back, they saw a small cloud of dust, with a dark

centre of energy, advancing on them at incredible speed, while from out the
dust a faint “Poop-poop!” wailed like an uneasy animal in pain. Hardly
regarding it, they turned to resume their conversation, when in an instant (as
it seemed) the peaceful scene was changed, and with a blast of wind and a
whirl of sound that made them jump for the nearest ditch, It was on them!
The “Poop-poop” rang with a brazen shout in their ears, they had a
moment’s glimpse of an interior of glittering plate-glass and rich morocco,
and the magnificent motor-car, immense, breath-snatching, passionate, with
its pilot tense and hugging his wheel, possessed all earth and air for the
fraction of a second, flung an enveloping cloud of dust that blinded and
enwrapped them utterly, and then dwindled to a speck in the far distance,
changed back into a droning bee once more.
The old grey horse, dreaming, as he plodded along, of his quiet paddock,
in a new raw situation such as this simply abandoned himself to his natural
emotions. Rearing, plunging, backing steadily, in spite of all the Mole’s
efforts at his head, and all the Mole’s lively language directed at his better
feelings, he drove the cart backwards towards the deep ditch at the side of
the road. It wavered an instant—then there was a heartrending crash—and
the canary-coloured cart, their pride and their joy, lay on its side in the
ditch, an irredeemable wreck.
The Rat danced up and down in the road, simply transported with
passion. “You villains!” he shouted, shaking both fists, “You scoundrels,
you highwaymen, you—you—roadhogs!—I’ll have the law of you! I’ll
report you! I’ll take you through all the Courts!” His home-sickness had
quite slipped away from him, and for the moment he was the skipper of the
canary-coloured vessel driven on a shoal by the reckless jockeying of rival
mariners, and he was trying to recollect all the fine and biting things he
used to say to masters of steam-launches when their wash, as they drove too
near the bank, used to flood his parlour-carpet at home.
Toad sat straight down in the middle of the dusty road, his legs stretched
out before him, and stared fixedly in the direction of the disappearing
motor-car. He breathed short, his face wore a placid satisfied expression,
and at intervals he faintly murmured “Poop-poop!”
The Mole was busy trying to quiet the horse, which he succeeded in
doing after a time. Then he went to look at the cart, on its side in the ditch.
It was indeed a sorry sight. Panels and windows smashed, axles hopelessly

bent, one wheel off, sardine-tins scattered over the wide world, and the bird
in the bird-cage sobbing pitifully and calling to be let out.
The Rat came to help him, but their united efforts were not sufficient to
right the cart. “Hi! Toad!” they cried. “Come and bear a hand, can’t you!”
The Toad never answered a word, or budged from his seat in the road; so
they went to see what was the matter with him. They found him in a sort of
a trance, a happy smile on his face, his eyes still fixed on the dusty wake of
their destroyer. At intervals he was still heard to murmur “Poop-poop!”
The Rat shook him by the shoulder. “Are you coming to help us, Toad?”
he demanded sternly.
“Glorious, stirring sight!” murmured Toad, never offering to move. “The
poetry of motion! The real way to travel! The only way to travel! Here to-
day—in next week to-morrow! Villages skipped, towns and cities jumped—
always somebody else’s horizon! O bliss! O poop-poop! O my! O my!”
“O stop being an ass, Toad!” cried the Mole despairingly.
“And to think I never knew!” went on the Toad in a dreamy monotone.
“All those wasted years that lie behind me, I never knew, never even
dreamt! But now—but now that I know, now that I fully realise! O what a
flowery track lies spread before me, henceforth! What dust-clouds shall
spring up behind me as I speed on my reckless way! What carts I shall fling
carelessly into the ditch in the wake of my magnificent onset! Horrid little
carts—common carts—canary-coloured carts!”
“What are we to do with him?” asked the Mole of the Water Rat.
“Nothing at all,” replied the Rat firmly. “Because there is really nothing
to be done. You see, I know him from of old. He is now possessed. He has
got a new craze, and it always takes him that way, in its first stage. He’ll
continue like that for days now, like an animal walking in a happy dream,
quite useless for all practical purposes. Never mind him. Let’s go and see
what there is to be done about the cart.”
A careful inspection showed them that, even if they succeeded in righting
it by themselves, the cart would travel no longer. The axles were in a
hopeless state, and the missing wheel was shattered into pieces.
The Rat knotted the horse’s reins over his back and took him by the head,
carrying the bird cage and its hysterical occupant in the other hand. “Come

on!” he said grimly to the Mole. “It’s five or six miles to the nearest town,
and we shall just have to walk it. The sooner we make a start the better.”
“But what about Toad?” asked the Mole anxiously, as they set off
together. “We can’t leave him here, sitting in the middle of the road by
himself, in the distracted state he’s in! It’s not safe. Supposing another
Thing were to come along?”
“O, bother Toad,” said the Rat savagely; “I’ve done with him!”
They had not proceeded very far on their way, however, when there was a
pattering of feet behind them, and Toad caught them up and thrust a paw
inside the elbow of each of them; still breathing short and staring into
vacancy.
“Now, look here, Toad!” said the Rat sharply: “as soon as we get to the
town, you’ll have to go straight to the police-station, and see if they know
anything about that motor-car and who it belongs to, and lodge a complaint
against it. And then you’ll have to go to a blacksmith’s or a wheelwright’s
and arrange for the cart to be fetched and mended and put to rights. It’ll
take time, but it’s not quite a hopeless smash. Meanwhile, the Mole and I
will go to an inn and find comfortable rooms where we can stay till the
cart’s ready, and till your nerves have recovered their shock.”
“Police-station! Complaint!” murmured Toad dreamily. “Me complain of
that beautiful, that heavenly vision that has been vouchsafed me! Mend the
cart! I’ve done with carts for ever. I never want to see the cart, or to hear of
it, again. O, Ratty! You can’t think how obliged I am to you for consenting
to come on this trip! I wouldn’t have gone without you, and then I might
never have seen that—that swan, that sunbeam, that thunderbolt! I might
never have heard that entrancing sound, or smelt that bewitching smell! I
owe it all to you, my best of friends!”
The Rat turned from him in despair. “You see what it is?” he said to the
Mole, addressing him across Toad’s head: “He’s quite hopeless. I give it up
—when we get to the town we’ll go to the railway station, and with luck we
may pick up a train there that’ll get us back to riverbank to-night. And if
ever you catch me going a-pleasuring with this provoking animal again!”—
He snorted, and during the rest of that weary trudge addressed his remarks
exclusively to Mole.
On reaching the town they went straight to the station and deposited Toad
in the second-class waiting-room, giving a porter twopence to keep a strict

eye on him. They then left the horse at an inn stable, and gave what
directions they could about the cart and its contents. Eventually, a slow train
having landed them at a station not very far from Toad Hall, they escorted
the spell-bound, sleep-walking Toad to his door, put him inside it, and
instructed his housekeeper to feed him, undress him, and put him to bed.
Then they got out their boat from the boat-house, sculled down the river
home, and at a very late hour sat down to supper in their own cosy riverside
parlour, to the Rat’s great joy and contentment.
The following evening the Mole, who had risen late and taken things
very easy all day, was sitting on the bank fishing, when the Rat, who had
been looking up his friends and gossiping, came strolling along to find him.
“Heard the news?” he said. “There’s nothing else being talked about, all
along the river bank. Toad went up to Town by an early train this morning.
And he has ordered a large and very expensive motor-car.”

III.
THE WILD WOOD

The Mole had long wanted to make the acquaintance of the Badger. He
seemed, by all accounts, to be such an important personage and, though
rarely visible, to make his unseen influence felt by everybody about the
place. But whenever the Mole mentioned his wish to the Water Rat he
always found himself put off. “It’s all right,” the Rat would say. “Badger’ll
turn up some day or other—he’s always turning up—and then I’ll introduce
you. The best of fellows! But you must not only take him as you find him,
but when you find him.”
“Couldn’t you ask him here dinner or something?” said the Mole.
“He wouldn’t come,” replied the Rat simply. “Badger hates Society, and
invitations, and dinner, and all that sort of thing.”
“Well, then, supposing we go and call on him?” suggested the Mole.
“O, I’m sure he wouldn’t like that at all,” said the Rat, quite alarmed.
“He’s so very shy, he’d be sure to be offended. I’ve never even ventured to
call on him at his own home myself, though I know him so well. Besides,
we can’t. It’s quite out of the question, because he lives in the very middle
of the Wild Wood.”
“Well, supposing he does,” said the Mole. “You told me the Wild Wood
was all right, you know.”
“O, I know, I know, so it is,” replied the Rat evasively. “But I think we
won’t go there just now. Not just yet. It’s a long way, and he wouldn’t be at
home at this time of year anyhow, and he’ll be coming along some day, if
you’ll wait quietly.”
The Mole had to be content with this. But the Badger never came along,
and every day brought its amusements, and it was not till summer was long
over, and cold and frost and miry ways kept them much indoors, and the

swollen river raced past outside their windows with a speed that mocked at
boating of any sort or kind, that he found his thoughts dwelling again with
much persistence on the solitary grey Badger, who lived his own life by
himself, in his hole in the middle of the Wild Wood.
In the winter time the Rat slept a great deal, retiring early and rising late.
During his short day he sometimes scribbled poetry or did other small
domestic jobs about the house; and, of course, there were always animals
dropping in for a chat, and consequently there was a good deal of story-
telling and comparing notes on the past summer and all its doings.
Such a rich chapter it had been, when one came to look back on it all!
With illustrations so numerous and so very highly coloured! The pageant of
the river bank had marched steadily along, unfolding itself in scene-pictures
that succeeded each other in stately procession. Purple loosestrife arrived
early, shaking luxuriant tangled locks along the edge of the mirror whence
its own face laughed back at it. Willow-herb, tender and wistful, like a pink
sunset cloud, was not slow to follow. Comfrey, the purple hand-in-hand
with the white, crept forth to take its place in the line; and at last one
morning the diffident and delaying dog-rose stepped delicately on the stage,
and one knew, as if string-music had announced it in stately chords that
strayed into a gavotte, that June at last was here. One member of the
company was still awaited; the shepherd-boy for the nymphs to woo, the
knight for whom the ladies waited at the window, the prince that was to kiss
the sleeping summer back to life and love. But when meadow-sweet,
debonair and odorous in amber jerkin, moved graciously to his place in the
group, then the play was ready to begin.
And what a play it had been! Drowsy animals, snug in their holes while
wind and rain were battering at their doors, recalled still keen mornings, an
hour before sunrise, when the white mist, as yet undispersed, clung closely
along the surface of the water; then the shock of the early plunge, the
scamper along the bank, and the radiant transformation of earth, air, and
water, when suddenly the sun was with them again, and grey was gold and
colour was born and sprang out of the earth once more. They recalled the
languorous siesta of hot mid-day, deep in green undergrowth, the sun
striking through in tiny golden shafts and spots; the boating and bathing of
the afternoon, the rambles along dusty lanes and through yellow cornfields;
and the long, cool evening at last, when so many threads were gathered up,

so many friendships rounded, and so many adventures planned for the
morrow. There was plenty to talk about on those short winter days when the
animals found themselves round the fire; still, the Mole had a good deal of
spare time on his hands, and so one afternoon, when the Rat in his arm-
chair before the blaze was alternately dozing and trying over rhymes that
wouldn’t fit, he formed the resolution to go out by himself and explore the
Wild Wood, and perhaps strike up an acquaintance with Mr. Badger.
It was a cold still afternoon with a hard steely sky overhead, when he
slipped out of the warm parlour into the open air. The country lay bare and
entirely leafless around him, and he thought that he had never seen so far
and so intimately into the insides of things as on that winter day when
Nature was deep in her annual slumber and seemed to have kicked the
clothes off. Copses, dells, quarries and all hidden places, which had been
mysterious mines for exploration in leafy summer, now exposed themselves
and their secrets pathetically, and seemed to ask him to overlook their
shabby poverty for a while, till they could riot in rich masquerade as before,
and trick and entice him with the old deceptions. It was pitiful in a way, and
yet cheering—even exhilarating. He was glad that he liked the country
undecorated, hard, and stripped of its finery. He had got down to the bare
bones of it, and they were fine and strong and simple. He did not want the
warm clover and the play of seeding grasses; the screens of quickset, the
billowy drapery of beech and elm seemed best away; and with great
cheerfulness of spirit he pushed on towards the Wild Wood, which lay
before him low and threatening, like a black reef in some still southern sea.
There was nothing to alarm him at first entry. Twigs crackled under his
feet, logs tripped him, funguses on stumps resembled caricatures, and
startled him for the moment by their likeness to something familiar and far
away; but that was all fun, and exciting. It led him on, and he penetrated to
where the light was less, and trees crouched nearer and nearer, and holes
made ugly mouths at him on either side.
Everything was very still now. The dusk advanced on him steadily,
rapidly, gathering in behind and before; and the light seemed to be draining
away like flood-water.
Then the faces began.
It was over his shoulder, and indistinctly, that he first thought he saw a
face; a little evil wedge-shaped face, looking out at him from a hole. When

he turned and confronted it, the thing had vanished.
He quickened his pace, telling himself cheerfully not to begin imagining
things, or there would be simply no end to it. He passed another hole, and
another, and another; and then—yes!—no!—yes! certainly a little narrow
face, with hard eyes, had flashed up for an instant from a hole, and was
gone. He hesitated—braced himself up for an effort and strode on. Then
suddenly, and as if it had been so all the time, every hole, far and near, and
there were hundreds of them, seemed to possess its face, coming and going
rapidly, all fixing on him glances of malice and hatred: all hard-eyed and
evil and sharp.
If he could only get away from the holes in the banks, he thought, there
would be no more faces. He swung off the path and plunged into the
untrodden places of the wood.
Then the whistling began.
Very faint and shrill it was, and far behind him, when first he heard it; but
somehow it made him hurry forward. Then, still very faint and shrill, it
sounded far ahead of him, and made him hesitate and want to go back. As
he halted in indecision it broke out on either side, and seemed to be caught
up and passed on throughout the whole length of the wood to its farthest
limit. They were up and alert and ready, evidently, whoever they were! And
he—he was alone, and unarmed, and far from any help; and the night was
closing in.
Then the pattering began.
He thought it was only falling leaves at first, so slight and delicate was
the sound of it. Then as it grew it took a regular rhythm, and he knew it for
nothing else but the pat-pat-pat of little feet still a very long way off. Was it
in front or behind? It seemed to be first one, and then the other, then both. It
grew and it multiplied, till from every quarter as he listened anxiously,
leaning this way and that, it seemed to be closing in on him. As he stood
still to hearken, a rabbit came running hard towards him through the trees.
He waited, expecting it to slacken pace, or to swerve from him into a
different course. Instead, the animal almost brushed him as it dashed past,
his face set and hard, his eyes staring. “Get out of this, you fool, get out!”
the Mole heard him mutter as he swung round a stump and disappeared
down a friendly burrow.

The pattering increased till it sounded like sudden hail on the dry leaf-
carpet spread around him. The whole wood seemed running now, running
hard, hunting, chasing, closing in round something or—somebody? In
panic, he began to run too, aimlessly, he knew not whither. He ran up
against things, he fell over things and into things, he darted under things
and dodged round things. At last he took refuge in the deep dark hollow of
an old beech tree, which offered shelter, concealment—perhaps even safety,
but who could tell? Anyhow, he was too tired to run any further, and could
only snuggle down into the dry leaves which had drifted into the hollow and
hope he was safe for a time. And as he lay there panting and trembling, and
listened to the whistlings and the patterings outside, he knew it at last, in all
its fullness, that dread thing which other little dwellers in field and
hedgerow had encountered here, and known as their darkest moment—that
thing which the Rat had vainly tried to shield him from—the Terror of the
Wild Wood!
Meantime the Rat, warm and comfortable, dozed by his fireside. His
paper of half-finished verses slipped from his knee, his head fell back, his
mouth opened, and he wandered by the verdant banks of dream-rivers. Then
a coal slipped, the fire crackled and sent up a spurt of flame, and he woke
with a start. Remembering what he had been engaged upon, he reached
down to the floor for his verses, pored over them for a minute, and then
looked round for the Mole to ask him if he knew a good rhyme for
something or other.
But the Mole was not there.
He listened for a time. The house seemed very quiet.
Then he called “Moly!” several times, and, receiving no answer, got up
and went out into the hall.
The Mole’s cap was missing from its accustomed peg. His goloshes,
which always lay by the umbrella-stand, were also gone.
The Rat left the house, and carefully examined the muddy surface of the
ground outside, hoping to find the Mole’s tracks. There they were, sure
enough. The goloshes were new, just bought for the winter, and the pimples
on their soles were fresh and sharp. He could see the imprints of them in the
mud, running along straight and purposeful, leading direct to the Wild
Wood.

The Rat looked very grave, and stood in deep thought for a minute or
two. Then he re-entered the house, strapped a belt round his waist, shoved a
brace of pistols into it, took up a stout cudgel that stood in a corner of the
hall, and set off for the Wild Wood at a smart pace.
It was already getting towards dusk when he reached the first fringe of
trees and plunged without hesitation into the wood, looking anxiously on
either side for any sign of his friend. Here and there wicked little faces
popped out of holes, but vanished immediately at sight of the valorous
animal, his pistols, and the great ugly cudgel in his grasp; and the whistling
and pattering, which he had heard quite plainly on his first entry, died away
and ceased, and all was very still. He made his way manfully through the
length of the wood, to its furthest edge; then, forsaking all paths, he set
himself to traverse it, laboriously working over the whole ground, and all
the time calling out cheerfully, “Moly, Moly, Moly! Where are you? It’s me
—it’s old Rat!”
He had patiently hunted through the wood for an hour or more, when at
last to his joy he heard a little answering cry. Guiding himself by the sound,
he made his way through the gathering darkness to the foot of an old beech
tree, with a hole in it, and from out of the hole came a feeble voice, saying
“Ratty! Is that really you?”
The Rat crept into the hollow, and there he found the Mole, exhausted
and still trembling. “O Rat!” he cried, “I’ve been so frightened, you can’t
think!”
“O, I quite understand,” said the Rat soothingly. “You shouldn’t really
have gone and done it, Mole. I did my best to keep you from it. We river-
bankers, we hardly ever come here by ourselves. If we have to come, we
come in couples, at least; then we’re generally all right. Besides, there are a
hundred things one has to know, which we understand all about and you
don’t, as yet. I mean passwords, and signs, and sayings which have power
and effect, and plants you carry in your pocket, and verses you repeat, and
dodges and tricks you practise; all simple enough when you know them, but
they’ve got to be known if you’re small, or you’ll find yourself in trouble.
Of course if you were Badger or Otter, it would be quite another matter.”
“Surely the brave Mr. Toad wouldn’t mind coming here by himself,
would he?” inquired the Mole.

“Old Toad?” said the Rat, laughing heartily. “He wouldn’t show his face
here alone, not for a whole hatful of golden guineas, Toad wouldn’t.”
The Mole was greatly cheered by the sound of the Rat’s careless laughter,
as well as by the sight of his stick and his gleaming pistols, and he stopped
shivering and began to feel bolder and more himself again.
“Now then,” said the Rat presently, “we really must pull ourselves
together and make a start for home while there’s still a little light left. It will
never do to spend the night here, you understand. Too cold, for one thing.”
“Dear Ratty,” said the poor Mole, “I’m dreadfully sorry, but I’m simply
dead beat and that’s a solid fact. You must let me rest here a while longer,
and get my strength back, if I’m to get home at all.”
“O, all right,” said the good-natured Rat, “rest away. It’s pretty nearly
pitch dark now, anyhow; and there ought to be a bit of a moon later.”
So the Mole got well into the dry leaves and stretched himself out, and
presently dropped off into sleep, though of a broken and troubled sort;
while the Rat covered himself up, too, as best he might, for warmth, and lay
patiently waiting, with a pistol in his paw.
When at last the Mole woke up, much refreshed and in his usual spirits,
the Rat said, “Now then! I’ll just take a look outside and see if everything’s
quiet, and then we really must be off.”
He went to the entrance of their retreat and put his head out. Then the
Mole heard him saying quietly to himself, “Hullo! hullo! here—is—a—
go!”
“What’s up, Ratty?” asked the Mole.
“Snow is up,” replied the Rat briefly; “or rather, down. It’s snowing
hard.”
The Mole came and crouched beside him, and, looking out, saw the wood
that had been so dreadful to him in quite a changed aspect. Holes, hollows,
pools, pitfalls, and other black menaces to the wayfarer were vanishing fast,
and a gleaming carpet of faery was springing up everywhere, that looked
too delicate to be trodden upon by rough feet. A fine powder filled the air
and caressed the cheek with a tingle in its touch, and the black boles of the
trees showed up in a light that seemed to come from below.
“Well, well, it can’t be helped,” said the Rat, after pondering. “We must
make a start, and take our chance, I suppose. The worst of it is, I don’t

exactly know where we are. And now this snow makes everything look so
very different.”
It did indeed. The Mole would not have known that it was the same
wood. However, they set out bravely, and took the line that seemed most
promising, holding on to each other and pretending with invincible
cheerfulness that they recognized an old friend in every fresh tree that
grimly and silently greeted them, or saw openings, gaps, or paths with a
familiar turn in them, in the monotony of white space and black tree-trunks
that refused to vary.
An hour or two later—they had lost all count of time—they pulled up,
dispirited, weary, and hopelessly at sea, and sat down on a fallen tree-trunk
to recover their breath and consider what was to be done. They were aching
with fatigue and bruised with tumbles; they had fallen into several holes
and got wet through; the snow was getting so deep that they could hardly
drag their little legs through it, and the trees were thicker and more like
each other than ever. There seemed to be no end to this wood, and no
beginning, and no difference in it, and, worst of all, no way out.
“We can’t sit here very long,” said the Rat. “We shall have to make
another push for it, and do something or other. The cold is too awful for
anything, and the snow will soon be too deep for us to wade through.” He
peered about him and considered. “Look here,” he went on, “this is what
occurs to me. There’s a sort of dell down here in front of us, where the
ground seems all hilly and humpy and hummocky. We’ll make our way
down into that, and try and find some sort of shelter, a cave or hole with a
dry floor to it, out of the snow and the wind, and there we’ll have a good
rest before we try again, for we’re both of us pretty dead beat. Besides, the
snow may leave off, or something may turn up.”
So once more they got on their feet, and struggled down into the dell,
where they hunted about for a cave or some corner that was dry and a
protection from the keen wind and the whirling snow. They were
investigating one of the hummocky bits the Rat had spoken of, when
suddenly the Mole tripped up and fell forward on his face with a squeal.
“O my leg!” he cried. “O my poor shin!” and he sat up on the snow and
nursed his leg in both his front paws.
“Poor old Mole!” said the Rat kindly.

“You don’t seem to be having much luck to-day, do you? Let’s have a
look at the leg. Yes,” he went on, going down on his knees to look, “you’ve
cut your shin, sure enough. Wait till I get at my handkerchief, and I’ll tie it
up for you.”
“I must have tripped over a hidden branch or a stump,” said the Mole
miserably. “O, my! O, my!”
“It’s a very clean cut,” said the Rat, examining it again attentively. “That
was never done by a branch or a stump. Looks as if it was made by a sharp
edge of something in metal. Funny!” He pondered awhile, and examined
the humps and slopes that surrounded them.
“Well, never mind what done it,” said the Mole, forgetting his grammar
in his pain. “It hurts just the same, whatever done it.”
But the Rat, after carefully tying up the leg with his handkerchief, had
left him and was busy scraping in the snow. He scratched and shovelled and
explored, all four legs working busily, while the Mole waited impatiently,
remarking at intervals, “O, come on, Rat!”
Suddenly the Rat cried “Hooray!” and then “Hooray-oo-ray-oo-ray-oo-
ray!” and fell to executing a feeble jig in the snow.
“What have you found, Ratty?” asked the Mole, still nursing his leg.
“Come and see!” said the delighted Rat, as he jigged on.
The Mole hobbled up to the spot and had a good look.
“Well,” he said at last, slowly, “I SEE it right enough. Seen the same sort
of thing before, lots of times. Familiar object, I call it. A door-scraper! Well,
what of it? Why dance jigs around a door-scraper?”
“But don’t you see what it means, you—you dull-witted animal?” cried
the Rat impatiently.
“Of course I see what it means,” replied the Mole. “It simply means that
some VERY careless and forgetful person has left his door-scraper lying
about in the middle of the Wild Wood, just where it’s sure to trip everybody
up. Very thoughtless of him, I call it. When I get home I shall go and
complain about it to—to somebody or other, see if I don’t!”
“O, dear! O, dear!” cried the Rat, in despair at his obtuseness. “Here, stop
arguing and come and scrape!” And he set to work again and made the
snow fly in all directions around him.

After some further toil his efforts were rewarded, and a very shabby
door-mat lay exposed to view.
“There, what did I tell you?” exclaimed the Rat in great triumph.
“Absolutely nothing whatever,” replied the Mole, with perfect
truthfulness. “Well now,” he went on, “you seem to have found another
piece of domestic litter, done for and thrown away, and I suppose you’re
perfectly happy. Better go ahead and dance your jig round that if you’ve got
to, and get it over, and then perhaps we can go on and not waste any more
time over rubbish-heaps. Can we EAT a doormat? or sleep under a door-
mat? Or sit on a door-mat and sledge home over the snow on it, you
exasperating rodent?”
“Do—you—mean—to—say,” cried the excited Rat, “that this door-mat
doesn’t tell you anything?”
“Really, Rat,” said the Mole, quite pettishly, “I think we’d had enough of
this folly. Who ever heard of a door-mat telling anyone anything? They
simply don’t do it. They are not that sort at all. Door-mats know their
place.”
“Now look here, you—you thick-headed beast,” replied the Rat, really
angry, “this must stop. Not another word, but scrape—scrape and scratch
and dig and hunt round, especially on the sides of the hummocks, if you
want to sleep dry and warm to-night, for it’s our last chance!”
The Rat attacked a snow-bank beside them with ardour, probing with his
cudgel everywhere and then digging with fury; and the Mole scraped busily
too, more to oblige the Rat than for any other reason, for his opinion was
that his friend was getting light-headed.
Some ten minutes’ hard work, and the point of the Rat’s cudgel struck
something that sounded hollow. He worked till he could get a paw through
and feel; then called the Mole to come and help him. Hard at it went the two
animals, till at last the result of their labours stood full in view of the
astonished and hitherto incredulous Mole.
In the side of what had seemed to be a snow-bank stood a solid-looking
little door, painted a dark green. An iron bell-pull hung by the side, and
below it, on a small brass plate, neatly engraved in square capital letters,
they could read by the aid of moonlight

MR. BADGER.

The Mole fell backwards on the snow from sheer surprise and delight.
“Rat!” he cried in penitence, “you’re a wonder! A real wonder, that’s what
you are. I see it all now! You argued it out, step by step, in that wise head of
yours, from the very moment that I fell and cut my shin, and you looked at
the cut, and at once your majestic mind said to itself, ‘Door-scraper!’ And
then you turned to and found the very door-scraper that done it! Did you
stop there? No. Some people would have been quite satisfied; but not you.
Your intellect went on working. ‘Let me only just find a door-mat,’ says you
to yourself, ‘and my theory is proved!’ And of course you found your door-
mat. You’re so clever, I believe you could find anything you liked. ‘Now,’
says you, ‘that door exists, as plain as if I saw it. There’s nothing else
remains to be done but to find it!’ Well, I’ve read about that sort of thing in
books, but I’ve never come across it before in real life. You ought to go
where you’ll be properly appreciated. You’re simply wasted here, among us
fellows. If I only had your head, Ratty——”
“But as you haven’t,” interrupted the Rat, rather unkindly, “I suppose
you’re going to sit on the snow all night and talk? Get up at once and hang
on to that bell-pull you see there, and ring hard, as hard as you can, while I
hammer!”
While the Rat attacked the door with his stick, the Mole sprang up at the
bell-pull, clutched it and swung there, both feet well off the ground, and
from quite a long way off they could faintly hear a deep-toned bell respond.

IV.
MR. BADGER

THEY waited patiently for what seemed a very long time, stamping in
the snow to keep their feet warm. At last they heard the sound of slow
shuffling footsteps approaching the door from the inside. It seemed, as the
Mole remarked to the Rat, like some one walking in carpet slippers that
were too large for him and down at heel; which was intelligent of Mole,
because that was exactly what it was.
There was the noise of a bolt shot back, and the door opened a few
inches, enough to show a long snout and a pair of sleepy blinking eyes.
“Now, the very next time this happens,” said a gruff and suspicious voice,
“I shall be exceedingly angry. Who is it this time, disturbing people on such
a night? Speak up!”
“Oh, Badger,” cried the Rat, “let us in, please. It’s me, Rat, and my friend
Mole, and we’ve lost our way in the snow.”
“What, Ratty, my dear little man!” exclaimed the Badger, in quite a
different voice. “Come along in, both of you, at once. Why, you must be
perished. Well I never! Lost in the snow! And in the Wild Wood, too, and at
this time of night! But come in with you.”
The two animals tumbled over each other in their eagerness to get inside,
and heard the door shut behind them with great joy and relief.
The Badger, who wore a long dressing-gown, and whose slippers were
indeed very down at heel, carried a flat candlestick in his paw and had
probably been on his way to bed when their summons sounded. He looked
kindly down on them and patted both their heads. “This is not the sort of
night for small animals to be out,” he said paternally. “I’m afraid you’ve
been up to some of your pranks again, Ratty. But come along; come into the
kitchen. There’s a first-rate fire there, and supper and everything.”

He shuffled on in front of them, carrying the light, and they followed
him, nudging each other in an anticipating sort of way, down a long,
gloomy, and, to tell the truth, decidedly shabby passage, into a sort of a
central hall; out of which they could dimly see other long tunnel-like
passages branching, passages mysterious and without apparent end. But
there were doors in the hall as well—stout oaken comfortable-looking
doors. One of these the Badger flung open, and at once they found
themselves in all the glow and warmth of a large fire-lit kitchen.
The floor was well-worn red brick, and on the wide hearth burnt a fire of
logs, between two attractive chimney-corners tucked away in the wall, well
out of any suspicion of draught. A couple of high-backed settles, facing
each other on either side of the fire, gave further sitting accommodations for
the sociably disposed. In the middle of the room stood a long table of plain
boards placed on trestles, with benches down each side. At one end of it,
where an arm-chair stood pushed back, were spread the remains of the
Badger’s plain but ample supper. Rows of spotless plates winked from the
shelves of the dresser at the far end of the room, and from the rafters
overhead hung hams, bundles of dried herbs, nets of onions, and baskets of
eggs. It seemed a place where heroes could fitly feast after victory, where
weary harvesters could line up in scores along the table and keep their
Harvest Home with mirth and song, or where two or three friends of simple
tastes could sit about as they pleased and eat and smoke and talk in comfort
and contentment. The ruddy brick floor smiled up at the smoky ceiling; the
oaken settles, shiny with long wear, exchanged cheerful glances with each
other; plates on the dresser grinned at pots on the shelf, and the merry
firelight flickered and played over everything without distinction.
The kindly Badger thrust them down on a settle to toast themselves at the
fire, and bade them remove their wet coats and boots. Then he fetched them
dressing-gowns and slippers, and himself bathed the Mole’s shin with warm
water and mended the cut with sticking-plaster till the whole thing was just
as good as new, if not better. In the embracing light and warmth, warm and
dry at last, with weary legs propped up in front of them, and a suggestive
clink of plates being arranged on the table behind, it seemed to the storm-
driven animals, now in safe anchorage, that the cold and trackless Wild
Wood just left outside was miles and miles away, and all that they had
suffered in it a half-forgotten dream.

When at last they were thoroughly toasted, the Badger summoned them
to the table, where he had been busy laying a repast. They had felt pretty
hungry before, but when they actually saw at last the supper that was spread
for them, really it seemed only a question of what they should attack first
where all was so attractive, and whether the other things would obligingly
wait for them till they had time to give them attention. Conversation was
impossible for a long time; and when it was slowly resumed, it was that
regrettable sort of conversation that results from talking with your mouth
full. The Badger did not mind that sort of thing at all, nor did he take any
notice of elbows on the table, or everybody speaking at once. As he did not
go into Society himself, he had got an idea that these things belonged to the
things that didn’t really matter. (We know of course that he was wrong, and
took too narrow a view; because they do matter very much, though it would
take too long to explain why.) He sat in his arm-chair at the head of the
table, and nodded gravely at intervals as the animals told their story; and he
did not seem surprised or shocked at anything, and he never said, “I told
you so,” or, “Just what I always said,” or remarked that they ought to have
done so-and-so, or ought not to have done something else. The Mole began
to feel very friendly towards him.
When supper was really finished at last, and each animal felt that his skin
was now as tight as was decently safe, and that by this time he didn’t care a
hang for anybody or anything, they gathered round the glowing embers of
the great wood fire, and thought how jolly it was to be sitting up so late, and
so independent, and so full; and after they had chatted for a time about
things in general, the Badger said heartily, “Now then! tell us the news from
your part of the world. How’s old Toad going on?”
“Oh, from bad to worse,” said the Rat gravely, while the Mole, cocked up
on a settle and basking in the firelight, his heels higher than his head, tried
to look properly mournful. “Another smash-up only last week, and a bad
one. You see, he will insist on driving himself, and he’s hopelessly
incapable. If he’d only employ a decent, steady, well-trained animal, pay
him good wages, and leave everything to him, he’d get on all right. But no;
he’s convinced he’s a heaven-born driver, and nobody can teach him
anything; and all the rest follows.”
“How many has he had?” inquired the Badger gloomily.

“Smashes, or machines?” asked the Rat. “Oh, well, after all, it’s the same
thing—with Toad. This is the seventh. As for the others—you know that
coach-house of his? Well, it’s piled up—literally piled up to the roof—with
fragments of motor-cars, none of them bigger than your hat! That accounts
for the other six—so far as they can be accounted for.”
“He’s been in hospital three times,” put in the Mole; “and as for the fines
he’s had to pay, it’s simply awful to think of.”
“Yes, and that’s part of the trouble,” continued the Rat. “Toad’s rich, we
all know; but he’s not a millionaire. And he’s a hopelessly bad driver, and
quite regardless of law and order. Killed or ruined—it’s got to be one of the
two things, sooner or later. Badger! we’re his friends—oughtn’t we to do
something?”
The Badger went through a bit of hard thinking. “Now look here!” he
said at last, rather severely; “of course you know I can’t do anything now?”
His two friends assented, quite understanding his point. No animal,
according to the rules of animal-etiquette, is ever expected to do anything
strenuous, or heroic, or even moderately active during the off-season of
winter. All are sleepy—some actually asleep. All are weather-bound, more
or less; and all are resting from arduous days and nights, during which
every muscle in them has been severely tested, and every energy kept at full
stretch.
“Very well then!” continued the Badger. “But, when once the year has
really turned, and the nights are shorter, and halfway through them one
rouses and feels fidgety and wanting to be up and doing by sunrise, if not
before—you know!——”
Both animals nodded gravely. They knew!
“Well, then,” went on the Badger, “we—that is, you and me and our
friend the Mole here—we’ll take Toad seriously in hand. We’ll stand no
nonsense whatever. We’ll bring him back to reason, by force if need be.
We’ll make him be a sensible Toad. We’ll—you’re asleep, Rat!”
“Not me!” said the Rat, waking up with a jerk.
“He’s been asleep two or three times since supper,” said the Mole,
laughing. He himself was feeling quite wakeful and even lively, though he
didn’t know why. The reason was, of course, that he being naturally an
underground animal by birth and breeding, the situation of Badger’s house

exactly suited him and made him feel at home; while the Rat, who slept
every night in a bedroom the windows of which opened on a breezy river,
naturally felt the atmosphere still and oppressive.
“Well, it’s time we were all in bed,” said the Badger, getting up and
fetching flat candlesticks. “Come along, you two, and I’ll show you your
quarters. And take your time tomorrow morning—breakfast at any hour you
please!”
He conducted the two animals to a long room that seemed half
bedchamber and half loft. The Badger’s winter stores, which indeed were
visible everywhere, took up half the room—piles of apples, turnips, and
potatoes, baskets full of nuts, and jars of honey; but the two little white beds
on the remainder of the floor looked soft and inviting, and the linen on
them, though coarse, was clean and smelt beautifully of lavender; and the
Mole and the Water Rat, shaking off their garments in some thirty seconds,
tumbled in between the sheets in great joy and contentment.
In accordance with the kindly Badger’s injunctions, the two tired animals
came down to breakfast very late next morning, and found a bright fire
burning in the kitchen, and two young hedgehogs sitting on a bench at the
table, eating oatmeal porridge out of wooden bowls. The hedgehogs
dropped their spoons, rose to their feet, and ducked their heads respectfully
as the two entered.
“There, sit down, sit down,” said the Rat pleasantly, “and go on with your
porridge. Where have you youngsters come from? Lost your way in the
snow, I suppose?”
“Yes, please, sir,” said the elder of the two hedgehogs respectfully. “Me
and little Billy here, we was trying to find our way to school—mother
would have us go, was the weather ever so—and of course we lost
ourselves, sir, and Billy he got frightened and took and cried, being young
and faint-hearted. And at last we happened up against Mr. Badger’s back
door, and made so bold as to knock, sir, for Mr. Badger he’s a kind-hearted
gentleman, as everyone knows——”
“I understand,” said the Rat, cutting himself some rashers from a side of
bacon, while the Mole dropped some eggs into a saucepan. “And what’s the
weather like outside? You needn’t ‘sir’ me quite so much?” he added.
“O, terrible bad, sir, terrible deep the snow is,” said the hedgehog. “No
getting out for the likes of you gentlemen to-day.”

“Where’s Mr. Badger?” inquired the Mole, as he warmed the coffee-pot
before the fire.
“The master’s gone into his study, sir,” replied the hedgehog, “and he
said as how he was going to be particular busy this morning, and on no
account was he to be disturbed.”
This explanation, of course, was thoroughly understood by every one
present. The fact is, as already set forth, when you live a life of intense
activity for six months in the year, and of comparative or actual somnolence
for the other six, during the latter period you cannot be continually pleading
sleepiness when there are people about or things to be done. The excuse
gets monotonous. The animals well knew that Badger, having eaten a hearty
breakfast, had retired to his study and settled himself in an arm-chair with
his legs up on another and a red cotton handkerchief over his face, and was
being “busy” in the usual way at this time of the year.
The front-door bell clanged loudly, and the Rat, who was very greasy
with buttered toast, sent Billy, the smaller hedgehog, to see who it might be.
There was a sound of much stamping in the hall, and presently Billy
returned in front of the Otter, who threw himself on the Rat with an
embrace and a shout of affectionate greeting.
“Get off!” spluttered the Rat, with his mouth full.
“Thought I should find you here all right,” said the Otter cheerfully.
“They were all in a great state of alarm along River Bank when I arrived
this morning. Rat never been home all night—nor Mole either—something
dreadful must have happened, they said; and the snow had covered up all
your tracks, of course. But I knew that when people were in any fix they
mostly went to Badger, or else Badger got to know of it somehow, so I
came straight off here, through the Wild Wood and the snow! My! it was
fine, coming through the snow as the red sun was rising and showing
against the black tree-trunks! As you went along in the stillness, every now
and then masses of snow slid off the branches suddenly with a flop! making
you jump and run for cover. Snow-castles and snow-caverns had sprung up
out of nowhere in the night—and snow bridges, terraces, ramparts—I could
have stayed and played with them for hours. Here and there great branches
had been torn away by the sheer weight of the snow, and robins perched and
hopped on them in their perky conceited way, just as if they had done it
themselves. A ragged string of wild geese passed overhead, high on the grey

sky, and a few rooks whirled over the trees, inspected, and flapped off
homewards with a disgusted expression; but I met no sensible being to ask
the news of. About halfway across I came on a rabbit sitting on a stump,
cleaning his silly face with his paws. He was a pretty scared animal when I
crept up behind him and placed a heavy forepaw on his shoulder. I had to
cuff his head once or twice to get any sense out of it at all. At last I
managed to extract from him that Mole had been seen in the Wild Wood last
night by one of them. It was the talk of the burrows, he said, how Mole, Mr.
Rat’s particular friend, was in a bad fix; how he had lost his way, and
‘They’ were up and out hunting, and were chivvying him round and round.
‘Then why didn’t any of you do something?’ I asked. ‘You mayn’t be blest
with brains, but there are hundreds and hundreds of you, big, stout fellows,
as fat as butter, and your burrows running in all directions, and you could
have taken him in and made him safe and comfortable, or tried to, at all
events.’ ‘What, us?’ he merely said: ‘do something? us rabbits?’ So I cuffed
him again and left him. There was nothing else to be done. At any rate, I
had learnt something; and if I had had the luck to meet any of ‘Them’ I’d
have learnt something more—or they would.”
“Weren’t you at all—er—nervous?” asked the Mole, some of yesterday’s
terror coming back to him at the mention of the Wild Wood.
“Nervous?” The Otter showed a gleaming set of strong white teeth as he
laughed. “I’d give ’em nerves if any of them tried anything on with me.
Here, Mole, fry me some slices of ham, like the good little chap you are.
I’m frightfully hungry, and I’ve got any amount to say to Ratty here.
Haven’t seen him for an age.”
So the good-natured Mole, having cut some slices of ham, set the
hedgehogs to fry it, and returned to his own breakfast, while the Otter and
the Rat, their heads together, eagerly talked river-shop, which is long shop
and talk that is endless, running on like the babbling river itself.
A plate of fried ham had just been cleared and sent back for more, when
the Badger entered, yawning and rubbing his eyes, and greeted them all in
his quiet, simple way, with kind enquiries for every one. “It must be getting
on for luncheon time,” he remarked to the Otter. “Better stop and have it
with us. You must be hungry, this cold morning.”
“Rather!” replied the Otter, winking at the Mole. “The sight of these
greedy young hedgehogs stuffing themselves with fried ham makes me feel

positively famished.”
The hedgehogs, who were just beginning to feel hungry again after their
porridge, and after working so hard at their frying, looked timidly up at Mr.
Badger, but were too shy to say anything.
“Here, you two youngsters be off home to your mother,” said the Badger
kindly. “I’ll send some one with you to show you the way. You won’t want
any dinner to-day, I’ll be bound.”
He gave them sixpence apiece and a pat on the head, and they went off
with much respectful swinging of caps and touching of forelocks.
Presently they all sat down to luncheon together. The Mole found himself
placed next to Mr. Badger, and, as the other two were still deep in river-
gossip from which nothing could divert them, he took the opportunity to tell
Badger how comfortable and home-like it all felt to him. “Once well
underground,” he said, “you know exactly where you are. Nothing can
happen to you, and nothing can get at you. You’re entirely your own master,
and you don’t have to consult anybody or mind what they say. Things go on
all the same overhead, and you let ’em, and don’t bother about ’em. When
you want to, up you go, and there the things are, waiting for you.”
The Badger simply beamed on him. “That’s exactly what I say,” he
replied. “There’s no security, or peace and tranquillity, except underground.
And then, if your ideas get larger and you want to expand—why, a dig and
a scrape, and there you are! If you feel your house is a bit too big, you stop
up a hole or two, and there you are again! No builders, no tradesmen, no
remarks passed on you by fellows looking over your wall, and, above all,
no weather. Look at Rat, now. A couple of feet of flood water, and he’s got
to move into hired lodgings; uncomfortable, inconveniently situated, and
horribly expensive. Take Toad. I say nothing against Toad Hall; quite the
best house in these parts, as a house. But supposing a fire breaks out—
where’s Toad? Supposing tiles are blown off, or walls sink or crack, or
windows get broken—where’s Toad? Supposing the rooms are draughty—I
hate a draught myself—where’s Toad? No, up and out of doors is good
enough to roam about and get one’s living in; but underground to come
back to at last—that’s my idea of home!”
The Mole assented heartily; and the Badger in consequence got very
friendly with him. “When lunch is over,” he said, “I’ll take you all round

this little place of mine. I can see you’ll appreciate it. You understand what
domestic architecture ought to be, you do.”
After luncheon, accordingly, when the other two had settled themselves
into the chimney-corner and had started a heated argument on the subject of
eels, the Badger lighted a lantern and bade the Mole follow him. Crossing
the hall, they passed down one of the principal tunnels, and the wavering
light of the lantern gave glimpses on either side of rooms both large and
small, some mere cupboards, others nearly as broad and imposing as Toad’s
dining-hall. A narrow passage at right angles led them into another corridor,
and here the same thing was repeated. The Mole was staggered at the size,
the extent, the ramifications of it all; at the length of the dim passages, the
solid vaultings of the crammed store-chambers, the masonry everywhere,
the pillars, the arches, the pavements. “How on earth, Badger,” he said at
last, “did you ever find time and strength to do all this? It’s astonishing!”
“It would be astonishing indeed,” said the Badger simply, “if I had done
it. But as a matter of fact I did none of it—only cleaned out the passages
and chambers, as far as I had need of them. There’s lots more of it, all round
about. I see you don’t understand, and I must explain it to you. Well, very
long ago, on the spot where the Wild Wood waves now, before ever it had
planted itself and grown up to what it now is, there was a city—a city of
people, you know. Here, where we are standing, they lived, and walked, and
talked, and slept, and carried on their business. Here they stabled their
horses and feasted, from here they rode out to fight or drove out to trade.
They were a powerful people, and rich, and great builders. They built to
last, for they thought their city would last for ever.”
“But what has become of them all?” asked the Mole.
“Who can tell?” said the Badger. “People come—they stay for a while,
they flourish, they build—and they go. It is their way. But we remain. There
were badgers here, I’ve been told, long before that same city ever came to
be. And now there are badgers here again. We are an enduring lot, and we
may move out for a time, but we wait, and are patient, and back we come.
And so it will ever be.”
“Well, and when they went at last, those people?” said the Mole.
“When they went,” continued the Badger, “the strong winds and
persistent rains took the matter in hand, patiently, ceaselessly, year after
year. Perhaps we badgers too, in our small way, helped a little—who

knows? It was all down, down, down, gradually—ruin and levelling and
disappearance. Then it was all up, up, up, gradually, as seeds grew to
saplings, and saplings to forest trees, and bramble and fern came creeping
in to help. Leaf-mould rose and obliterated, streams in their winter freshets
brought sand and soil to clog and to cover, and in course of time our home
was ready for us again, and we moved in. Up above us, on the surface, the
same thing happened. Animals arrived, liked the look of the place, took up
their quarters, settled down, spread, and flourished. They didn’t bother
themselves about the past—they never do; they’re too busy. The place was
a bit humpy and hillocky, naturally, and full of holes; but that was rather an
advantage. And they don’t bother about the future, either—the future when
perhaps the people will move in again—for a time—as may very well be.
The Wild Wood is pretty well populated by now; with all the usual lot,
good, bad, and indifferent—I name no names. It takes all sorts to make a
world. But I fancy you know something about them yourself by this time.”
“I do indeed,” said the Mole, with a slight shiver.
“Well, well,” said the Badger, patting him on the shoulder, “it was your
first experience of them, you see. They’re not so bad really; and we must all
live and let live. But I’ll pass the word around to-morrow, and I think you’ll
have no further trouble. Any friend of mine walks where he likes in this
country, or I’ll know the reason why!”
When they got back to the kitchen again, they found the Rat walking up
and down, very restless. The underground atmosphere was oppressing him
and getting on his nerves, and he seemed really to be afraid that the river
would run away if he wasn’t there to look after it. So he had his overcoat
on, and his pistols thrust into his belt again. “Come along, Mole,” he said
anxiously, as soon as he caught sight of them. “We must get off while it’s
daylight. Don’t want to spend another night in the Wild Wood again.”
“It’ll be all right, my fine fellow,” said the Otter. “I’m coming along with
you, and I know every path blindfold; and if there’s a head that needs to be
punched, you can confidently rely upon me to punch it.”
“You really needn’t fret, Ratty,” added the Badger placidly. “My passages
run further than you think, and I’ve bolt-holes to the edge of the wood in
several directions, though I don’t care for everybody to know about them.
When you really have to go, you shall leave by one of my short cuts.
Meantime, make yourself easy, and sit down again.”

The Rat was nevertheless still anxious to be off and attend to his river, so
the Badger, taking up his lantern again, led the way along a damp and
airless tunnel that wound and dipped, part vaulted, part hewn through solid
rock, for a weary distance that seemed to be miles. At last daylight began to
show itself confusedly through tangled growth overhanging the mouth of
the passage; and the Badger, bidding them a hasty good-bye, pushed them
hurriedly through the opening, made everything look as natural as possible
again, with creepers, brushwood, and dead leaves, and retreated.
They found themselves standing on the very edge of the Wild Wood.
Rocks and brambles and tree-roots behind them, confusedly heaped and
tangled; in front, a great space of quiet fields, hemmed by lines of hedges
black on the snow, and, far ahead, a glint of the familiar old river, while the
wintry sun hung red and low on the horizon. The Otter, as knowing all the
paths, took charge of the party, and they trailed out on a bee-line for a
distant stile. Pausing there a moment and looking back, they saw the whole
mass of the Wild Wood, dense, menacing, compact, grimly set in vast white
surroundings; simultaneously they turned and made swiftly for home, for
firelight and the familiar things it played on, for the voice, sounding
cheerily outside their window, of the river that they knew and trusted in all
its moods, that never made them afraid with any amazement.
As he hurried along, eagerly anticipating the moment when he would be
at home again among the things he knew and liked, the Mole saw clearly
that he was an animal of tilled field and hedge-row, linked to the ploughed
furrow, the frequented pasture, the lane of evening lingerings, the cultivated
garden-plot. For others the asperities, the stubborn endurance, or the clash
of actual conflict, that went with Nature in the rough; he must be wise, must
keep to the pleasant places in which his lines were laid and which held
adventure enough, in their way, to last for a lifetime.

V.
DULCE DOMUM

The sheep ran huddling together against the hurdles, blowing out thin
nostrils and stamping with delicate fore-feet, their heads thrown back and a
light steam rising from the crowded sheep-pen into the frosty air, as the two
animals hastened by in high spirits, with much chatter and laughter. They
were returning across country after a long day’s outing with Otter, hunting
and exploring on the wide uplands where certain streams tributary to their
own River had their first small beginnings; and the shades of the short
winter day were closing in on them, and they had still some distance to go.
Plodding at random across the plough, they had heard the sheep and had
made for them; and now, leading from the sheep-pen, they found a beaten
track that made walking a lighter business, and responded, moreover, to that
small inquiring something which all animals carry inside them, saying
unmistakably, “Yes, quite right; this leads home!”
“It looks as if we were coming to a village,” said the Mole somewhat
dubiously, slackening his pace, as the track, that had in time become a path
and then had developed into a lane, now handed them over to the charge of
a well-metalled road. The animals did not hold with villages, and their own
highways, thickly frequented as they were, took an independent course,
regardless of church, post office, or public-house.
“Oh, never mind!” said the Rat. “At this season of the year they’re all
safe indoors by this time, sitting round the fire; men, women, and children,
dogs and cats and all. We shall slip through all right, without any bother or
unpleasantness, and we can have a look at them through their windows if
you like, and see what they’re doing.”
The rapid nightfall of mid-December had quite beset the little village as
they approached it on soft feet over a first thin fall of powdery snow. Little
was visible but squares of a dusky orange-red on either side of the street,

where the firelight or lamplight of each cottage overflowed through the
casements into the dark world without. Most of the low latticed windows
were innocent of blinds, and to the lookers-in from outside, the inmates,
gathered round the tea-table, absorbed in handiwork, or talking with
laughter and gesture, had each that happy grace which is the last thing the
skilled actor shall capture—the natural grace which goes with perfect
unconsciousness of observation. Moving at will from one theatre to another,
the two spectators, so far from home themselves, had something of
wistfulness in their eyes as they watched a cat being stroked, a sleepy child
picked up and huddled off to bed, or a tired man stretch and knock out his
pipe on the end of a smouldering log.
But it was from one little window, with its blind drawn down, a mere
blank transparency on the night, that the sense of home and the little
curtained world within walls—the larger stressful world of outside Nature
shut out and forgotten—most pulsated. Close against the white blind hung a
bird-cage, clearly silhouetted, every wire, perch, and appurtenance distinct
and recognisable, even to yesterday’s dull-edged lump of sugar. On the
middle perch the fluffy occupant, head tucked well into feathers, seemed so
near to them as to be easily stroked, had they tried; even the delicate tips of
his plumped-out plumage pencilled plainly on the illuminated screen. As
they looked, the sleepy little fellow stirred uneasily, woke, shook himself,
and raised his head. They could see the gape of his tiny beak as he yawned
in a bored sort of way, looked round, and then settled his head into his back
again, while the ruffled feathers gradually subsided into perfect stillness.
Then a gust of bitter wind took them in the back of the neck, a small sting
of frozen sleet on the skin woke them as from a dream, and they knew their
toes to be cold and their legs tired, and their own home distant a weary way.
Once beyond the village, where the cottages ceased abruptly, on either
side of the road they could smell through the darkness the friendly fields
again; and they braced themselves for the last long stretch, the home
stretch, the stretch that we know is bound to end, some time, in the rattle of
the door-latch, the sudden firelight, and the sight of familiar things greeting
us as long-absent travellers from far over-sea. They plodded along steadily
and silently, each of them thinking his own thoughts. The Mole’s ran a good
deal on supper, as it was pitch-dark, and it was all a strange country for him
as far as he knew, and he was following obediently in the wake of the Rat,
leaving the guidance entirely to him. As for the Rat, he was walking a little

way ahead, as his habit was, his shoulders humped, his eyes fixed on the
straight grey road in front of him; so he did not notice poor Mole when
suddenly the summons reached him, and took him like an electric shock.
We others, who have long lost the more subtle of the physical senses,
have not even proper terms to express an animal’s inter-communications
with his surroundings, living or otherwise, and have only the word “smell,”
for instance, to include the whole range of delicate thrills which murmur in
the nose of the animal night and day, summoning, warning, inciting,
repelling. It was one of these mysterious fairy calls from out the void that
suddenly reached Mole in the darkness, making him tingle through and
through with its very familiar appeal, even while yet he could not clearly
remember what it was. He stopped dead in his tracks, his nose searching
hither and thither in its efforts to recapture the fine filament, the telegraphic
current, that had so strongly moved him. A moment, and he had caught it
again; and with it this time came recollection in fullest flood.
Home! That was what they meant, those caressing appeals, those soft
touches wafted through the air, those invisible little hands pulling and
tugging, all one way! Why, it must be quite close by him at that moment,
his old home that he had hurriedly forsaken and never sought again, that
day when he first found the river! And now it was sending out its scouts and
its messengers to capture him and bring him in. Since his escape on that
bright morning he had hardly given it a thought, so absorbed had he been in
his new life, in all its pleasures, its surprises, its fresh and captivating
experiences. Now, with a rush of old memories, how clearly it stood up
before him, in the darkness! Shabby indeed, and small and poorly
furnished, and yet his, the home he had made for himself, the home he had
been so happy to get back to after his day’s work. And the home had been
happy with him, too, evidently, and was missing him, and wanted him back,
and was telling him so, through his nose, sorrowfully, reproachfully, but
with no bitterness or anger; only with plaintive reminder that it was there,
and wanted him.
The call was clear, the summons was plain. He must obey it instantly, and
go. “Ratty!” he called, full of joyful excitement, “hold on! Come back! I
want you, quick!”
“Oh, come along, Mole, do!” replied the Rat cheerfully, still plodding
along.

“Please stop, Ratty!” pleaded the poor Mole, in anguish of heart. “You
don’t understand! It’s my home, my old home! I’ve just come across the
smell of it, and it’s close by here, really quite close. And I must go to it, I
must, I must! Oh, come back, Ratty! Please, please come back!”
The Rat was by this time very far ahead, too far to hear clearly what the
Mole was calling, too far to catch the sharp note of painful appeal in his
voice. And he was much taken up with the weather, for he too could smell
something—something suspiciously like approaching snow.
“Mole, we mustn’t stop now, really!” he called back. “We’ll come for it
to-morrow, whatever it is you’ve found. But I daren’t stop now—it’s late,
and the snow’s coming on again, and I’m not sure of the way! And I want
your nose, Mole, so come on quick, there’s a good fellow!” And the Rat
pressed forward on his way without waiting for an answer.
Poor Mole stood alone in the road, his heart torn asunder, and a big sob
gathering, gathering, somewhere low down inside him, to leap up to the
surface presently, he knew, in passionate escape. But even under such a test
as this his loyalty to his friend stood firm. Never for a moment did he dream
of abandoning him. Meanwhile, the wafts from his old home pleaded,
whispered, conjured, and finally claimed him imperiously. He dared not
tarry longer within their magic circle. With a wrench that tore his very
heartstrings he set his face down the road and followed submissively in the
track of the Rat, while faint, thin little smells, still dogging his retreating
nose, reproached him for his new friendship and his callous forgetfulness.
With an effort he caught up to the unsuspecting Rat, who began
chattering cheerfully about what they would do when they got back, and
how jolly a fire of logs in the parlour would be, and what a supper he meant
to eat; never noticing his companion’s silence and distressful state of mind.
At last, however, when they had gone some considerable way further, and
were passing some tree-stumps at the edge of a copse that bordered the
road, he stopped and said kindly, “Look here, Mole old chap, you seem
dead tired. No talk left in you, and your feet dragging like lead. We’ll sit
down here for a minute and rest. The snow has held off so far, and the best
part of our journey is over.”
The Mole subsided forlornly on a tree-stump and tried to control himself,
for he felt it surely coming. The sob he had fought with so long refused to
be beaten. Up and up, it forced its way to the air, and then another, and

another, and others thick and fast; till poor Mole at last gave up the struggle,
and cried freely and helplessly and openly, now that he knew it was all over
and he had lost what he could hardly be said to have found.
The Rat, astonished and dismayed at the violence of Mole’s paroxysm of
grief, did not dare to speak for a while. At last he said, very quietly and
sympathetically, “What is it, old fellow? Whatever can be the matter? Tell
us your trouble, and let me see what I can do.”
Poor Mole found it difficult to get any words out between the upheavals
of his chest that followed one upon another so quickly and held back speech
and choked it as it came. “I know it’s a—shabby, dingy little place,” he
sobbed forth at last, brokenly: “not like—your cosy quarters—or Toad’s
beautiful hall—or Badger’s great house—but it was my own little home—
and I was fond of it—and I went away and forgot all about it—and then I
smelt it suddenly—on the road, when I called and you wouldn’t listen, Rat
—and everything came back to me with a rush—and I wanted it!—O dear,
O dear!—and when you wouldn’t turn back, Ratty—and I had to leave it,
though I was smelling it all the time—I thought my heart would break.—
We might have just gone and had one look at it, Ratty—only one look—it
was close by—but you wouldn’t turn back, Ratty, you wouldn’t turn back!
O dear, O dear!”
Recollection brought fresh waves of sorrow, and sobs again took full
charge of him, preventing further speech.
The Rat stared straight in front of him, saying nothing, only patting Mole
gently on the shoulder. After a time he muttered gloomily, “I see it all now!
What a pig I have been! A pig—that’s me! Just a pig—a plain pig!”
He waited till Mole’s sobs became gradually less stormy and more
rhythmical; he waited till at last sniffs were frequent and sobs only
intermittent. Then he rose from his seat, and, remarking carelessly, “Well,
now we’d really better be getting on, old chap!” set off up the road again,
over the toilsome way they had come.
“Wherever are you (hic) going to (hic), Ratty?” cried the tearful Mole,
looking up in alarm.
“We’re going to find that home of yours, old fellow,” replied the Rat
pleasantly; “so you had better come along, for it will take some finding, and
we shall want your nose.”

“Oh, come back, Ratty, do!” cried the Mole, getting up and hurrying after
him. “It’s no good, I tell you! It’s too late, and too dark, and the place is too
far off, and the snow’s coming! And—and I never meant to let you know I
was feeling that way about it—it was all an accident and a mistake! And
think of River Bank, and your supper!”
“Hang River Bank, and supper too!” said the Rat heartily. “I tell you, I’m
going to find this place now, if I stay out all night. So cheer up, old chap,
and take my arm, and we’ll very soon be back there again.”
Still snuffling, pleading, and reluctant, Mole suffered himself to be
dragged back along the road by his imperious companion, who by a flow of
cheerful talk and anecdote endeavoured to beguile his spirits back and make
the weary way seem shorter. When at last it seemed to the Rat that they
must be nearing that part of the road where the Mole had been “held up,” he
said, “Now, no more talking. Business! Use your nose, and give your mind
to it.”
They moved on in silence for some little way, when suddenly the Rat was
conscious, through his arm that was linked in Mole’s, of a faint sort of
electric thrill that was passing down that animal’s body. Instantly he
disengaged himself, fell back a pace, and waited, all attention.
The signals were coming through!
Mole stood a moment rigid, while his uplifted nose, quivering slightly,
felt the air.
Then a short, quick run forward—a fault—a check—a try back; and then
a slow, steady, confident advance.
The Rat, much excited, kept close to his heels as the Mole, with
something of the air of a sleep-walker, crossed a dry ditch, scrambled
through a hedge, and nosed his way over a field open and trackless and bare
in the faint starlight.
Suddenly, without giving warning, he dived; but the Rat was on the alert,
and promptly followed him down the tunnel to which his unerring nose had
faithfully led him.
It was close and airless, and the earthy smell was strong, and it seemed a
long time to Rat ere the passage ended and he could stand erect and stretch
and shake himself. The Mole struck a match, and by its light the Rat saw
that they were standing in an open space, neatly swept and sanded

underfoot, and directly facing them was Mole’s little front door, with “Mole
End” painted, in Gothic lettering, over the bell-pull at the side.
Mole reached down a lantern from a nail on the wall and lit it... and the
Rat, looking round him, saw that they were in a sort of fore-court. A garden-
seat stood on one side of the door, and on the other a roller; for the Mole,
who was a tidy animal when at home, could not stand having his ground
kicked up by other animals into little runs that ended in earth-heaps. On the
walls hung wire baskets with ferns in them, alternating with brackets
carrying plaster statuary—Garibaldi, and the infant Samuel, and Queen
Victoria, and other heroes of modern Italy. Down on one side of the
forecourt ran a skittle-alley, with benches along it and little wooden tables
marked with rings that hinted at beer-mugs. In the middle was a small round
pond containing gold-fish and surrounded by a cockle-shell border. Out of
the centre of the pond rose a fanciful erection clothed in more cockle-shells
and topped by a large silvered glass ball that reflected everything all wrong
and had a very pleasing effect.
Mole’s face-beamed at the sight of all these objects so dear to him, and
he hurried Rat through the door, lit a lamp in the hall, and took one glance
round his old home. He saw the dust lying thick on everything, saw the
cheerless, deserted look of the long-neglected house, and its narrow, meagre
dimensions, its worn and shabby contents—and collapsed again on a hall-
chair, his nose to his paws. “O Ratty!” he cried dismally, “why ever did I do
it? Why did I bring you to this poor, cold little place, on a night like this,
when you might have been at River Bank by this time, toasting your toes
before a blazing fire, with all your own nice things about you!”
The Rat paid no heed to his doleful self-reproaches. He was running here
and there, opening doors, inspecting rooms and cupboards, and lighting
lamps and candles and sticking them, up everywhere. “What a capital little
house this is!” he called out cheerily. “So compact! So well planned!
Everything here and everything in its place! We’ll make a jolly night of it.
The first thing we want is a good fire; I’ll see to that—I always know where
to find things. So this is the parlour? Splendid! Your own idea, those little
sleeping-bunks in the wall? Capital! Now, I’ll fetch the wood and the coals,
and you get a duster, Mole—you’ll find one in the drawer of the kitchen
table—and try and smarten things up a bit. Bustle about, old chap!”

Encouraged by his inspiriting companion, the Mole roused himself and
dusted and polished with energy and heartiness, while the Rat, running to
and fro with armfuls of fuel, soon had a cheerful blaze roaring up the
chimney. He hailed the Mole to come and warm himself; but Mole
promptly had another fit of the blues, dropping down on a couch in dark
despair and burying his face in his duster. “Rat,” he moaned, “how about
your supper, you poor, cold, hungry, weary animal? I’ve nothing to give you
—nothing—not a crumb!”
“What a fellow you are for giving in!” said the Rat reproachfully. “Why,
only just now I saw a sardine-opener on the kitchen dresser, quite distinctly;
and everybody knows that means there are sardines about somewhere in the
neighbourhood. Rouse yourself! pull yourself together, and come with me
and forage.”
They went and foraged accordingly, hunting through every cupboard and
turning out every drawer. The result was not so very depressing after all,
though of course it might have been better; a tin of sardines—a box of
captain’s biscuits, nearly full—and a German sausage encased in silver
paper.
“There’s a banquet for you!” observed the Rat, as he arranged the table.
“I know some animals who would give their ears to be sitting down to
supper with us to-night!”
“No bread!” groaned the Mole dolorously; “no butter, no——”
“No pâté de foie gras, no champagne!” continued the Rat, grinning.
“And that reminds me—what’s that little door at the end of the passage?
Your cellar, of course! Every luxury in this house! Just you wait a minute.”
He made for the cellar-door, and presently reappeared, somewhat dusty,
with a bottle of beer in each paw and another under each arm, “Self-
indulgent beggar you seem to be, Mole,” he observed. “Deny yourself
nothing. This is really the jolliest little place I ever was in. Now, wherever
did you pick up those prints? Make the place look so home-like, they do.
No wonder you’re so fond of it, Mole. Tell us all about it, and how you
came to make it what it is.”
Then, while the Rat busied himself fetching plates, and knives and forks,
and mustard which he mixed in an egg-cup, the Mole, his bosom still
heaving with the stress of his recent emotion, related—somewhat shyly at
first, but with more freedom as he warmed to his subject—how this was

planned, and how that was thought out, and how this was got through a
windfall from an aunt, and that was a wonderful find and a bargain, and this
other thing was bought out of laborious savings and a certain amount of
“going without.” His spirits finally quite restored, he must needs go and
caress his possessions, and take a lamp and show off their points to his
visitor and expatiate on them, quite forgetful of the supper they both so
much needed; Rat, who was desperately hungry but strove to conceal it,
nodding seriously, examining with a puckered brow, and saying,
“wonderful,” and “most remarkable,” at intervals, when the chance for an
observation was given him.
At last the Rat succeeded in decoying him to the table, and had just got
seriously to work with the sardine-opener when sounds were heard from the
fore-court without—sounds like the scuffling of small feet in the gravel and
a confused murmur of tiny voices, while broken sentences reached them
—“Now, all in a line—hold the lantern up a bit, Tommy—clear your throats
first—no coughing after I say one, two, three.—Where’s young Bill?—
Here, come on, do, we’re all a-waiting——”
“What’s up?” inquired the Rat, pausing in his labours.
“I think it must be the field-mice,” replied the Mole, with a touch of pride
in his manner. “They go round carol-singing regularly at this time of the
year. They’re quite an institution in these parts. And they never pass me
over—they come to Mole End last of all; and I used to give them hot
drinks, and supper too sometimes, when I could afford it. It will be like old
times to hear them again.”
“Let’s have a look at them!” cried the Rat, jumping up and running to the
door.
It was a pretty sight, and a seasonable one, that met their eyes when they
flung the door open. In the fore-court, lit by the dim rays of a horn lantern,
some eight or ten little fieldmice stood in a semicircle, red worsted
comforters round their throats, their fore-paws thrust deep into their
pockets, their feet jigging for warmth. With bright beady eyes they glanced
shyly at each other, sniggering a little, sniffing and applying coat-sleeves a
good deal. As the door opened, one of the elder ones that carried the lantern
was just saying, “Now then, one, two, three!” and forthwith their shrill little
voices uprose on the air, singing one of the old-time carols that their
forefathers composed in fields that were fallow and held by frost, or when

snow-bound in chimney corners, and handed down to be sung in the miry
street to lamp-lit windows at Yule-time.
CAROL

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

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

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

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

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

The voices ceased, the singers, bashful but smiling, exchanged sidelong
glances, and silence succeeded—but for a moment only. Then, from up
above and far away, down the tunnel they had so lately travelled was borne
to their ears in a faint musical hum the sound of distant bells ringing a
joyful and clangorous peal.
“Very well sung, boys!” cried the Rat heartily. “And now come along in,
all of you, and warm yourselves by the fire, and have something hot!”
“Yes, come along, field-mice,” cried the Mole eagerly. “This is quite like
old times! Shut the door after you. Pull up that settle to the fire. Now, you
just wait a minute, while we—O, Ratty!” he cried in despair, plumping

down on a seat, with tears impending. “Whatever are we doing? We’ve
nothing to give them!”
“You leave all that to me,” said the masterful Rat. “Here, you with the
lantern! Come over this way. I want to talk to you. Now, tell me, are there
any shops open at this hour of the night?”
“Why, certainly, sir,” replied the field-mouse respectfully. “At this time
of the year our shops keep open to all sorts of hours.”
“Then look here!” said the Rat. “You go off at once, you and your
lantern, and you get me——”
Here much muttered conversation ensued, and the Mole only heard bits
of it, such as—“Fresh, mind!—no, a pound of that will do—see you get
Buggins’s, for I won’t have any other—no, only the best—if you can’t get it
there, try somewhere else—yes, of course, home-made, no tinned stuff—
well then, do the best you can!” Finally, there was a chink of coin passing
from paw to paw, the field-mouse was provided with an ample basket for
his purchases, and off he hurried, he and his lantern.
The rest of the field-mice, perched in a row on the settle, their small legs
swinging, gave themselves up to enjoyment of the fire, and toasted their
chilblains till they tingled; while the Mole, failing to draw them into easy
conversation, plunged into family history and made each of them recite the
names of his numerous brothers, who were too young, it appeared, to be
allowed to go out a-carolling this year, but looked forward very shortly to
winning the parental consent.
The Rat, meanwhile, was busy examining the label on one of the beer-
bottles. “I perceive this to be Old Burton,” he remarked approvingly.
“Sensible Mole! The very thing! Now we shall be able to mull some ale!
Get the things ready, Mole, while I draw the corks.”
It did not take long to prepare the brew and thrust the tin heater well into
the red heart of the fire; and soon every field-mouse was sipping and
coughing and choking (for a little mulled ale goes a long way) and wiping
his eyes and laughing and forgetting he had ever been cold in all his life.
“They act plays too, these fellows,” the Mole explained to the Rat.
“Make them up all by themselves, and act them afterwards. And very well
they do it, too! They gave us a capital one last year, about a field-mouse
who was captured at sea by a Barbary corsair, and made to row in a galley;

and when he escaped and got home again, his lady-love had gone into a
convent. Here, you! You were in it, I remember. Get up and recite a bit.”
The field-mouse addressed got up on his legs, giggled shyly, looked
round the room, and remained absolutely tongue-tied. His comrades
cheered him on, Mole coaxed and encouraged him, and the Rat went so far
as to take him by the shoulders and shake him; but nothing could overcome
his stage-fright. They were all busily engaged on him like watermen
applying the Royal Humane Society’s regulations to a case of long
submersion, when the latch clicked, the door opened, and the field-mouse
with the lantern reappeared, staggering under the weight of his basket.
There was no more talk of play-acting once the very real and solid
contents of the basket had been tumbled out on the table. Under the
generalship of Rat, everybody was set to do something or to fetch
something. In a very few minutes supper was ready, and Mole, as he took
the head of the table in a sort of a dream, saw a lately barren board set thick
with savoury comforts; saw his little friends’ faces brighten and beam as
they fell to without delay; and then let himself loose—for he was famished
indeed—on the provender so magically provided, thinking what a happy
home-coming this had turned out, after all. As they ate, they talked of old
times, and the field-mice gave him the local gossip up to date, and answered
as well as they could the hundred questions he had to ask them. The Rat
said little or nothing, only taking care that each guest had what he wanted,
and plenty of it, and that Mole had no trouble or anxiety about anything.
They clattered off at last, very grateful and showering wishes of the
season, with their jacket pockets stuffed with remembrances for the small
brothers and sisters at home. When the door had closed on the last of them
and the chink of the lanterns had died away, Mole and Rat kicked the fire
up, drew their chairs in, brewed themselves a last nightcap of mulled ale,
and discussed the events of the long day. At last the Rat, with a tremendous
yawn, said, “Mole, old chap, I’m ready to drop. Sleepy is simply not the
word. That your own bunk over on that side? Very well, then, I’ll take this.
What a ripping little house this is! Everything so handy!”
He clambered into his bunk and rolled himself well up in the blankets,
and slumber gathered him forthwith, as a swathe of barley is folded into the
arms of the reaping machine.

The weary Mole also was glad to turn in without delay, and soon had his
head on his pillow, in great joy and contentment. But ere he closed his eyes
he let them wander round his old room, mellow in the glow of the firelight
that played or rested on familiar and friendly things which had long been
unconsciously a part of him, and now smilingly received him back, without
rancour. He was now in just the frame of mind that the tactful Rat had
quietly worked to bring about in him. He saw clearly how plain and simple
—how narrow, even—it all was; but clearly, too, how much it all meant to
him, and the special value of some such anchorage in one’s existence. He
did not at all want to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces, to turn
his back on sun and air and all they offered him and creep home and stay
there; the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down
there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage. But it was good to
think he had this to come back to; this place which was all his own, these
things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted
upon for the same simple welcome.

VI.
MR. TOAD

It was a bright morning in the early part of summer; the river had
resumed its wonted banks and its accustomed pace, and a hot sun seemed to
be pulling everything green and bushy and spiky up out of the earth towards
him, as if by strings. The Mole and the Water Rat had been up since dawn,
very busy on matters connected with boats and the opening of the boating
season; painting and varnishing, mending paddles, repairing cushions,
hunting for missing boat-hooks, and so on; and were finishing breakfast in
their little parlour and eagerly discussing their plans for the day, when a
heavy knock sounded at the door.
“Bother!” said the Rat, all over egg. “See who it is, Mole, like a good
chap, since you’ve finished.”
The Mole went to attend the summons, and the Rat heard him utter a cry
of surprise. Then he flung the parlour door open, and announced with much
importance, “Mr. Badger!”
This was a wonderful thing, indeed, that the Badger should pay a formal
call on them, or indeed on anybody. He generally had to be caught, if you
wanted him badly, as he slipped quietly along a hedgerow of an early
morning or a late evening, or else hunted up in his own house in the middle
of the Wood, which was a serious undertaking.
The Badger strode heavily into the room, and stood looking at the two
animals with an expression full of seriousness. The Rat let his egg-spoon
fall on the table-cloth, and sat open-mouthed.
“The hour has come!” said the Badger at last with great solemnity.
“What hour?” asked the Rat uneasily, glancing at the clock on the
mantelpiece.

“Whose hour, you should rather say,” replied the Badger. “Why, Toad’s
hour! The hour of Toad! I said I would take him in hand as soon as the
winter was well over, and I’m going to take him in hand to-day!”
“Toad’s hour, of course!” cried the Mole delightedly. “Hooray! I
remember now! We’ll teach him to be a sensible Toad!”
“This very morning,” continued the Badger, taking an arm-chair, “as I
learnt last night from a trustworthy source, another new and exceptionally
powerful motor-car will arrive at Toad Hall on approval or return. At this
very moment, perhaps, Toad is busy arraying himself in those singularly
hideous habiliments so dear to him, which transform him from a
(comparatively) good-looking Toad into an Object which throws any
decent-minded animal that comes across it into a violent fit. We must be up
and doing, ere it is too late. You two animals will accompany me instantly
to Toad Hall, and the work of rescue shall be accomplished.”
“Right you are!” cried the Rat, starting up. “We’ll rescue the poor
unhappy animal! We’ll convert him! He’ll be the most converted Toad that
ever was before we’ve done with him!”
They set off up the road on their mission of mercy, Badger leading the
way. Animals when in company walk in a proper and sensible manner, in
single file, instead of sprawling all across the road and being of no use or
support to each other in case of sudden trouble or danger.
They reached the carriage-drive of Toad Hall to find, as the Badger had
anticipated, a shiny new motor-car, of great size, painted a bright red
(Toad’s favourite colour), standing in front of the house. As they neared the
door it was flung open, and Mr. Toad, arrayed in goggles, cap, gaiters, and
enormous overcoat, came swaggering down the steps, drawing on his
gauntleted gloves.
“Hullo! come on, you fellows!” he cried cheerfully on catching sight of
them. “You’re just in time to come with me for a jolly—to come for a jolly
—for a—er—jolly——”
His hearty accents faltered and fell away as he noticed the stern
unbending look on the countenances of his silent friends, and his invitation
remained unfinished.
The Badger strode up the steps. “Take him inside,” he said sternly to his
companions. Then, as Toad was hustled through the door, struggling and

protesting, he turned to the chauffeur in charge of the new motor-car.
“I’m afraid you won’t be wanted to-day,” he said. “Mr. Toad has changed
his mind. He will not require the car. Please understand that this is final.
You needn’t wait.” Then he followed the others inside and shut the door.
“Now then!” he said to the Toad, when the four of them stood together in
the Hall, “first of all, take those ridiculous things off!”
“Shan’t!” replied Toad, with great spirit. “What is the meaning of this
gross outrage? I demand an instant explanation.”
“Take them off him, then, you two,” ordered the Badger briefly.
They had to lay Toad out on the floor, kicking and calling all sorts of
names, before they could get to work properly. Then the Rat sat on him, and
the Mole got his motor-clothes off him bit by bit, and they stood him up on
his legs again. A good deal of his blustering spirit seemed to have
evaporated with the removal of his fine panoply. Now that he was merely
Toad, and no longer the Terror of the Highway, he giggled feebly and
looked from one to the other appealingly, seeming quite to understand the
situation.
“You knew it must come to this, sooner or later, Toad,” the Badger
explained severely.
You’ve disregarded all the warnings we’ve given you, you’ve gone on
squandering the money your father left you, and you’re getting us animals a
bad name in the district by your furious driving and your smashes and your
rows with the police. Independence is all very well, but we animals never
allow our friends to make fools of themselves beyond a certain limit; and
that limit you’ve reached. Now, you’re a good fellow in many respects, and
I don’t want to be too hard on you. I’ll make one more effort to bring you to
reason. You will come with me into the smoking-room, and there you will
hear some facts about yourself; and we’ll see whether you come out of that
room the same Toad that you went in.”
He took Toad firmly by the arm, led him into the smoking-room, and
closed the door behind them.
“That’s no good!” said the Rat contemptuously. “Talking to Toad’ll never
cure him. He’ll say anything.”
They made themselves comfortable in armchairs and waited patiently.
Through the closed door they could just hear the long continuous drone of

the Badger’s voice, rising and falling in waves of oratory; and presently
they noticed that the sermon began to be punctuated at intervals by long-
drawn sobs, evidently proceeding from the bosom of Toad, who was a soft-
hearted and affectionate fellow, very easily converted—for the time being—
to any point of view.
After some three-quarters of an hour the door opened, and the Badger
reappeared, solemnly leading by the paw a very limp and dejected Toad.
His skin hung baggily about him, his legs wobbled, and his cheeks were
furrowed by the tears so plentifully called forth by the Badger’s moving
discourse.
“Sit down there, Toad,” said the Badger kindly, pointing to a chair. “My
friends,” he went on, “I am pleased to inform you that Toad has at last seen
the error of his ways. He is truly sorry for his misguided conduct in the past,
and he has undertaken to give up motor-cars entirely and for ever. I have his
solemn promise to that effect.”
“That is very good news,” said the Mole gravely.
“Very good news indeed,” observed the Rat dubiously, “if only—if only
——”
He was looking very hard at Toad as he said this, and could not help
thinking he perceived something vaguely resembling a twinkle in that
animal’s still sorrowful eye.
“There’s only one thing more to be done,” continued the gratified Badger.
“Toad, I want you solemnly to repeat, before your friends here, what you
fully admitted to me in the smoking-room just now. First, you are sorry for
what you’ve done, and you see the folly of it all?”
There was a long, long pause. Toad looked desperately this way and that,
while the other animals waited in grave silence. At last he spoke.
“No!” he said, a little sullenly, but stoutly; “I’m not sorry. And it wasn’t
folly at all! It was simply glorious!”
“What?” cried the Badger, greatly scandalised. “You backsliding animal,
didn’t you tell me just now, in there——”
“Oh, yes, yes, in there,” said Toad impatiently. “I’d have said anything in
there. You’re so eloquent, dear Badger, and so moving, and so convincing,
and put all your points so frightfully well—you can do what you like with
me in there, and you know it. But I’ve been searching my mind since, and

going over things in it, and I find that I’m not a bit sorry or repentant really,
so it’s no earthly good saying I am; now, is it?”
“Then you don’t promise,” said the Badger, “never to touch a motor-car
again?”
“Certainly not!” replied Toad emphatically. “On the contrary, I faithfully
promise that the very first motor-car I see, poop-poop! off I go in it!”
“Told you so, didn’t I?” observed the Rat to the Mole.
“Very well, then,” said the Badger firmly, rising to his feet. “Since you
won’t yield to persuasion, we’ll try what force can do. I feared it would
come to this all along. You’ve often asked us three to come and stay with
you, Toad, in this handsome house of yours; well, now we’re going to.
When we’ve converted you to a proper point of view we may quit, but not
before. Take him upstairs, you two, and lock him up in his bedroom, while
we arrange matters between ourselves.”
“It’s for your own good, Toady, you know,” said the Rat kindly, as Toad,
kicking and struggling, was hauled up the stairs by his two faithful friends.
“Think what fun we shall all have together, just as we used to, when you’ve
quite got over this—this painful attack of yours!”
“We’ll take great care of everything for you till you’re well, Toad,” said
the Mole; “and we’ll see your money isn’t wasted, as it has been.”
“No more of those regrettable incidents with the police, Toad,” said the
Rat, as they thrust him into his bedroom.
“And no more weeks in hospital, being ordered about by female nurses,
Toad,” added the Mole, turning the key on him.
They descended the stair, Toad shouting abuse at them through the
keyhole; and the three friends then met in conference on the situation.
“It’s going to be a tedious business,” said the Badger, sighing. “I’ve
never seen Toad so determined. However, we will see it out. He must never
be left an instant unguarded. We shall have to take it in turns to be with him,
till the poison has worked itself out of his system.”
They arranged watches accordingly. Each animal took it in turns to sleep
in Toad’s room at night, and they divided the day up between them. At first
Toad was undoubtedly very trying to his careful guardians. When his
violent paroxysms possessed him he would arrange bedroom chairs in rude
resemblance of a motor-car and would crouch on the foremost of them, bent

forward and staring fixedly ahead, making uncouth and ghastly noises, till
the climax was reached, when, turning a complete somersault, he would lie
prostrate amidst the ruins of the chairs, apparently completely satisfied for
the moment. As time passed, however, these painful seizures grew gradually
less frequent, and his friends strove to divert his mind into fresh channels.
But his interest in other matters did not seem to revive, and he grew
apparently languid and depressed.
One fine morning the Rat, whose turn it was to go on duty, went upstairs
to relieve Badger, whom he found fidgeting to be off and stretch his legs in
a long ramble round his wood and down his earths and burrows. “Toad’s
still in bed,” he told the Rat, outside the door. “Can’t get much out of him,
except, ‘O leave him alone, he wants nothing, perhaps he’ll be better
presently, it may pass off in time, don’t be unduly anxious,’ and so on. Now,
you look out, Rat! When Toad’s quiet and submissive and playing at being
the hero of a Sunday-school prize, then he’s at his artfullest. There’s sure to
be something up. I know him. Well, now, I must be off.”
“How are you to-day, old chap?” inquired the Rat cheerfully, as he
approached Toad’s bedside.
He had to wait some minutes for an answer. At last a feeble voice replied,
“Thank you so much, dear Ratty! So good of you to inquire! But first tell
me how you are yourself, and the excellent Mole?”
“O, we’re all right,” replied the Rat. “Mole,” he added incautiously, “is
going out for a run round with Badger. They’ll be out till luncheon time, so
you and I will spend a pleasant morning together, and I’ll do my best to
amuse you. Now jump up, there’s a good fellow, and don’t lie moping there
on a fine morning like this!”
“Dear, kind Rat,” murmured Toad, “how little you realise my condition,
and how very far I am from ‘jumping up’ now—if ever! But do not trouble
about me. I hate being a burden to my friends, and I do not expect to be one
much longer. Indeed, I almost hope not.”
“Well, I hope not, too,” said the Rat heartily. “You’ve been a fine bother
to us all this time, and I’m glad to hear it’s going to stop. And in weather
like this, and the boating season just beginning! It’s too bad of you, Toad! It
isn’t the trouble we mind, but you’re making us miss such an awful lot.”
“I’m afraid it is the trouble you mind, though,” replied the Toad
languidly. “I can quite understand it. It’s natural enough. You’re tired of

bothering about me. I mustn’t ask you to do anything further. I’m a
nuisance, I know.”
“You are, indeed,” said the Rat. “But I tell you, I’d take any trouble on
earth for you, if only you’d be a sensible animal.”
“If I thought that, Ratty,” murmured Toad, more feebly than ever, “then I
would beg you—for the last time, probably—to step round to the village as
quickly as possible—even now it may be too late—and fetch the doctor. But
don’t you bother. It’s only a trouble, and perhaps we may as well let things
take their course.”
“Why, what do you want a doctor for?” inquired the Rat, coming closer
and examining him. He certainly lay very still and flat, and his voice was
weaker and his manner much changed.
“Surely you have noticed of late——” murmured Toad. “But, no—why
should you? Noticing things is only a trouble. To-morrow, indeed, you may
be saying to yourself, ‘O, if only I had noticed sooner! If only I had done
something!’ But no; it’s a trouble. Never mind—forget that I asked.”
“Look here, old man,” said the Rat, beginning to get rather alarmed, “of
course I’ll fetch a doctor to you, if you really think you want him. But you
can hardly be bad enough for that yet. Let’s talk about something else.”
“I fear, dear friend,” said Toad, with a sad smile, “that ‘talk’ can do little
in a case like this—or doctors either, for that matter; still, one must grasp at
the slightest straw. And, by the way—while you are about it—I hate to give
you additional trouble, but I happen to remember that you will pass the door
—would you mind at the same time asking the lawyer to step up? It would
be a convenience to me, and there are moments—perhaps I should say there
is a moment—when one must face disagreeable tasks, at whatever cost to
exhausted nature!”
“A lawyer! O, he must be really bad!” the affrighted Rat said to himself,
as he hurried from the room, not forgetting, however, to lock the door
carefully behind him.
Outside, he stopped to consider. The other two were far away, and he had
no one to consult.
“It’s best to be on the safe side,” he said, on reflection. “I’ve known Toad
fancy himself frightfully bad before, without the slightest reason; but I’ve
never heard him ask for a lawyer! If there’s nothing really the matter, the

doctor will tell him he’s an old ass, and cheer him up; and that will be
something gained. I’d better humour him and go; it won’t take very long.”
So he ran off to the village on his errand of mercy.
The Toad, who had hopped lightly out of bed as soon as he heard the key
turned in the lock, watched him eagerly from the window till he
disappeared down the carriage-drive. Then, laughing heartily, he dressed as
quickly as possible in the smartest suit he could lay hands on at the
moment, filled his pockets with cash which he took from a small drawer in
the dressing-table, and next, knotting the sheets from his bed together and
tying one end of the improvised rope round the central mullion of the
handsome Tudor window which formed such a feature of his bedroom, he
scrambled out, slid lightly to the ground, and, taking the opposite direction
to the Rat, marched off lightheartedly, whistling a merry tune.
It was a gloomy luncheon for Rat when the Badger and the Mole at
length returned, and he had to face them at table with his pitiful and
unconvincing story. The Badger’s caustic, not to say brutal, remarks may be
imagined, and therefore passed over; but it was painful to the Rat that even
the Mole, though he took his friend’s side as far as possible, could not help
saying, “You’ve been a bit of a duffer this time, Ratty! Toad, too, of all
animals!”
“He did it awfully well,” said the crestfallen Rat.
“He did you awfully well!” rejoined the Badger hotly. “However, talking
won’t mend matters. He’s got clear away for the time, that’s certain; and the
worst of it is, he’ll be so conceited with what he’ll think is his cleverness
that he may commit any folly. One comfort is, we’re free now, and needn’t
waste any more of our precious time doing sentry-go. But we’d better
continue to sleep at Toad Hall for a while longer. Toad may be brought back
at any moment—on a stretcher, or between two policemen.”
So spoke the Badger, not knowing what the future held in store, or how
much water, and of how turbid a character, was to run under bridges before
Toad should sit at ease again in his ancestral Hall.

Meanwhile, Toad, gay and irresponsible, was walking briskly along the
high road, some miles from home. At first he had taken by-paths, and
crossed many fields, and changed his course several times, in case of

pursuit; but now, feeling by this time safe from recapture, and the sun
smiling brightly on him, and all Nature joining in a chorus of approval to
the song of self-praise that his own heart was singing to him, he almost
danced along the road in his satisfaction and conceit.
“Smart piece of work that!” he remarked to himself chuckling. “Brain
against brute force—and brain came out on the top—as it’s bound to do.
Poor old Ratty! My! won’t he catch it when the Badger gets back! A worthy
fellow, Ratty, with many good qualities, but very little intelligence and
absolutely no education. I must take him in hand some day, and see if I can
make something of him.”
Filled full of conceited thoughts such as these he strode along, his head in
the air, till he reached a little town, where the sign of “The Red Lion,”
swinging across the road halfway down the main street, reminded him that
he had not breakfasted that day, and that he was exceedingly hungry after
his long walk. He marched into the Inn, ordered the best luncheon that
could be provided at so short a notice, and sat down to eat it in the coffee-
room.
He was about half-way through his meal when an only too familiar
sound, approaching down the street, made him start and fall a-trembling all
over. The poop-poop! drew nearer and nearer, the car could be heard to turn
into the inn-yard and come to a stop, and Toad had to hold on to the leg of
the table to conceal his over-mastering emotion. Presently the party entered
the coffee-room, hungry, talkative, and gay, voluble on their experiences of
the morning and the merits of the chariot that had brought them along so
well. Toad listened eagerly, all ears, for a time; at last he could stand it no
longer. He slipped out of the room quietly, paid his bill at the bar, and as
soon as he got outside sauntered round quietly to the inn-yard. “There
cannot be any harm,” he said to himself, “in my only just looking at it!”
The car stood in the middle of the yard, quite unattended, the stable-helps
and other hangers-on being all at their dinner. Toad walked slowly round it,
inspecting, criticising, musing deeply.
“I wonder,” he said to himself presently, “I wonder if this sort of car
starts easily?”
Next moment, hardly knowing how it came about, he found he had hold
of the handle and was turning it. As the familiar sound broke forth, the old
passion seized on Toad and completely mastered him, body and soul. As if

in a dream he found himself, somehow, seated in the driver’s seat; as if in a
dream, he pulled the lever and swung the car round the yard and out
through the archway; and, as if in a dream, all sense of right and wrong, all
fear of obvious consequences, seemed temporarily suspended. He increased
his pace, and as the car devoured the street and leapt forth on the high road
through the open country, he was only conscious that he was Toad once
more, Toad at his best and highest, Toad the terror, the traffic-queller, the
Lord of the lone trail, before whom all must give way or be smitten into
nothingness and everlasting night. He chanted as he flew, and the car
responded with sonorous drone; the miles were eaten up under him as he
sped he knew not whither, fulfilling his instincts, living his hour, reckless of
what might come to him.

“To my mind,” observed the Chairman of the Bench of Magistrates
cheerfully, “the only difficulty that presents itself in this otherwise very
clear case is, how we can possibly make it sufficiently hot for the
incorrigible rogue and hardened ruffian whom we see cowering in the dock
before us. Let me see: he has been found guilty, on the clearest evidence,
first, of stealing a valuable motor-car; secondly, of driving to the public
danger; and, thirdly, of gross impertinence to the rural police. Mr. Clerk,
will you tell us, please, what is the very stiffest penalty we can impose for
each of these offences? Without, of course, giving the prisoner the benefit
of any doubt, because there isn’t any.”
The Clerk scratched his nose with his pen. “Some people would
consider,” he observed, “that stealing the motor-car was the worst offence;
and so it is. But cheeking the police undoubtedly carries the severest
penalty; and so it ought. Supposing you were to say twelve months for the
theft, which is mild; and three years for the furious driving, which is
lenient; and fifteen years for the cheek, which was pretty bad sort of cheek,
judging by what we’ve heard from the witness-box, even if you only
believe one-tenth part of what you heard, and I never believe more myself
—those figures, if added together correctly, tot up to nineteen years——”
“First-rate!” said the Chairman.

“—So you had better make it a round twenty years and be on the safe
side,” concluded the Clerk.
“An excellent suggestion!” said the Chairman approvingly. “Prisoner!
Pull yourself together and try and stand up straight. It’s going to be twenty
years for you this time. And mind, if you appear before us again, upon any
charge whatever, we shall have to deal with you very seriously!”
Then the brutal minions of the law fell upon the hapless Toad; loaded
him with chains, and dragged him from the Court House, shrieking,
praying, protesting; across the marketplace, where the playful populace,
always as severe upon detected crime as they are sympathetic and helpful
when one is merely “wanted,” assailed him with jeers, carrots, and popular
catch-words; past hooting school children, their innocent faces lit up with
the pleasure they ever derive from the sight of a gentleman in difficulties;
across the hollow-sounding drawbridge, below the spiky portcullis, under
the frowning archway of the grim old castle, whose ancient towers soared
high overhead; past guardrooms full of grinning soldiery off duty, past
sentries who coughed in a horrid, sarcastic way, because that is as much as
a sentry on his post dare do to show his contempt and abhorrence of crime;
up time-worn winding stairs, past men-at-arms in casquet and corselet of
steel, darting threatening looks through their vizards; across courtyards,
where mastiffs strained at their leash and pawed the air to get at him; past
ancient warders, their halberds leant against the wall, dozing over a pasty
and a flagon of brown ale; on and on, past the rack-chamber and the
thumbscrew-room, past the turning that led to the private scaffold, till they
reached the door of the grimmest dungeon that lay in the heart of the
innermost keep. There at last they paused, where an ancient gaoler sat
fingering a bunch of mighty keys.
“Oddsbodikins!” said the sergeant of police, taking off his helmet and
wiping his forehead. “Rouse thee, old loon, and take over from us this vile
Toad, a criminal of deepest guilt and matchless artfulness and resource.
Watch and ward him with all thy skill; and mark thee well, greybeard,
should aught untoward befall, thy old head shall answer for his—and a
murrain on both of them!”
The gaoler nodded grimly, laying his withered hand on the shoulder of
the miserable Toad. The rusty key creaked in the lock, the great door
clanged behind them; and Toad was a helpless prisoner in the remotest

dungeon of the best-guarded keep of the stoutest castle in all the length and
breadth of Merry England.

VII.
THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN

The Willow-Wren was twittering his thin little song, hidden himself in
the dark selvedge of the river bank. Though it was past ten o’clock at night,
the sky still clung to and retained some lingering skirts of light from the
departed day; and the sullen heats of the torrid afternoon broke up and
rolled away at the dispersing touch of the cool fingers of the short
midsummer night. Mole lay stretched on the bank, still panting from the
stress of the fierce day that had been cloudless from dawn to late sunset,
and waited for his friend to return. He had been on the river with some
companions, leaving the Water Rat free to keep a engagement of long
standing with Otter; and he had come back to find the house dark and
deserted, and no sign of Rat, who was doubtless keeping it up late with his
old comrade. It was still too hot to think of staying indoors, so he lay on
some cool dock-leaves, and thought over the past day and its doings, and
how very good they all had been.
The Rat’s light footfall was presently heard approaching over the parched
grass. “O, the blessed coolness!” he said, and sat down, gazing thoughtfully
into the river, silent and pre-occupied.
“You stayed to supper, of course?” said the Mole presently.
“Simply had to,” said the Rat. “They wouldn’t hear of my going before.
You know how kind they always are. And they made things as jolly for me
as ever they could, right up to the moment I left. But I felt a brute all the
time, as it was clear to me they were very unhappy, though they tried to
hide it. Mole, I’m afraid they’re in trouble. Little Portly is missing again;
and you know what a lot his father thinks of him, though he never says
much about it.”
“What, that child?” said the Mole lightly. “Well, suppose he is; why
worry about it? He’s always straying off and getting lost, and turning up

again; he’s so adventurous. But no harm ever happens to him. Everybody
hereabouts knows him and likes him, just as they do old Otter, and you may
be sure some animal or other will come across him and bring him back
again all right. Why, we’ve found him ourselves, miles from home, and
quite self-possessed and cheerful!”
“Yes; but this time it’s more serious,” said the Rat gravely. “He’s been
missing for some days now, and the Otters have hunted everywhere, high
and low, without finding the slightest trace. And they’ve asked every
animal, too, for miles around, and no one knows anything about him.
Otter’s evidently more anxious than he’ll admit. I got out of him that young
Portly hasn’t learnt to swim very well yet, and I can see he’s thinking of the
weir. There’s a lot of water coming down still, considering the time of the
year, and the place always had a fascination for the child. And then there are
—well, traps and things—you know. Otter’s not the fellow to be nervous
about any son of his before it’s time. And now he is nervous. When I left, he
came out with me—said he wanted some air, and talked about stretching his
legs. But I could see it wasn’t that, so I drew him out and pumped him, and
got it all from him at last. He was going to spend the night watching by the
ford. You know the place where the old ford used to be, in by-gone days
before they built the bridge?”
“I know it well,” said the Mole. “But why should Otter choose to watch
there?”
“Well, it seems that it was there he gave Portly his first swimming-
lesson,” continued the Rat. “From that shallow, gravelly spit near the bank.
And it was there he used to teach him fishing, and there young Portly
caught his first fish, of which he was so very proud. The child loved the
spot, and Otter thinks that if he came wandering back from wherever he is
—if he is anywhere by this time, poor little chap—he might make for the
ford he was so fond of; or if he came across it he’d remember it well, and
stop there and play, perhaps. So Otter goes there every night and watches—
on the chance, you know, just on the chance!”
They were silent for a time, both thinking of the same thing—the lonely,
heart-sore animal, crouched by the ford, watching and waiting, the long
night through—on the chance.
“Well, well,” said the Rat presently, “I suppose we ought to be thinking
about turning in.” But he never offered to move.

“Rat,” said the Mole, “I simply can’t go and turn in, and go to sleep, and
do nothing, even though there doesn’t seem to be anything to be done. We’ll
get the boat out, and paddle up stream. The moon will be up in an hour or
so, and then we will search as well as we can—anyhow, it will be better
than going to bed and doing nothing.”
“Just what I was thinking myself,” said the Rat. “It’s not the sort of night
for bed anyhow; and daybreak is not so very far off, and then we may pick
up some news of him from early risers as we go along.”
They got the boat out, and the Rat took the sculls, paddling with caution.
Out in midstream, there was a clear, narrow track that faintly reflected the
sky; but wherever shadows fell on the water from bank, bush, or tree, they
were as solid to all appearance as the banks themselves, and the Mole had
to steer with judgment accordingly. Dark and deserted as it was, the night
was full of small noises, song and chatter and rustling, telling of the busy
little population who were up and about, plying their trades and vocations
through the night till sunshine should fall on them at last and send them off
to their well-earned repose. The water’s own noises, too, were more
apparent than by day, its gurglings and “cloops” more unexpected and near
at hand; and constantly they started at what seemed a sudden clear call from
an actual articulate voice.
The line of the horizon was clear and hard against the sky, and in one
particular quarter it showed black against a silvery climbing
phosphorescence that grew and grew. At last, over the rim of the waiting
earth the moon lifted with slow majesty till it swung clear of the horizon
and rode off, free of moorings; and once more they began to see surfaces—
meadows wide-spread, and quiet gardens, and the river itself from bank to
bank, all softly disclosed, all washed clean of mystery and terror, all radiant
again as by day, but with a difference that was tremendous. Their old haunts
greeted them again in other raiment, as if they had slipped away and put on
this pure new apparel and come quietly back, smiling as they shyly waited
to see if they would be recognised again under it.
Fastening their boat to a willow, the friends landed in this silent, silver
kingdom, and patiently explored the hedges, the hollow trees, the runnels
and their little culverts, the ditches and dry water-ways. Embarking again
and crossing over, they worked their way up the stream in this manner,
while the moon, serene and detached in a cloudless sky, did what she could,

though so far off, to help them in their quest; till her hour came and she
sank earthwards reluctantly, and left them, and mystery once more held
field and river.
Then a change began slowly to declare itself. The horizon became
clearer, field and tree came more into sight, and somehow with a different
look; the mystery began to drop away from them. A bird piped suddenly,
and was still; and a light breeze sprang up and set the reeds and bulrushes
rustling. Rat, who was in the stern of the boat, while Mole sculled, sat up
suddenly and listened with a passionate intentness. Mole, who with gentle
strokes was just keeping the boat moving while he scanned the banks with
care, looked at him with curiosity.
“It’s gone!” sighed the Rat, sinking back in his seat again. “So beautiful
and strange and new. Since it was to end so soon, I almost wish I had never
heard it. For it has roused a longing in me that is pain, and nothing seems
worth while but just to hear that sound once more and go on listening to it
for ever. No! There it is again!” he cried, alert once more. Entranced, he
was silent for a long space, spellbound.
“Now it passes on and I begin to lose it,” he said presently. “O Mole! the
beauty of it! The merry bubble and joy, the thin, clear, happy call of the
distant piping! Such music I never dreamed of, and the call in it is stronger
even than the music is sweet! Row on, Mole, row! For the music and the
call must be for us.”
The Mole, greatly wondering, obeyed. “I hear nothing myself,” he said,
“but the wind playing in the reeds and rushes and osiers.”
The Rat never answered, if indeed he heard. Rapt, transported, trembling,
he was possessed in all his senses by this new divine thing that caught up
his helpless soul and swung and dandled it, a powerless but happy infant in
a strong sustaining grasp.
In silence Mole rowed steadily, and soon they came to a point where the
river divided, a long backwater branching off to one side. With a slight
movement of his head Rat, who had long dropped the rudder-lines, directed
the rower to take the backwater. The creeping tide of light gained and
gained, and now they could see the colour of the flowers that gemmed the
water’s edge.
“Clearer and nearer still,” cried the Rat joyously. “Now you must surely
hear it! Ah—at last—I see you do!”

Breathless and transfixed the Mole stopped rowing as the liquid run of
that glad piping broke on him like a wave, caught him up, and possessed
him utterly. He saw the tears on his comrade’s cheeks, and bowed his head
and understood. For a space they hung there, brushed by the purple loose-
strife that fringed the bank; then the clear imperious summons that marched
hand-in-hand with the intoxicating melody imposed its will on Mole, and
mechanically he bent to his oars again. And the light grew steadily stronger,
but no birds sang as they were wont to do at the approach of dawn; and but
for the heavenly music all was marvellously still.
On either side of them, as they glided onwards, the rich meadow-grass
seemed that morning of a freshness and a greenness unsurpassable. Never
had they noticed the roses so vivid, the willow-herb so riotous, the
meadow-sweet so odorous and pervading. Then the murmur of the
approaching weir began to hold the air, and they felt a consciousness that
they were nearing the end, whatever it might be, that surely awaited their
expedition.
A wide half-circle of foam and glinting lights and shining shoulders of
green water, the great weir closed the backwater from bank to bank,
troubled all the quiet surface with twirling eddies and floating foam-streaks,
and deadened all other sounds with its solemn and soothing rumble. In
midmost of the stream, embraced in the weir’s shimmering arm-spread, a
small island lay anchored, fringed close with willow and silver birch and
alder. Reserved, shy, but full of significance, it hid whatever it might hold
behind a veil, keeping it till the hour should come, and, with the hour, those
who were called and chosen.
Slowly, but with no doubt or hesitation whatever, and in something of a
solemn expectancy, the two animals passed through the broken tumultuous
water and moored their boat at the flowery margin of the island. In silence
they landed, and pushed through the blossom and scented herbage and
undergrowth that led up to the level ground, till they stood on a little lawn
of a marvellous green, set round with Nature’s own orchard-trees—crab-
apple, wild cherry, and sloe.
“This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to me,”
whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. “Here, in this holy place, here if
anywhere, surely we shall find Him!”

Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that
turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the
ground. It was no panic terror—indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and
happy—but it was an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he
knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near.
With difficulty he turned to look for his friend and saw him at his side
cowed, stricken, and trembling violently. And still there was utter silence in
the populous bird-haunted branches around them; and still the light grew
and grew.
Perhaps he would never have dared to raise his eyes, but that, though the
piping was now hushed, the call and the summons seemed still dominant
and imperious. He might not refuse, were Death himself waiting to strike
him instantly, once he had looked with mortal eye on things rightly kept
hidden. Trembling he obeyed, and raised his humble head; and then, in that
utter clearness of the imminent dawn, while Nature, flushed with fullness of
incredible colour, seemed to hold her breath for the event, he looked in the
very eyes of the Friend and Helper; saw the backward sweep of the curved
horns, gleaming in the growing daylight; saw the stern, hooked nose
between the kindly eyes that were looking down on them humourously,
while the bearded mouth broke into a half-smile at the corners; saw the
rippling muscles on the arm that lay across the broad chest, the long supple
hand still holding the pan-pipes only just fallen away from the parted lips;
saw the splendid curves of the shaggy limbs disposed in majestic ease on
the sward; saw, last of all, nestling between his very hooves, sleeping
soundly in entire peace and contentment, the little, round, podgy, childish
form of the baby otter. All this he saw, for one moment breathless and
intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still,
as he lived, he wondered.
“Rat!” he found breath to whisper, shaking. “Are you afraid?”
“Afraid?” murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love.
“Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet—and yet—O, Mole, I am
afraid!”
Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did
worship.
Sudden and magnificent, the sun’s broad golden disc showed itself over
the horizon facing them; and the first rays, shooting across the level water-

meadows, took the animals full in the eyes and dazzled them. When they
were able to look once more, the Vision had vanished, and the air was full
of the carol of birds that hailed the dawn.
As they stared blankly in dumb misery deepening as they slowly realised
all they had seen and all they had lost, a capricious little breeze, dancing up
from the surface of the water, tossed the aspens, shook the dewy roses and
blew lightly and caressingly in their faces; and with its soft touch came
instant oblivion. For this is the last best gift that the kindly demi-god is
careful to bestow on those to whom he has revealed himself in their
helping: the gift of forgetfulness. Lest the awful remembrance should
remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and pleasure, and the great
haunting memory should spoil all the after-lives of little animals helped out
of difficulties, in order that they should be happy and lighthearted as before.
Mole rubbed his eyes and stared at Rat, who was looking about him in a
puzzled sort of way. “I beg your pardon; what did you say, Rat?” he asked.
“I think I was only remarking,” said Rat slowly, “that this was the right
sort of place, and that here, if anywhere, we should find him. And look!
Why, there he is, the little fellow!” And with a cry of delight he ran towards
the slumbering Portly.
But Mole stood still a moment, held in thought. As one wakened
suddenly from a beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, and can re-
capture nothing but a dim sense of the beauty of it, the beauty! Till that, too,
fades away in its turn, and the dreamer bitterly accepts the hard, cold
waking and all its penalties; so Mole, after struggling with his memory for a
brief space, shook his head sadly and followed the Rat.
Portly woke up with a joyous squeak, and wriggled with pleasure at the
sight of his father’s friends, who had played with him so often in past days.
In a moment, however, his face grew blank, and he fell to hunting round in
a circle with pleading whine. As a child that has fallen happily asleep in its
nurse’s arms, and wakes to find itself alone and laid in a strange place, and
searches corners and cupboards, and runs from room to room, despair
growing silently in its heart, even so Portly searched the island and
searched, dogged and unwearying, till at last the black moment came for
giving it up, and sitting down and crying bitterly.
The Mole ran quickly to comfort the little animal; but Rat, lingering,
looked long and doubtfully at certain hoof-marks deep in the sward.

“Some—great—animal—has been here,” he murmured slowly and
thoughtfully; and stood musing, musing; his mind strangely stirred.
“Come along, Rat!” called the Mole. “Think of poor Otter, waiting up
there by the ford!”
Portly had soon been comforted by the promise of a treat—a jaunt on the
river in Mr. Rat’s real boat; and the two animals conducted him to the
water’s side, placed him securely between them in the bottom of the boat,
and paddled off down the backwater. The sun was fully up by now, and hot
on them, birds sang lustily and without restraint, and flowers smiled and
nodded from either bank, but somehow—so thought the animals—with less
of richness and blaze of colour than they seemed to remember seeing quite
recently somewhere—they wondered where.
The main river reached again, they turned the boat’s head upstream,
towards the point where they knew their friend was keeping his lonely vigil.
As they drew near the familiar ford, the Mole took the boat in to the bank,
and they lifted Portly out and set him on his legs on the tow-path, gave him
his marching orders and a friendly farewell pat on the back, and shoved out
into mid-stream. They watched the little animal as he waddled along the
path contentedly and with importance; watched him till they saw his muzzle
suddenly lift and his waddle break into a clumsy amble as he quickened his
pace with shrill whines and wriggles of recognition. Looking up the river,
they could see Otter start up, tense and rigid, from out of the shallows
where he crouched in dumb patience, and could hear his amazed and joyous
bark as he bounded up through the osiers on to the path. Then the Mole,
with a strong pull on one oar, swung the boat round and let the full stream
bear them down again whither it would, their quest now happily ended.
“I feel strangely tired, Rat,” said the Mole, leaning wearily over his oars
as the boat drifted. “It’s being up all night, you’ll say, perhaps; but that’s
nothing. We do as much half the nights of the week, at this time of the year.
No; I feel as if I had been through something very exciting and rather
terrible, and it was just over; and yet nothing particular has happened.”
“Or something very surprising and splendid and beautiful,” murmured
the Rat, leaning back and closing his eyes. “I feel just as you do, Mole;
simply dead tired, though not body tired. It’s lucky we’ve got the stream
with us, to take us home. Isn’t it jolly to feel the sun again, soaking into
one’s bones! And hark to the wind playing in the reeds!”

“It’s like music—far away music,” said the Mole nodding drowsily.
“So I was thinking,” murmured the Rat, dreamful and languid. “Dance-
music—the lilting sort that runs on without a stop—but with words in it, too
—it passes into words and out of them again—I catch them at intervals—
then it is dance-music once more, and then nothing but the reeds’ soft thin
whispering.”
“You hear better than I,” said the Mole sadly. “I cannot catch the words.”
“Let me try and give you them,” said the Rat softly, his eyes still closed.
“Now it is turning into words again—faint but clear—Lest the awe should
dwell—And turn your frolic to fret—You shall look on my power at the
helping hour—But then you shall forget! Now the reeds take it up—forget,
forget, they sigh, and it dies away in a rustle and a whisper. Then the voice
returns—
“Lest limbs be reddened and rent—I spring the trap that is set—As I
loose the snare you may glimpse me there—For surely you shall forget!
Row nearer, Mole, nearer to the reeds! It is hard to catch, and grows each
minute fainter.
“Helper and healer, I cheer—Small waifs in the woodland wet—Strays I
find in it, wounds I bind in it—Bidding them all forget! Nearer, Mole,
nearer! No, it is no good; the song has died away into reed-talk.”
“But what do the words mean?” asked the wondering Mole.
“That I do not know,” said the Rat simply. “I passed them on to you as
they reached me. Ah! now they return again, and this time full and clear!
This time, at last, it is the real, the unmistakable thing, simple—passionate
—perfect——”
“Well, let’s have it, then,” said the Mole, after he had waited patiently for
a few minutes, half-dozing in the hot sun.
But no answer came. He looked, and understood the silence. With a smile
of much happiness on his face, and something of a listening look still
lingering there, the weary Rat was fast asleep.

VIII.
TOAD’S ADVENTURES

When Toad found himself immured in a dank and noisome dungeon, and
knew that all the grim darkness of a medieval fortress lay between him and
the outer world of sunshine and well-metalled high roads where he had
lately been so happy, disporting himself as if he had bought up every road
in England, he flung himself at full length on the floor, and shed bitter tears,
and abandoned himself to dark despair. “This is the end of everything” (he
said), “at least it is the end of the career of Toad, which is the same thing;
the popular and handsome Toad, the rich and hospitable Toad, the Toad so
free and careless and debonair! How can I hope to be ever set at large
again” (he said), “who have been imprisoned so justly for stealing so
handsome a motor-car in such an audacious manner, and for such lurid and
imaginative cheek, bestowed upon such a number of fat, red-faced
policemen!” (Here his sobs choked him.) “Stupid animal that I was” (he
said), “now I must languish in this dungeon, till people who were proud to
say they knew me, have forgotten the very name of Toad! O wise old
Badger!” (he said), “O clever, intelligent Rat and sensible Mole! What
sound judgments, what a knowledge of men and matters you possess! O
unhappy and forsaken Toad!” With lamentations such as these he passed his
days and nights for several weeks, refusing his meals or intermediate light
refreshments, though the grim and ancient gaoler, knowing that Toad’s
pockets were well lined, frequently pointed out that many comforts, and
indeed luxuries, could by arrangement be sent in—at a price—from outside.
Now the gaoler had a daughter, a pleasant wench and good-hearted, who
assisted her father in the lighter duties of his post. She was particularly fond
of animals, and, besides her canary, whose cage hung on a nail in the
massive wall of the keep by day, to the great annoyance of prisoners who
relished an after-dinner nap, and was shrouded in an antimacassar on the

parlour table at night, she kept several piebald mice and a restless revolving
squirrel. This kind-hearted girl, pitying the misery of Toad, said to her
father one day, “Father! I can’t bear to see that poor beast so unhappy, and
getting so thin! You let me have the managing of him. You know how fond
of animals I am. I’ll make him eat from my hand, and sit up, and do all sorts
of things.”
Her father replied that she could do what she liked with him. He was
tired of Toad, and his sulks and his airs and his meanness. So that day she
went on her errand of mercy, and knocked at the door of Toad’s cell.
“Now, cheer up, Toad,” she said, coaxingly, on entering, “and sit up and
dry your eyes and be a sensible animal. And do try and eat a bit of dinner.
See, I’ve brought you some of mine, hot from the oven!”
It was bubble-and-squeak, between two plates, and its fragrance filled the
narrow cell. The penetrating smell of cabbage reached the nose of Toad as
he lay prostrate in his misery on the floor, and gave him the idea for a
moment that perhaps life was not such a blank and desperate thing as he
had imagined. But still he wailed, and kicked with his legs, and refused to
be comforted. So the wise girl retired for the time, but, of course, a good
deal of the smell of hot cabbage remained behind, as it will do, and Toad,
between his sobs, sniffed and reflected, and gradually began to think new
and inspiring thoughts: of chivalry, and poetry, and deeds still to be done; of
broad meadows, and cattle browsing in them, raked by sun and wind; of
kitchen-gardens, and straight herb-borders, and warm snap-dragon beset by
bees; and of the comforting clink of dishes set down on the table at Toad
Hall, and the scrape of chair-legs on the floor as every one pulled himself
close up to his work. The air of the narrow cell took a rosy tinge; he began
to think of his friends, and how they would surely be able to do something;
of lawyers, and how they would have enjoyed his case, and what an ass he
had been not to get in a few; and lastly, he thought of his own great
cleverness and resource, and all that he was capable of if he only gave his
great mind to it; and the cure was almost complete.
When the girl returned, some hours later, she carried a tray, with a cup of
fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot buttered toast,
cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter running through the
holes in it in great golden drops, like honey from the honeycomb. The smell
of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad, and with no uncertain voice;

talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on bright frosty mornings, of cosy
parlour firesides on winter evenings, when one’s ramble was over and
slippered feet were propped on the fender; of the purring of contented cats,
and the twitter of sleepy canaries. Toad sat up on end once more, dried his
eyes, sipped his tea and munched his toast, and soon began talking freely
about himself, and the house he lived in, and his doings there, and how
important he was, and what a lot his friends thought of him.
The gaoler’s daughter saw that the topic was doing him as much good as
the tea, as indeed it was, and encouraged him to go on.
“Tell me about Toad Hall,” said she. “It sounds beautiful.”
“Toad Hall,” said the Toad proudly, “is an eligible self-contained
gentleman’s residence very unique; dating in part from the fourteenth
century, but replete with every modern convenience. Up-to-date sanitation.
Five minutes from church, post-office, and golf-links, Suitable for——”
“Bless the animal,” said the girl, laughing, “I don’t want to take it. Tell
me something real about it. But first wait till I fetch you some more tea and
toast.”
She tripped away, and presently returned with a fresh trayful; and Toad,
pitching into the toast with avidity, his spirits quite restored to their usual
level, told her about the boathouse, and the fish-pond, and the old walled
kitchen-garden; and about the pig-styes, and the stables, and the pigeon-
house, and the hen-house; and about the dairy, and the wash-house, and the
china-cupboards, and the linen-presses (she liked that bit especially); and
about the banqueting-hall, and the fun they had there when the other
animals were gathered round the table and Toad was at his best, singing
songs, telling stories, carrying on generally. Then she wanted to know about
his animal-friends, and was very interested in all he had to tell her about
them and how they lived, and what they did to pass their time. Of course,
she did not say she was fond of animals as pets, because she had the sense
to see that Toad would be extremely offended. When she said good night,
having filled his water-jug and shaken up his straw for him, Toad was very
much the same sanguine, self-satisfied animal that he had been of old. He
sang a little song or two, of the sort he used to sing at his dinner-parties,
curled himself up in the straw, and had an excellent night’s rest and the
pleasantest of dreams.

They had many interesting talks together, after that, as the dreary days
went on; and the gaoler’s daughter grew very sorry for Toad, and thought it
a great shame that a poor little animal should be locked up in prison for
what seemed to her a very trivial offence. Toad, of course, in his vanity,
thought that her interest in him proceeded from a growing tenderness; and
he could not help half-regretting that the social gulf between them was so
very wide, for she was a comely lass, and evidently admired him very
much.
One morning the girl was very thoughtful, and answered at random, and
did not seem to Toad to be paying proper attention to his witty sayings and
sparkling comments.
“Toad,” she said presently, “just listen, please. I have an aunt who is a
washerwoman.”
“There, there,” said Toad, graciously and affably, “never mind; think no
more about it. I have several aunts who ought to be washerwomen.”
“Do be quiet a minute, Toad,” said the girl. “You talk too much, that’s
your chief fault, and I’m trying to think, and you hurt my head. As I said, I
have an aunt who is a washerwoman; she does the washing for all the
prisoners in this castle—we try to keep any paying business of that sort in
the family, you understand. She takes out the washing on Monday morning,
and brings it in on Friday evening. This is a Thursday. Now, this is what
occurs to me: you’re very rich—at least you’re always telling me so—and
she’s very poor. A few pounds wouldn’t make any difference to you, and it
would mean a lot to her. Now, I think if she were properly approached—
squared, I believe is the word you animals use—you could come to some
arrangement by which she would let you have her dress and bonnet and so
on, and you could escape from the castle as the official washerwoman.
You’re very alike in many respects—particularly about the figure.”
“We’re not,” said the Toad in a huff. “I have a very elegant figure—for
what I am.”
“So has my aunt,” replied the girl, “for what she is. But have it your own
way. You horrid, proud, ungrateful animal, when I’m sorry for you, and
trying to help you!”
“Yes, yes, that’s all right; thank you very much indeed,” said the Toad
hurriedly. “But look here! you wouldn’t surely have Mr. Toad of Toad Hall,
going about the country disguised as a washerwoman!”

“Then you can stop here as a Toad,” replied the girl with much spirit. “I
suppose you want to go off in a coach-and-four!”
Honest Toad was always ready to admit himself in the wrong. “You are a
good, kind, clever girl,” he said, “and I am indeed a proud and a stupid
toad. Introduce me to your worthy aunt, if you will be so kind, and I have
no doubt that the excellent lady and I will be able to arrange terms
satisfactory to both parties.”
Next evening the girl ushered her aunt into Toad’s cell, bearing his
week’s washing pinned up in a towel. The old lady had been prepared
beforehand for the interview, and the sight of certain gold sovereigns that
Toad had thoughtfully placed on the table in full view practically completed
the matter and left little further to discuss. In return for his cash, Toad
received a cotton print gown, an apron, a shawl, and a rusty black bonnet;
the only stipulation the old lady made being that she should be gagged and
bound and dumped down in a corner. By this not very convincing artifice,
she explained, aided by picturesque fiction which she could supply herself,
she hoped to retain her situation, in spite of the suspicious appearance of
things.
Toad was delighted with the suggestion. It would enable him to leave the
prison in some style, and with his reputation for being a desperate and
dangerous fellow untarnished; and he readily helped the gaoler’s daughter
to make her aunt appear as much as possible the victim of circumstances
over which she had no control.
“Now it’s your turn, Toad,” said the girl. “Take off that coat and
waistcoat of yours; you’re fat enough as it is.”
Shaking with laughter, she proceeded to “hook-and-eye” him into the
cotton print gown, arranged the shawl with a professional fold, and tied the
strings of the rusty bonnet under his chin.
“You’re the very image of her,” she giggled, “only I’m sure you never
looked half so respectable in all your life before. Now, good-bye, Toad, and
good luck. Go straight down the way you came up; and if any one says
anything to you, as they probably will, being but men, you can chaff back a
bit, of course, but remember you’re a widow woman, quite alone in the
world, with a character to lose.”
With a quaking heart, but as firm a footstep as he could command, Toad
set forth cautiously on what seemed to be a most hare-brained and

hazardous undertaking; but he was soon agreeably surprised to find how
easy everything was made for him, and a little humbled at the thought that
both his popularity, and the sex that seemed to inspire it, were really
another’s. The washerwoman’s squat figure in its familiar cotton print
seemed a passport for every barred door and grim gateway; even when he
hesitated, uncertain as to the right turning to take, he found himself helped
out of his difficulty by the warder at the next gate, anxious to be off to his
tea, summoning him to come along sharp and not keep him waiting there all
night. The chaff and the humourous sallies to which he was subjected, and
to which, of course, he had to provide prompt and effective reply, formed,
indeed, his chief danger; for Toad was an animal with a strong sense of his
own dignity, and the chaff was mostly (he thought) poor and clumsy, and
the humour of the sallies entirely lacking. However, he kept his temper,
though with great difficulty, suited his retorts to his company and his
supposed character, and did his best not to overstep the limits of good taste.
It seemed hours before he crossed the last courtyard, rejected the pressing
invitations from the last guardroom, and dodged the outspread arms of the
last warder, pleading with simulated passion for just one farewell embrace.
But at last he heard the wicket-gate in the great outer door click behind him,
felt the fresh air of the outer world upon his anxious brow, and knew that he
was free!
Dizzy with the easy success of his daring exploit, he walked quickly
towards the lights of the town, not knowing in the least what he should do
next, only quite certain of one thing, that he must remove himself as quickly
as possible from the neighbourhood where the lady he was forced to
represent was so well-known and so popular a character.
As he walked along, considering, his attention was caught by some red
and green lights a little way off, to one side of the town, and the sound of
the puffing and snorting of engines and the banging of shunted trucks fell
on his ear. “Aha!” he thought, “this is a piece of luck! A railway station is
the thing I want most in the whole world at this moment; and what’s more, I
needn’t go through the town to get it, and shan’t have to support this
humiliating character by repartees which, though thoroughly effective, do
not assist one’s sense of self-respect.”
He made his way to the station accordingly, consulted a time-table, and
found that a train, bound more or less in the direction of his home, was due

to start in half-an-hour. “More luck!” said Toad, his spirits rising rapidly,
and went off to the booking-office to buy his ticket.
He gave the name of the station that he knew to be nearest to the village
of which Toad Hall was the principal feature, and mechanically put his
fingers, in search of the necessary money, where his waistcoat pocket
should have been. But here the cotton gown, which had nobly stood by him
so far, and which he had basely forgotten, intervened, and frustrated his
efforts. In a sort of nightmare he struggled with the strange uncanny thing
that seemed to hold his hands, turn all muscular strivings to water, and
laugh at him all the time; while other travellers, forming up in a line behind,
waited with impatience, making suggestions of more or less value and
comments of more or less stringency and point. At last—somehow—he
never rightly understood how—he burst the barriers, attained the goal,
arrived at where all waistcoat pockets are eternally situated, and found—not
only no money, but no pocket to hold it, and no waistcoat to hold the
pocket!
To his horror he recollected that he had left both coat and waistcoat
behind him in his cell, and with them his pocket-book, money, keys, watch,
matches, pencil-case—all that makes life worth living, all that distinguishes
the many-pocketed animal, the lord of creation, from the inferior one-
pocketed or no-pocketed productions that hop or trip about permissively,
unequipped for the real contest.
In his misery he made one desperate effort to carry the thing off, and,
with a return to his fine old manner—a blend of the Squire and the College
Don—he said, “Look here! I find I’ve left my purse behind. Just give me
that ticket, will you, and I’ll send the money on to-morrow? I’m well-
known in these parts.”
The clerk stared at him and the rusty black bonnet a moment, and then
laughed. “I should think you were pretty well known in these parts,” he
said, “if you’ve tried this game on often. Here, stand away from the
window, please, madam; you’re obstructing the other passengers!”
An old gentleman who had been prodding him in the back for some
moments here thrust him away, and, what was worse, addressed him as his
good woman, which angered Toad more than anything that had occurred
that evening.

Baffled and full of despair, he wandered blindly down the platform where
the train was standing, and tears trickled down each side of his nose. It was
hard, he thought, to be within sight of safety and almost of home, and to be
baulked by the want of a few wretched shillings and by the pettifogging
mistrustfulness of paid officials. Very soon his escape would be discovered,
the hunt would be up, he would be caught, reviled, loaded with chains,
dragged back again to prison and bread-and-water and straw; his guards and
penalties would be doubled; and O, what sarcastic remarks the girl would
make! What was to be done? He was not swift of foot; his figure was
unfortunately recognisable. Could he not squeeze under the seat of a
carriage? He had seen this method adopted by schoolboys, when the
journey-money provided by thoughtful parents had been diverted to other
and better ends. As he pondered, he found himself opposite the engine,
which was being oiled, wiped, and generally caressed by its affectionate
driver, a burly man with an oil-can in one hand and a lump of cotton-waste
in the other.
“Hullo, mother!” said the engine-driver, “what’s the trouble? You don’t
look particularly cheerful.”
“O, sir!” said Toad, crying afresh, “I am a poor unhappy washerwoman,
and I’ve lost all my money, and can’t pay for a ticket, and I must get home
to-night somehow, and whatever I am to do I don’t know. O dear, O dear!”
“That’s a bad business, indeed,” said the engine-driver reflectively. “Lost
your money—and can’t get home—and got some kids, too, waiting for you,
I dare say?”
“Any amount of ’em,” sobbed Toad. “And they’ll be hungry—and
playing with matches—and upsetting lamps, the little innocents!—and
quarrelling, and going on generally. O dear, O dear!”
“Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said the good engine-driver. “You’re a
washerwoman to your trade, says you. Very well, that’s that. And I’m an
engine-driver, as you well may see, and there’s no denying it’s terribly dirty
work. Uses up a power of shirts, it does, till my missus is fair tired of
washing of ’em. If you’ll wash a few shirts for me when you get home, and
send ’em along, I’ll give you a ride on my engine. It’s against the
Company’s regulations, but we’re not so very particular in these out-of-the-
way parts.”

The Toad’s misery turned into rapture as he eagerly scrambled up into the
cab of the engine. Of course, he had never washed a shirt in his life, and
couldn’t if he tried and, anyhow, he wasn’t going to begin; but he thought:
“When I get safely home to Toad Hall, and have money again, and pockets
to put it in, I will send the engine-driver enough to pay for quite a quantity
of washing, and that will be the same thing, or better.”
The guard waved his welcome flag, the engine-driver whistled in
cheerful response, and the train moved out of the station. As the speed
increased, and the Toad could see on either side of him real fields, and trees,
and hedges, and cows, and horses, all flying past him, and as he thought
how every minute was bringing him nearer to Toad Hall, and sympathetic
friends, and money to chink in his pocket, and a soft bed to sleep in, and
good things to eat, and praise and admiration at the recital of his adventures
and his surpassing cleverness, he began to skip up and down and shout and
sing snatches of song, to the great astonishment of the engine-driver, who
had come across washerwomen before, at long intervals, but never one at
all like this.
They had covered many and many a mile, and Toad was already
considering what he would have for supper as soon as he got home, when
he noticed that the engine-driver, with a puzzled expression on his face, was
leaning over the side of the engine and listening hard. Then he saw him
climb on to the coals and gaze out over the top of the train; then he returned
and said to Toad: “It’s very strange; we’re the last train running in this
direction to-night, yet I could be sworn that I heard another following us!”
Toad ceased his frivolous antics at once. He became grave and depressed,
and a dull pain in the lower part of his spine, communicating itself to his
legs, made him want to sit down and try desperately not to think of all the
possibilities.
By this time the moon was shining brightly, and the engine-driver,
steadying himself on the coal, could command a view of the line behind
them for a long distance.
Presently he called out, “I can see it clearly now! It is an engine, on our
rails, coming along at a great pace! It looks as if we were being pursued!”
The miserable Toad, crouching in the coal-dust, tried hard to think of
something to do, with dismal want of success.

“They are gaining on us fast!” cried the engine-driver. And the engine is
crowded with the queerest lot of people! Men like ancient warders, waving
halberds; policemen in their helmets, waving truncheons; and shabbily
dressed men in pot-hats, obvious and unmistakable plain-clothes detectives
even at this distance, waving revolvers and walking-sticks; all waving, and
all shouting the same thing—‘Stop, stop, stop!’”
Then Toad fell on his knees among the coals and, raising his clasped
paws in supplication, cried, “Save me, only save me, dear kind Mr. Engine-
driver, and I will confess everything! I am not the simple washerwoman I
seem to be! I have no children waiting for me, innocent or otherwise! I am a
toad—the well-known and popular Mr. Toad, a landed proprietor; I have
just escaped, by my great daring and cleverness, from a loathsome dungeon
into which my enemies had flung me; and if those fellows on that engine
recapture me, it will be chains and bread-and-water and straw and misery
once more for poor, unhappy, innocent Toad!”
The engine-driver looked down upon him very sternly, and said, “Now
tell the truth; what were you put in prison for?”
“It was nothing very much,” said poor Toad, colouring deeply. “I only
borrowed a motorcar while the owners were at lunch; they had no need of it
at the time. I didn’t mean to steal it, really; but people—especially
magistrates—take such harsh views of thoughtless and high-spirited
actions.”
The engine-driver looked very grave and said, “I fear that you have been
indeed a wicked toad, and by rights I ought to give you up to offended
justice. But you are evidently in sore trouble and distress, so I will not
desert you. I don’t hold with motor-cars, for one thing; and I don’t hold
with being ordered about by policemen when I’m on my own engine, for
another. And the sight of an animal in tears always makes me feel queer and
softhearted. So cheer up, Toad! I’ll do my best, and we may beat them yet!”
They piled on more coals, shovelling furiously; the furnace roared, the
sparks flew, the engine leapt and swung but still their pursuers slowly
gained. The engine-driver, with a sigh, wiped his brow with a handful of
cotton-waste, and said, “I’m afraid it’s no good, Toad. You see, they are
running light, and they have the better engine. There’s just one thing left for
us to do, and it’s your only chance, so attend very carefully to what I tell
you. A short way ahead of us is a long tunnel, and on the other side of that

the line passes through a thick wood. Now, I will put on all the speed I can
while we are running through the tunnel, but the other fellows will slow
down a bit, naturally, for fear of an accident. When we are through, I will
shut off steam and put on brakes as hard as I can, and the moment it’s safe
to do so you must jump and hide in the wood, before they get through the
tunnel and see you. Then I will go full speed ahead again, and they can
chase me if they like, for as long as they like, and as far as they like. Now
mind and be ready to jump when I tell you!”
They piled on more coals, and the train shot into the tunnel, and the
engine rushed and roared and rattled, till at last they shot out at the other
end into fresh air and the peaceful moonlight, and saw the wood lying dark
and helpful upon either side of the line. The driver shut off steam and put on
brakes, the Toad got down on the step, and as the train slowed down to
almost a walking pace he heard the driver call out, “Now, jump!”
Toad jumped, rolled down a short embankment, picked himself up
unhurt, scrambled into the wood and hid.
Peeping out, he saw his train get up speed again and disappear at a great
pace. Then out of the tunnel burst the pursuing engine, roaring and
whistling, her motley crew waving their various weapons and shouting,
“Stop! stop! stop!” When they were past, the Toad had a hearty laugh—for
the first time since he was thrown into prison.
But he soon stopped laughing when he came to consider that it was now
very late and dark and cold, and he was in an unknown wood, with no
money and no chance of supper, and still far from friends and home; and the
dead silence of everything, after the roar and rattle of the train, was
something of a shock. He dared not leave the shelter of the trees, so he
struck into the wood, with the idea of leaving the railway as far as possible
behind him.
After so many weeks within walls, he found the wood strange and
unfriendly and inclined, he thought, to make fun of him. Night-jars,
sounding their mechanical rattle, made him think that the wood was full of
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.

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’hôte 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 of 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 seaman’s commendations of his taste and judgment, as
together they unpacked the basket and laid out the contents on the grass by
the roadside.
The Sea Rat, as soon as his hunger was somewhat assuaged, continued
the history of his latest voyage, conducting his simple hearer from port to
port of Spain, landing him at Lisbon, Oporto, and Bordeaux, introducing
him to the pleasant harbours of Cornwall and Devon, and so up the Channel
to that final quayside, where, landing after winds long contrary, storm-
driven and weather-beaten, he had caught the first magical hints and
heraldings of another Spring, and, fired by these, had sped on a long tramp
inland, hungry for the experiment of life on some quiet farmstead, very far
from the weary beating of any sea.
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 tramp of the sailors, the clink of the
capstan, and the rattle of the anchor-chain coming merrily in. We shall
break out the jib and the foresail, the white houses on the harbour side will
glide slowly past us as she gathers steering-way, and the voyage will have
begun! As she forges towards the headland she will clothe herself with
canvas; and then, once outside, the sounding slap of great green seas as she
heels to the wind, pointing South!
“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.

X.
THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF TOAD

The front door of the hollow tree faced eastwards, so Toad was called at
an early hour; partly by the bright sunlight streaming in on him, partly by
the exceeding coldness of his toes, which made him dream that he was at
home in bed in his own handsome room with the Tudor window, on a cold
winter’s night, and his bedclothes had got up, grumbling and protesting they
couldn’t stand the cold any longer, and had run downstairs to the kitchen
fire to warm themselves; and he had followed, on bare feet, along miles and
miles of icy stone-paved passages, arguing and beseeching them to be
reasonable. He would probably have been aroused much earlier, had he not
slept for some weeks on straw over stone flags, and almost forgotten the
friendly feeling of thick blankets pulled well up round the chin.
Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes first and his complaining toes next,
wondered for a moment where he was, looking round for familiar stone
wall and little barred window; then, with a leap of the heart, remembered
everything—his escape, his flight, his pursuit; remembered, first and best
thing of all, that he was free!
Free! The word and the thought alone were worth fifty blankets. He was
warm from end to end as he thought of the jolly world outside, waiting
eagerly for him to make his triumphal entrance, ready to serve him and play
up to him, anxious to help him and to keep him company, as it always had
been in days of old before misfortune fell upon him. He shook himself and
combed the dry leaves out of his hair with his fingers; and, his toilet
complete, marched forth into the comfortable morning sun, cold but
confident, hungry but hopeful, all nervous terrors of yesterday dispelled by
rest and sleep and frank and heartening sunshine.
He had the world all to himself, that early summer morning. The dewy
woodland, as he threaded it, was solitary and still: the green fields that

succeeded the trees were his own to do as he liked with; the road itself,
when he reached it, in that loneliness that was everywhere, seemed, like a
stray dog, to be looking anxiously for company. Toad, however, was
looking for something that could talk, and tell him clearly which way he
ought to go. It is all very well, when you have a light heart, and a clear
conscience, and money in your pocket, and nobody scouring the country for
you to drag you off to prison again, to follow where the road beckons and
points, not caring whither. The practical Toad cared very much indeed, and
he could have kicked the road for its helpless silence when every minute
was of importance to him.
The reserved rustic road was presently joined by a shy little brother in the
shape of a canal, which took its hand and ambled along by its side in perfect
confidence, but with the same tongue-tied, uncommunicative attitude
towards strangers. “Bother them!” said Toad to himself. “But, anyhow, one
thing’s clear. They must both be coming from somewhere, and going to
somewhere. You can’t get over that. Toad, my boy!” So he marched on
patiently by the water’s edge.
Round a bend in the canal came plodding a solitary horse, stooping
forward as if in anxious thought. From rope traces attached to his collar
stretched a long line, taut, but dipping with his stride, the further part of it
dripping pearly drops. Toad let the horse pass, and stood waiting for what
the fates were sending him.
With a pleasant swirl of quiet water at its blunt bow the barge slid up
alongside of him, its gaily painted gunwale level with the towing-path, its
sole occupant a big stout woman wearing a linen sun-bonnet, one brawny
arm laid along the tiller.
“A nice morning, ma’am!” she remarked to Toad, as she drew up level
with him.
“I dare say it is, ma’am!” responded Toad politely, as he walked along the
tow-path abreast of her. “I dare it is a nice morning to them that’s not in
sore trouble, like what I am. Here’s my married daughter, she sends off to
me post-haste to come to her at once; so off I comes, not knowing what may
be happening or going to happen, but fearing the worst, as you will
understand, ma’am, if you’re a mother, too. And I’ve left my business to
look after itself—I’m in the washing and laundering line, you must know,
ma’am—and I’ve left my young children to look after themselves, and a

more mischievous and troublesome set of young imps doesn’t exist, ma’am;
and I’ve lost all my money, and lost my way, and as for what may be
happening to my married daughter, why, I don’t like to think of it, ma’am!”
“Where might your married daughter be living, ma’am?” asked the
barge-woman.
“She lives near to the river, ma’am,” replied Toad. “Close to a fine house
called Toad Hall, that’s somewheres hereabouts in these parts. Perhaps you
may have heard of it.”
“Toad Hall? Why, I’m going that way myself,” replied the barge-woman.
“This canal joins the river some miles further on, a little above Toad Hall;
and then it’s an easy walk. You come along in the barge with me, and I’ll
give you a lift.”
She steered the barge close to the bank, and Toad, with many humble and
grateful acknowledgments, stepped lightly on board and sat down with
great satisfaction. “Toad’s luck again!” thought he. “I always come out on
top!”
“So you’re in the washing business, ma’am?” said the barge-woman
politely, as they glided along. “And a very good business you’ve got too, I
dare say, if I’m not making too free in saying so.”
“Finest business in the whole country,” said Toad airily. “All the gentry
come to me—wouldn’t go to any one else if they were paid, they know me
so well. You see, I understand my work thoroughly, and attend to it all
myself. Washing, ironing, clear-starching, making up gents’ fine shirts for
evening wear—everything’s done under my own eye!”
“But surely you don’t do all that work yourself, ma’am?” asked the
barge-woman respectfully.
“O, I have girls,” said Toad lightly: “twenty girls or thereabouts, always
at work. But you know what girls are, ma’am! Nasty little hussies, that’s
what I call ’em!”
“So do I, too,” said the barge-woman with great heartiness. “But I dare
say you set yours to rights, the idle trollops! And are you very fond of
washing?”
“I love it,” said Toad. “I simply dote on it. Never so happy as when I’ve
got both arms in the wash-tub. But, then, it comes so easy to me! No trouble
at all! A real pleasure, I assure you, ma’am!”

“What a bit of luck, meeting you!” observed the barge-woman,
thoughtfully. “A regular piece of good fortune for both of us!”
“Why, what do you mean?” asked Toad, nervously.
“Well, look at me, now,” replied the barge-woman. “I like washing, too,
just the same as you do; and for that matter, whether I like it or not I have
got to do all my own, naturally, moving about as I do. Now my husband,
he’s such a fellow for shirking his work and leaving the barge to me, that
never a moment do I get for seeing to my own affairs. By rights he ought to
be here now, either steering or attending to the horse, though luckily the
horse has sense enough to attend to himself. Instead of which, he’s gone off
with the dog, to see if they can’t pick up a rabbit for dinner somewhere.
Says he’ll catch me up at the next lock. Well, that’s as may be—I don’t trust
him, once he gets off with that dog, who’s worse than he is. But meantime,
how am I to get on with my washing?”
“O, never mind about the washing,” said Toad, not liking the subject.
“Try and fix your mind on that rabbit. A nice fat young rabbit, I’ll be bound.
Got any onions?”
“I can’t fix my mind on anything but my washing,” said the barge-
woman, “and I wonder you can be talking of rabbits, with such a joyful
prospect before you. There’s a heap of things of mine that you’ll find in a
corner of the cabin. If you’ll just take one or two of the most necessary sort
—I won’t venture to describe them to a lady like you, but you’ll recognise
them at a glance—and put them through the wash-tub as we go along, why,
it’ll be a pleasure to you, as you rightly say, and a real help to me. You’ll
find a tub handy, and soap, and a kettle on the stove, and a bucket to haul up
water from the canal with. Then I shall know you’re enjoying yourself,
instead of sitting here idle, looking at the scenery and yawning your head
off.”
“Here, you let me steer!” said Toad, now thoroughly frightened, “and
then you can get on with your washing your own way. I might spoil your
things, or not do ’em as you like. I’m more used to gentlemen’s things
myself. It’s my special line.”
“Let you steer?” replied the barge-woman, laughing. “It takes some
practice to steer a barge properly. Besides, it’s dull work, and I want you to
be happy. No, you shall do the washing you are so fond of, and I’ll stick to

the steering that I understand. Don’t try and deprive me of the pleasure of
giving you a treat!”
Toad was fairly cornered. He looked for escape this way and that, saw
that he was too far from the bank for a flying leap, and sullenly resigned
himself to his fate. “If it comes to that,” he thought in desperation, “I
suppose any fool can wash!”
He fetched tub, soap, and other necessaries from the cabin, selected a few
garments at random, tried to recollect what he had seen in casual glances
through laundry windows, and set to.
A long half-hour passed, and every minute of it saw Toad getting crosser
and crosser. Nothing that he could do to the things seemed to please them or
do them good. He tried coaxing, he tried slapping, he tried punching; they
smiled back at him out of the tub unconverted, happy in their original sin.
Once or twice he looked nervously over his shoulder at the barge-woman,
but she appeared to be gazing out in front of her, absorbed in her steering.
His back ached badly, and he noticed with dismay that his paws were
beginning to get all crinkly. Now Toad was very proud of his paws. He
muttered under his breath words that should never pass the lips of either
washerwomen or Toads; and lost the soap, for the fiftieth time.
A burst of laughter made him straighten himself and look round. The
barge-woman was leaning back and laughing unrestrainedly, till the tears
ran down her cheeks.
“I’ve been watching you all the time,” she gasped. “I thought you must
be a humbug all along, from the conceited way you talked. Pretty
washerwoman you are! Never washed so much as a dish-clout in your life,
I’ll lay!”
Toad’s temper which had been simmering viciously for some time, now
fairly boiled over, and he lost all control of himself.
“You common, low, fat barge-woman!” he shouted; “don’t you dare to
talk to your betters like that! Washerwoman indeed! I would have you to
know that I am a Toad, a very well-known, respected, distinguished Toad! I
may be under a bit of a cloud at present, but I will not be laughed at by a
bargewoman!”
The woman moved nearer to him and peered under his bonnet keenly and
closely. “Why, so you are!” she cried. “Well, I never! A horrid, nasty,

crawly Toad! And in my nice clean barge, too! Now that is a thing that I
will not have.”
She relinquished the tiller for a moment. One big mottled arm shot out
and caught Toad by a fore-leg, while the other-gripped him fast by a hind-
leg. Then the world turned suddenly upside down, the barge seemed to flit
lightly across the sky, the wind whistled in his ears, and Toad found himself
flying through the air, revolving rapidly as he went.
The water, when he eventually reached it with a loud splash, proved quite
cold enough for his taste, though its chill was not sufficient to quell his
proud spirit, or slake the heat of his furious temper. He rose to the surface
spluttering, and when he had wiped the duck-weed out of his eyes the first
thing he saw was the fat barge-woman looking back at him over the stern of
the retreating barge and laughing; and he vowed, as he coughed and choked,
to be even with her.
He struck out for the shore, but the cotton gown greatly impeded his
efforts, and when at length he touched land he found it hard to climb up the
steep bank unassisted. He had to take a minute or two’s rest to recover his
breath; then, gathering his wet skirts well over his arms, he started to run
after the barge as fast as his legs would carry him, wild with indignation,
thirsting for revenge.
The barge-woman was still laughing when he drew up level with her.
“Put yourself through your mangle, washerwoman,” she called out, “and
iron your face and crimp it, and you’ll pass for quite a decent-looking
Toad!”
Toad never paused to reply. Solid revenge was what he wanted, not
cheap, windy, verbal triumphs, though he had a thing or two in his mind
that he would have liked to say. He saw what he wanted ahead of him.
Running swiftly on he overtook the horse, unfastened the towrope and cast
off, jumped lightly on the horse’s back, and urged it to a gallop by kicking it
vigorously in the sides. He steered for the open country, abandoning the
tow-path, and swinging his steed down a rutty lane. Once he looked back,
and saw that the barge had run aground on the other side of the canal, and
the barge-woman was gesticulating wildly and shouting, “Stop, stop, stop!”
“I’ve heard that song before,” said Toad, laughing, as he continued to spur
his steed onward in its wild career.

The barge-horse was not capable of any very sustained effort, and its
gallop soon subsided into a trot, and its trot into an easy walk; but Toad was
quite contented with this, knowing that he, at any rate, was moving, and the
barge was not. He had quite recovered his temper, now that he had done
something he thought really clever; and he was satisfied to jog along quietly
in the sun, steering his horse along by-ways and bridle-paths, and trying to
forget how very long it was since he had had a square meal, till the canal
had been left very far behind him.
He had travelled some miles, his horse and he, and he was feeling drowsy
in the hot sunshine, when the horse stopped, lowered his head, and began to
nibble the grass; and Toad, waking up, just saved himself from falling off
by an effort. He looked about him and found he was on a wide common,
dotted with patches of gorse and bramble as far as he could see. Near him
stood a dingy gipsy caravan, and beside it a man was sitting on a bucket
turned upside down, very busy smoking and staring into the wide world. A
fire of sticks was burning near by, and over the fire hung an iron pot, and
out of that pot came forth bubblings and gurglings, and a vague suggestive
steaminess. Also smells—warm, rich, and varied smells—that twined and
twisted and wreathed themselves at last into one complete, voluptuous,
perfect smell that seemed like the very soul of Nature taking form and
appearing to her children, a true Goddess, a mother of solace and comfort.
Toad now knew well that he had not been really hungry before. What he
had felt earlier in the day had been a mere trifling qualm. This was the real
thing at last, and no mistake; and it would have to be dealt with speedily,
too, or there would be trouble for somebody or something. He looked the
gipsy over carefully, wondering vaguely whether it would be easier to fight
him or cajole him. So there he sat, and sniffed and sniffed, and looked at the
gipsy; and the gipsy sat and smoked, and looked at him.
Presently the gipsy took his pipe out of his mouth and remarked in a
careless way, “Want to sell that there horse of yours?”
Toad was completely taken aback. He did not know that gipsies were
very fond of horse-dealing, and never missed an opportunity, and he had not
reflected that caravans were always on the move and took a deal of
drawing. It had not occurred to him to turn the horse into cash, but the
gipsy’s suggestion seemed to smooth the way towards the two things he
wanted so badly—ready money, and a solid breakfast.

“What?” he said, “me sell this beautiful young horse of mine? O, no; it’s
out of the question. Who’s going to take the washing home to my customers
every week? Besides, I’m too fond of him, and he simply dotes on me.”
“Try and love a donkey,” suggested the gipsy. “Some people do.”
“You don’t seem to see,” continued Toad, “that this fine horse of mine is
a cut above you altogether. He’s a blood horse, he is, partly; not the part you
see, of course—another part. And he’s been a Prize Hackney, too, in his
time—that was the time before you knew him, but you can still tell it on
him at a glance, if you understand anything about horses. No, it’s not to be
thought of for a moment. All the same, how much might you be disposed to
offer me for this beautiful young horse of mine?”
The gipsy looked the horse over, and then he looked Toad over with
equal care, and looked at the horse again. “Shillin’ a leg,” he said briefly,
and turned away, continuing to smoke and try to stare the wide world out of
countenance.
“A shilling a leg?” cried Toad. “If you please, I must take a little time to
work that out, and see just what it comes to.”
He climbed down off his horse, and left it to graze, and sat down by the
gipsy, and did sums on his fingers, and at last he said, “A shilling a leg?
Why, that comes to exactly four shillings, and no more. O, no; I could not
think of accepting four shillings for this beautiful young horse of mine.”
“Well,” said the gipsy, “I’ll tell you what I will do. I’ll make it five
shillings, and that’s three-and-sixpence more than the animal’s worth. And
that’s my last word.”
Then Toad sat and pondered long and deeply. For he was hungry and
quite penniless, and still some way—he knew not how far—from home, and
enemies might still be looking for him. To one in such a situation, five
shillings may very well appear a large sum of money. On the other hand, it
did not seem very much to get for a horse. But then, again, the horse hadn’t
cost him anything; so whatever he got was all clear profit. At last he said
firmly, “Look here, gipsy! I tell you what we will do; and this is my last
word. You shall hand me over six shillings and sixpence, cash down; and
further, in addition thereto, you shall give me as much breakfast as I can
possibly eat, at one sitting of course, out of that iron pot of yours that keeps
sending forth such delicious and exciting smells. In return, I will make over
to you my spirited young horse, with all the beautiful harness and trappings

that are on him, freely thrown in. If that’s not good enough for you, say so,
and I’ll be getting on. I know a man near here who’s wanted this horse of
mine for years.”
The gipsy grumbled frightfully, and declared if he did a few more deals
of that sort he’d be ruined. But in the end he lugged a dirty canvas bag out
of the depths of his trouser pocket, and counted out six shillings and
sixpence into Toad’s paw. Then he disappeared into the caravan for an
instant, and returned with a large iron plate and a knife, fork, and spoon. He
tilted up the pot, and a glorious stream of hot rich stew gurgled into the
plate. It was, indeed, the most beautiful stew in the world, being made of
partridges, and pheasants, and chickens, and hares, and rabbits, and pea-
hens, and guinea-fowls, and one or two other things. Toad took the plate on
his lap, almost crying, and stuffed, and stuffed, and stuffed, and kept asking
for more, and the gipsy never grudged it him. He thought that he had never
eaten so good a breakfast in all his life.
When Toad had taken as much stew on board as he thought he could
possibly hold, he got up and said good-bye to the gipsy, and took an
affectionate farewell of the horse; and the gipsy, who knew the riverside
well, gave him directions which way to go, and he set forth on his travels
again in the best possible spirits. He was, indeed, a very different Toad from
the animal of an hour ago. The sun was shining brightly, his wet clothes
were quite dry again, he had money in his pocket once more, he was
nearing home and friends and safety, and, most and best of all, he had had a
substantial meal, hot and nourishing, and felt big, and strong, and careless,
and self-confident.
As he tramped along gaily, he thought of his adventures and escapes, and
how when things seemed at their worst he had always managed to find a
way out; and his pride and conceit began to swell within him. “Ho, ho!” he
said to himself as he marched along with his chin in the air, “what a clever
Toad I am! There is surely no animal equal to me for cleverness in the
whole world! My enemies shut me up in prison, encircled by sentries,
watched night and day by warders; I walk out through them all, by sheer
ability coupled with courage. They pursue me with engines, and policemen,
and revolvers; I snap my fingers at them, and vanish, laughing, into space. I
am, unfortunately, thrown into a canal by a woman fat of body and very
evil-minded. What of it? I swim ashore, I seize her horse, I ride off in

triumph, and I sell the horse for a whole pocketful of money and an
excellent breakfast! Ho, ho! I am The Toad, the handsome, the popular, the
successful Toad!” He got so puffed up with conceit that he made up a song
as he walked in praise of himself, and sang it at the top of his voice, though
there was no one to hear it but him. It was perhaps the most conceited song
that any animal ever composed.
“The world has held great Heroes,
As history-books have showed;
But never a name to go down to fame
Compared with that of Toad!

“The clever men at Oxford
Know all that there is to be knowed.
But they none of them know one half as much
As intelligent Mr. Toad!

“The animals sat in the Ark and cried,
Their tears in torrents flowed.
Who was it said, ‘There’s land ahead?’
Encouraging Mr. Toad!

“The army all saluted
As they marched along the road.
Was it the King? Or Kitchener?
No. It was Mr. Toad.

“The Queen and her Ladies-in-waiting
Sat at the window and sewed.
She cried, ‘Look! who’s that handsome man?’
They answered, ‘Mr. Toad.’”

There was a great deal more of the same sort, but too dreadfully
conceited to be written down. These are some of the milder verses.
He sang as he walked, and he walked as he sang, and got more inflated
every minute. But his pride was shortly to have a severe fall.
After some miles of country lanes he reached the high road, and as he
turned into it and glanced along its white length, he saw approaching him a
speck that turned into a dot and then into a blob, and then into something
very familiar; and a double note of warning, only too well known, fell on
his delighted ear.
“This is something like!” said the excited Toad. “This is real life again,
this is once more the great world from which I have been missed so long! I

will hail them, my brothers of the wheel, and pitch them a yarn, of the sort
that has been so successful hitherto; and they will give me a lift, of course,
and then I will talk to them some more; and, perhaps, with luck, it may even
end in my driving up to Toad Hall in a motor-car! That will be one in the
eye for Badger!”
He stepped confidently out into the road to hail the motor-car, which
came along at an easy pace, slowing down as it neared the lane; when
suddenly he became very pale, his heart turned to water, his knees shook
and yielded under him, and he doubled up and collapsed with a sickening
pain in his interior. And well he might, the unhappy animal; for the
approaching car was the very one he had stolen out of the yard of the Red
Lion Hotel on that fatal day when all his troubles began! And the people in
it were the very same people he had sat and watched at luncheon in the
coffee-room!
He sank down in a shabby, miserable heap in the road, murmuring to
himself in his despair, “It’s all up! It’s all over now! Chains and policemen
again! Prison again! Dry bread and water again! O, what a fool I have been!
What did I want to go strutting about the country for, singing conceited
songs, and hailing people in broad day on the high road, instead of hiding
till nightfall and slipping home quietly by back ways! O hapless Toad! O
ill-fated animal!”
The terrible motor-car drew slowly nearer and nearer, till at last he heard
it stop just short of him. Two gentlemen got out and walked round the
trembling heap of crumpled misery lying in the road, and one of them said,
“O dear! this is very sad! Here is a poor old thing—a washerwoman
apparently—who has fainted in the road! Perhaps she is overcome by the
heat, poor creature; or possibly she has not had any food to-day. Let us lift
her into the car and take her to the nearest village, where doubtless she has
friends.”
They tenderly lifted Toad into the motor-car and propped him up with
soft cushions, and proceeded on their way.
When Toad heard them talk in so kind and sympathetic a way, and knew
that he was not recognised, his courage began to revive, and he cautiously
opened first one eye and then the other.
“Look!” said one of the gentlemen, “she is better already. The fresh air is
doing her good. How do you feel now, ma’am?”

“Thank you kindly, Sir,” said Toad in a feeble voice, “I’m feeling a great
deal better!” “That’s right,” said the gentleman. “Now keep quite still, and,
above all, don’t try to talk.”
“I won’t,” said Toad. “I was only thinking, if I might sit on the front seat
there, beside the driver, where I could get the fresh air full in my face, I
should soon be all right again.”
“What a very sensible woman!” said the gentleman. “Of course you
shall.” So they carefully helped Toad into the front seat beside the driver,
and on they went again.
Toad was almost himself again by now. He sat up, looked about him, and
tried to beat down the tremors, the yearnings, the old cravings that rose up
and beset him and took possession of him entirely.
“It is fate!” he said to himself. “Why strive? why struggle?” and he
turned to the driver at his side.
“Please, Sir,” he said, “I wish you would kindly let me try and drive the
car for a little. I’ve been watching you carefully, and it looks so easy and so
interesting, and I should like to be able to tell my friends that once I had
driven a motor-car!”
The driver laughed at the proposal, so heartily that the gentleman
inquired what the matter was. When he heard, he said, to Toad’s delight,
“Bravo, ma’am! I like your spirit. Let her have a try, and look after her. She
won’t do any harm.”
Toad eagerly scrambled into the seat vacated by the driver, took the
steering-wheel in his hands, listened with affected humility to the
instructions given him, and set the car in motion, but very slowly and
carefully at first, for he was determined to be prudent.
The gentlemen behind clapped their hands and applauded, and Toad
heard them saying, “How well she does it! Fancy a washerwoman driving a
car as well as that, the first time!”
Toad went a little faster; then faster still, and faster.
He heard the gentlemen call out warningly, “Be careful, washerwoman!”
And this annoyed him, and he began to lose his head.
The driver tried to interfere, but he pinned him down in his seat with one
elbow, and put on full speed. The rush of air in his face, the hum of the
engines, and the light jump of the car beneath him intoxicated his weak

brain. “Washerwoman, indeed!” he shouted recklessly. “Ho! ho! I am the
Toad, the motor-car snatcher, the prison-breaker, the Toad who always
escapes! Sit still, and you shall know what driving really is, for you are in
the hands of the famous, the skilful, the entirely fearless Toad!”
With a cry of horror the whole party rose and flung themselves on him.
“Seize him!” they cried, “seize the Toad, the wicked animal who stole our
motor-car! Bind him, chain him, drag him to the nearest police-station!
Down with the desperate and dangerous Toad!”
Alas! they should have thought, they ought to have been more prudent,
they should have remembered to stop the motor-car somehow before
playing any pranks of that sort. With a half-turn of the wheel the Toad sent
the car crashing through the low hedge that ran along the roadside. One
mighty bound, a violent shock, and the wheels of the car were churning up
the thick mud of a horse-pond.
Toad found himself flying through the air with the strong upward rush
and delicate curve of a swallow. He liked the motion, and was just
beginning to wonder whether it would go on until he developed wings and
turned into a Toad-bird, when he landed on his back with a thump, in the
soft rich grass of a meadow. Sitting up, he could just see the motor-car in
the pond, nearly submerged; the gentlemen and the driver, encumbered by
their long coats, were floundering helplessly in the water.
He picked himself up rapidly, and set off running across country as hard
as he could, scrambling through hedges, jumping ditches, pounding across
fields, till he was breathless and weary, and had to settle down into an easy
walk. When he had recovered his breath somewhat, and was able to think
calmly, he began to giggle, and from giggling he took to laughing, and he
laughed till he had to sit down under a hedge. “Ho, ho!” he cried, in
ecstasies of self-admiration, “Toad again! Toad, as usual, comes out on the
top! Who was it got them to give him a lift? Who managed to get on the
front seat for the sake of fresh air? Who persuaded them into letting him see
if he could drive? Who landed them all in a horse-pond? Who escaped,
flying gaily and unscathed through the air, leaving the narrow-minded,
grudging, timid excursionists in the mud where they should rightly be?
Why, Toad, of course; clever Toad, great Toad, good Toad!”
Then he burst into song again, and chanted with uplifted voice—

“The motor-car went Poop-poop-poop,
As it raced along the road.
Who was it steered it into a pond?
Ingenious Mr. Toad!

O, how clever I am! How clever, how clever, how very clev——”
A slight noise at a distance behind him made him turn his head and look.
O horror! O misery! O despair!
About two fields off, a chauffeur in his leather gaiters and two large rural
policemen were visible, running towards him as hard as they could go!
Poor Toad sprang to his feet and pelted away again, his heart in his
mouth. O, my!” he gasped, as he panted along, “what an ass I am! What a
conceited and heedless ass! Swaggering again! Shouting and singing songs
again! Sitting still and gassing again! O my! O my! O my!”
He glanced back, and saw to his dismay that they were gaining on him.
On he ran desperately, but kept looking back, and saw that they still gained
steadily. He did his best, but he was a fat animal, and his legs were short,
and still they gained. He could hear them close behind him now. Ceasing to
heed where he was going, he struggled on blindly and wildly, looking back
over his shoulder at the now triumphant enemy, when suddenly the earth
failed under his feet, he grasped at the air, and, splash! he found himself
head over ears in deep water, rapid water, water that bore him along with a
force he could not contend with; and he knew that in his blind panic he had
run straight into the river!
He rose to the surface and tried to grasp the reeds and the rushes that
grew along the water’s edge close under the bank, but the stream was so
strong that it tore them out of his hands. “O my!” gasped poor Toad, “if
ever I steal a motor-car again! If ever I sing another conceited song”—then
down he went, and came up breathless and spluttering. Presently he saw
that he was approaching a big dark hole in the bank, just above his head,
and as the stream bore him past he reached up with a paw and caught hold
of the edge and held on. Then slowly and with difficulty he drew himself up
out of the water, till at last he was able to rest his elbows on the edge of the
hole. There he remained for some minutes, puffing and panting, for he was
quite exhausted.
As he sighed and blew and stared before him into the dark hole, some
bright small thing shone and twinkled in its depths, moving towards him.

As it approached, a face grew up gradually around it, and it was a familiar
face!
Brown and small, with whiskers.
Grave and round, with neat ears and silky hair.
It was the Water Rat!

XI.
“LIKE SUMMER TEMPESTS CAME HIS TEARS”

The Rat put out a neat little brown paw, gripped Toad firmly by the scruff
of the neck, and gave a great hoist and a pull; and the water-logged Toad
came up slowly but surely over the edge of the hole, till at last he stood safe
and sound in the hall, streaked with mud and weed to be sure, and with the
water streaming off him, but happy and high-spirited as of old, now that he
found himself once more in the house of a friend, and dodgings and
evasions were over, and he could lay aside a disguise that was unworthy of
his position and wanted such a lot of living up to.
“O, Ratty!” he cried. “I’ve been through such times since I saw you last,
you can’t think! Such trials, such sufferings, and all so nobly borne! Then
such escapes, such disguises such subterfuges, and all so cleverly planned
and carried out! Been in prison—got out of it, of course! Been thrown into a
canal—swam ashore! Stole a horse—sold him for a large sum of money!
Humbugged everybody—made ’em all do exactly what I wanted! Oh, I am
a smart Toad, and no mistake! What do you think my last exploit was? Just
hold on till I tell you——”
“Toad,” said the Water Rat, gravely and firmly, “you go off upstairs at
once, and take off that old cotton rag that looks as if it might formerly have
belonged to some washerwoman, and clean yourself thoroughly, and put on
some of my clothes, and try and come down looking like a gentleman if you
can; for a more shabby, bedraggled, disreputable-looking object than you
are I never set eyes on in my whole life! Now, stop swaggering and arguing,
and be off! I’ll have something to say to you later!”
Toad was at first inclined to stop and do some talking back at him. He
had had enough of being ordered about when he was in prison, and here
was the thing being begun all over again, apparently; and by a Rat, too!
However, he caught sight of himself in the looking-glass over the hat-stand,

with the rusty black bonnet perched rakishly over one eye, and he changed
his mind and went very quickly and humbly upstairs to the Rat’s dressing-
room. There he had a thorough wash and brush-up, changed his clothes, and
stood for a long time before the glass, contemplating himself with pride and
pleasure, and thinking what utter idiots all the people must have been to
have ever mistaken him for one moment for a washerwoman.
By the time he came down again luncheon was on the table, and very
glad Toad was to see it, for he had been through some trying experiences
and had taken much hard exercise since the excellent breakfast provided for
him by the gipsy. While they ate Toad told the Rat all his adventures,
dwelling chiefly on his own cleverness, and presence of mind in
emergencies, and cunning in tight places; and rather making out that he had
been having a gay and highly-coloured experience. But the more he talked
and boasted, the more grave and silent the Rat became.
When at last Toad had talked himself to a standstill, there was silence for
a while; and then the Rat said, “Now, Toady, I don’t want to give you pain,
after all you’ve been through already; but, seriously, don’t you see what an
awful ass you’ve been making of yourself? On your own admission you
have been handcuffed, imprisoned, starved, chased, terrified out of your
life, insulted, jeered at, and ignominiously flung into the water—by a
woman, too! Where’s the amusement in that? Where does the fun come in?
And all because you must needs go and steal a motor-car. You know that
you’ve never had anything but trouble from motor-cars from the moment
you first set eyes on one. But if you will be mixed up with them—as you
generally are, five minutes after you’ve started—why steal them? Be a
cripple, if you think it’s exciting; be a bankrupt, for a change, if you’ve set
your mind on it: but why choose to be a convict? When are you going to be
sensible, and think of your friends, and try and be a credit to them? Do you
suppose it’s any pleasure to me, for instance, to hear animals saying, as I go
about, that I’m the chap that keeps company with gaol-birds?”
Now, it was a very comforting point in Toad’s character that he was a
thoroughly good-hearted animal and never minded being jawed by those
who were his real friends. And even when most set upon a thing, he was
always able to see the other side of the question. So although, while the Rat
was talking so seriously, he kept saying to himself mutinously, “But it was
fun, though! Awful fun!” and making strange suppressed noises inside him,

k-i-ck-ck-ck, and poop-p-p, and other sounds resembling stifled snorts, or
the opening of soda-water bottles, yet when the Rat had quite finished, he
heaved a deep sigh and said, very nicely and humbly, “Quite right, Ratty!
How sound you always are! Yes, I’ve been a conceited old ass, I can quite
see that; but now I’m going to be a good Toad, and not do it any more. As
for motor-cars, I’ve not been at all so keen about them since my last
ducking in that river of yours. The fact is, while I was hanging on to the
edge of your hole and getting my breath, I had a sudden idea—a really
brilliant idea—connected with motor-boats—there, there! don’t take on so,
old chap, and stamp, and upset things; it was only an idea, and we won’t
talk any more about it now. We’ll have our coffee, and a smoke, and a quiet
chat, and then I’m going to stroll quietly down to Toad Hall, and get into
clothes of my own, and set things going again on the old lines. I’ve had
enough of adventures. I shall lead a quiet, steady, respectable life, pottering
about my property, and improving it, and doing a little landscape gardening
at times. There will always be a bit of dinner for my friends when they
come to see me; and I shall keep a pony-chaise to jog about the country in,
just as I used to in the good old days, before I got restless, and wanted to do
things.”
“Stroll quietly down to Toad Hall?” cried the Rat, greatly excited. “What
are you talking about? Do you mean to say you haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?” said Toad, turning rather pale. “Go on, Ratty! Quick!
Don’t spare me! What haven’t I heard?”
“Do you mean to tell me,” shouted the Rat, thumping with his little fist
upon the table, “that you’ve heard nothing about the Stoats and Weasels?”
What, the Wild Wooders?” cried Toad, trembling in every limb. “No, not
a word! What have they been doing?”
“—And how they’ve been and taken Toad Hall?” continued the Rat.
Toad leaned his elbows on the table, and his chin on his paws; and a large
tear welled up in each of his eyes, overflowed and splashed on the table,
plop! plop!
“Go on, Ratty,” he murmured presently; “tell me all. The worst is over. I
am an animal again. I can bear it.”
“When you—got—into that—that—trouble of yours,” said the Rat,
slowly and impressively; “I mean, when you—disappeared from society for

a time, over that misunderstanding about a—a machine, you know—”
Toad merely nodded.
“Well, it was a good deal talked about down here, naturally,” continued
the Rat, “not only along the river-side, but even in the Wild Wood. Animals
took sides, as always happens. The River-bankers stuck up for you, and said
you had been infamously treated, and there was no justice to be had in the
land nowadays. But the Wild Wood animals said hard things, and served
you right, and it was time this sort of thing was stopped. And they got very
cocky, and went about saying you were done for this time! You would never
come back again, never, never!”
Toad nodded once more, keeping silence.
“That’s the sort of little beasts they are,” the Rat went on. “But Mole and
Badger, they stuck out, through thick and thin, that you would come back
again soon, somehow. They didn’t know exactly how, but somehow!”
Toad began to sit up in his chair again, and to smirk a little.
“They argued from history,” continued the Rat. “They said that no
criminal laws had ever been known to prevail against cheek and plausibility
such as yours, combined with the power of a long purse. So they arranged
to move their things in to Toad Hall, and sleep there, and keep it aired, and
have it all ready for you when you turned up. They didn’t guess what was
going to happen, of course; still, they had their suspicions of the Wild Wood
animals. Now I come to the most painful and tragic part of my story. One
dark night—it was a very dark night, and blowing hard, too, and raining
simply cats and dogs—a band of weasels, armed to the teeth, crept silently
up the carriage-drive to the front entrance. Simultaneously, a body of
desperate ferrets, advancing through the kitchen-garden, possessed
themselves of the backyard and offices; while a company of skirmishing
stoats who stuck at nothing occupied the conservatory and the billiard-
room, and held the French windows opening on to the lawn.
“The Mole and the Badger were sitting by the fire in the smoking-room,
telling stories and suspecting nothing, for it wasn’t a night for any animals
to be out in, when those bloodthirsty villains broke down the doors and
rushed in upon them from every side. They made the best fight they could,
but what was the good? They were unarmed, and taken by surprise, and
what can two animals do against hundreds? They took and beat them

severely with sticks, those two poor faithful creatures, and turned them out
into the cold and the wet, with many insulting and uncalled-for remarks!”
Here the unfeeling Toad broke into a snigger, and then pulled himself
together and tried to look particularly solemn.
“And the Wild Wooders have been living in Toad Hall ever since,”
continued the Rat; “and going on simply anyhow! Lying in bed half the day,
and breakfast at all hours, and the place in such a mess (I’m told) it’s not fit
to be seen! Eating your grub, and drinking your drink, and making bad
jokes about you, and singing vulgar songs, about—well, about prisons and
magistrates, and policemen; horrid personal songs, with no humour in them.
And they’re telling the tradespeople and everybody that they’ve come to
stay for good.”
“O, have they!” said Toad getting up and seizing a stick. “I’ll jolly soon
see about that!”
“It’s no good, Toad!” called the Rat after him. “You’d better come back
and sit down; you’ll only get into trouble.”
But the Toad was off, and there was no holding him. He marched rapidly
down the road, his stick over his shoulder, fuming and muttering to himself
in his anger, till he got near his front gate, when suddenly there popped up
from behind the palings a long yellow ferret with a gun.
“Who comes there?” said the ferret sharply.
“Stuff and nonsense!” said Toad, very angrily. “What do you mean by
talking like that to me? Come out of that at once, or I’ll——”
The ferret said never a word, but he brought his gun up to his shoulder.
Toad prudently dropped flat in the road, and Bang! a bullet whistled over
his head.
The startled Toad scrambled to his feet and scampered off down the road
as hard as he could; and as he ran he heard the ferret laughing and other
horrid thin little laughs taking it up and carrying on the sound.
He went back, very crestfallen, and told the Water Rat.
“What did I tell you?” said the Rat. “It’s no good. They’ve got sentries
posted, and they are all armed. You must just wait.”
Still, Toad was not inclined to give in all at once. So he got out the boat,
and set off rowing up the river to where the garden front of Toad Hall came

down to the waterside.
Arriving within sight of his old home, he rested on his oars and surveyed
the land cautiously. All seemed very peaceful and deserted and quiet. He
could see the whole front of Toad Hall, glowing in the evening sunshine,
the pigeons settling by twos and threes along the straight line of the roof;
the garden, a blaze of flowers; the creek that led up to the boat-house, the
little wooden bridge that crossed it; all tranquil, uninhabited, apparently
waiting for his return. He would try the boat-house first, he thought. Very
warily he paddled up to the mouth of the creek, and was just passing under
the bridge, when ... Crash!
A great stone, dropped from above, smashed through the bottom of the
boat. It filled and sank, and Toad found himself struggling in deep water.
Looking up, he saw two stoats leaning over the parapet of the bridge and
watching him with great glee. “It will be your head next time, Toady!” they
called out to him. The indignant Toad swam to shore, while the stoats
laughed and laughed, supporting each other, and laughed again, till they
nearly had two fits—that is, one fit each, of course.
The Toad retraced his weary way on foot, and related his disappointing
experiences to the Water Rat once more.
“Well, what did I tell you?” said the Rat very crossly. “And, now, look
here! See what you’ve been and done! Lost me my boat that I was so fond
of, that’s what you’ve done! And simply ruined that nice suit of clothes that
I lent you! Really, Toad, of all the trying animals—I wonder you manage to
keep any friends at all!”
The Toad saw at once how wrongly and foolishly he had acted. He
admitted his errors and wrong-headedness and made a full apology to Rat
for losing his boat and spoiling his clothes. And he wound up by saying,
with that frank self-surrender which always disarmed his friend’s criticism
and won them back to his side, “Ratty! I see that I have been a headstrong
and a wilful Toad! Henceforth, believe me, I will be humble and
submissive, and will take no action without your kind advice and full
approval!”
“If that is really so,” said the good-natured Rat, already appeased, “then
my advice to you is, considering the lateness of the hour, to sit down and
have your supper, which will be on the table in a minute, and be very
patient. For I am convinced that we can do nothing until we have seen the

Mole and the Badger, and heard their latest news, and held conference and
taken their advice in this difficult matter.”
“Oh, ah, yes, of course, the Mole and the Badger,” said Toad, lightly.
“What’s become of them, the dear fellows? I had forgotten all about them.”
“Well may you ask!” said the Rat reproachfully. “While you were riding
about the country in expensive motor-cars, and galloping proudly on blood-
horses, and breakfasting on the fat of the land, those two poor devoted
animals have been camping out in the open, in every sort of weather, living
very rough by day and lying very hard by night; watching over your house,
patrolling your boundaries, keeping a constant eye on the stoats and the
weasels, scheming and planning and contriving how to get your property
back for you. You don’t deserve to have such true and loyal friends, Toad,
you don’t, really. Some day, when it’s too late, you’ll be sorry you didn’t
value them more while you had them!”
“I’m an ungrateful beast, I know,” sobbed Toad, shedding bitter tears.
“Let me go out and find them, out into the cold, dark night, and share their
hardships, and try and prove by——Hold on a bit! Surely I heard the chink
of dishes on a tray! Supper’s here at last, hooray! Come on, Ratty!”
The Rat remembered that poor Toad had been on prison fare for a
considerable time, and that large allowances had therefore to be made. He
followed him to the table accordingly, and hospitably encouraged him in his
gallant efforts to make up for past privations.
They had just finished their meal and resumed their arm-chairs, when
there came a heavy knock at the door.
Toad was nervous, but the Rat, nodding mysteriously at him, went
straight up to the door and opened it, and in walked Mr. Badger.
He had all the appearance of one who for some nights had been kept
away from home and all its little comforts and conveniences. His shoes
were covered with mud, and he was looking very rough and touzled; but
then he had never been a very smart man, the Badger, at the best of times.
He came solemnly up to Toad, shook him by the paw, and said, “Welcome
home, Toad! Alas! what am I saying? Home, indeed! This is a poor home-
coming. Unhappy Toad!” Then he turned his back on him, sat down to the
table, drew his chair up, and helped himself to a large slice of cold pie.

Toad was quite alarmed at this very serious and portentous style of
greeting; but the Rat whispered to him, “Never mind; don’t take any notice;
and don’t say anything to him just yet. He’s always rather low and
despondent when he’s wanting his victuals. In half an hour’s time he’ll be
quite a different animal.”
So they waited in silence, and presently there came another and a lighter
knock. The Rat, with a nod to Toad, went to the door and ushered in the
Mole, very shabby and unwashed, with bits of hay and straw sticking in his
fur.
“Hooray! Here’s old Toad!” cried the Mole, his face beaming. “Fancy
having you back again!” And he began to dance round him. “We never
dreamt you would turn up so soon! Why, you must have managed to escape,
you clever, ingenious, intelligent Toad!”
The Rat, alarmed, pulled him by the elbow; but it was too late. Toad was
puffing and swelling already.
“Clever? O, no!” he said. “I’m not really clever, according to my friends.
I’ve only broken out of the strongest prison in England, that’s all! And
captured a railway train and escaped on it, that’s all! And disguised myself
and gone about the country humbugging everybody, that’s all! O, no! I’m a
stupid ass, I am! I’ll tell you one or two of my little adventures, Mole, and
you shall judge for yourself!”
“Well, well,” said the Mole, moving towards the supper-table;
“supposing you talk while I eat. Not a bite since breakfast! O my! O my!”
And he sat down and helped himself liberally to cold beef and pickles.
Toad straddled on the hearth-rug, thrust his paw into his trouser-pocket
and pulled out a handful of silver. “Look at that!” he cried, displaying it.
“That’s not so bad, is it, for a few minutes’ work? And how do you think I
done it, Mole? Horse-dealing! That’s how I done it!”
“Go on, Toad,” said the Mole, immensely interested.
“Toad, do be quiet, please!” said the Rat. “And don’t you egg him on,
Mole, when you know what he is; but please tell us as soon as possible
what the position is, and what’s best to be done, now that Toad is back at
last.”
“The position’s about as bad as it can be,” replied the Mole grumpily;
“and as for what’s to be done, why, blest if I know! The Badger and I have

been round and round the place, by night and by day; always the same
thing. Sentries posted everywhere, guns poked out at us, stones thrown at
us; always an animal on the look-out, and when they see us, my! how they
do laugh! That’s what annoys me most!”
“It’s a very difficult situation,” said the Rat, reflecting deeply. “But I
think I see now, in the depths of my mind, what Toad really ought to do. I
will tell you. He ought to——”
“No, he oughtn’t!” shouted the Mole, with his mouth full. “Nothing of
the sort! You don’t understand. What he ought to do is, he ought to——”
“Well, I shan’t do it, anyway!” cried Toad, getting excited. “I’m not
going to be ordered about by you fellows! It’s my house we’re talking
about, and I know exactly what to do, and I’ll tell you. I’m going to——”
By this time they were all three talking at once, at the top of their voices,
and the noise was simply deafening, when a thin, dry voice made itself
heard, saying, “Be quiet at once, all of you!” and instantly every one was
silent.
It was the Badger, who, having finished his pie, had turned round in his
chair and was looking at them severely. When he saw that he had secured
their attention, and that they were evidently waiting for him to address
them, he turned back to the table again and reached out for the cheese. And
so great was the respect commanded by the solid qualities of that admirable
animal, that not another word was uttered until he had quite finished his
repast and brushed the crumbs from his knees. The Toad fidgeted a good
deal, but the Rat held him firmly down.
When the Badger had quite done, he got up from his seat and stood
before the fireplace, reflecting deeply. At last he spoke.
“Toad!” he said severely. “You bad, troublesome little animal! Aren’t you
ashamed of yourself? What do you think your father, my old friend, would
have said if he had been here to-night, and had known of all your goings
on?”
Toad, who was on the sofa by this time, with his legs up, rolled over on
his face, shaken by sobs of contrition.
“There, there!” went on the Badger, more kindly. “Never mind. Stop
crying. We’re going to let bygones be bygones, and try and turn over a new
leaf. But what the Mole says is quite true. The stoats are on guard, at every

point, and they make the best sentinels in the world. It’s quite useless to
think of attacking the place. They’re too strong for us.”
“Then it’s all over,” sobbed the Toad, crying into the sofa cushions. “I
shall go and enlist for a soldier, and never see my dear Toad Hall any
more!”
“Come, cheer up, Toady!” said the Badger. “There are more ways of
getting back a place than taking it by storm. I haven’t said my last word yet.
Now I’m going to tell you a great secret.”
Toad sat up slowly and dried his eyes. Secrets had an immense attraction
for him, because he never could keep one, and he enjoyed the sort of
unhallowed thrill he experienced when he went and told another animal,
after having faithfully promised not to.
“There—is—an—underground—passage,” said the Badger, impressively,
“that leads from the river-bank, quite near here, right up into the middle of
Toad Hall.”
“O, nonsense! Badger,” said Toad, rather airily. “You’ve been listening to
some of the yarns they spin in the public-houses about here. I know every
inch of Toad Hall, inside and out. Nothing of the sort, I do assure you!”
“My young friend,” said the Badger, with great severity, “your father,
who was a worthy animal—a lot worthier than some others I know—was a
particular friend of mine, and told me a great deal he wouldn’t have dreamt
of telling you. He discovered that passage—he didn’t make it, of course;
that was done hundreds of years before he ever came to live there—and he
repaired it and cleaned it out, because he thought it might come in useful
some day, in case of trouble or danger; and he showed it to me. ‘Don’t let
my son know about it,’ he said. ‘He’s a good boy, but very light and volatile
in character, and simply cannot hold his tongue. If he’s ever in a real fix,
and it would be of use to him, you may tell him about the secret passage;
but not before.’”
The other animals looked hard at Toad to see how he would take it. Toad
was inclined to be sulky at first; but he brightened up immediately, like the
good fellow he was.
“Well, well,” he said; “perhaps I am a bit of a talker. A popular fellow
such as I am—my friends get round me—we chaff, we sparkle, we tell
witty stories—and somehow my tongue gets wagging. I have the gift of

conversation. I’ve been told I ought to have a salon, whatever that may be.
Never mind. Go on, Badger. How’s this passage of yours going to help us?”
“I’ve found out a thing or two lately,” continued the Badger. “I got Otter
to disguise himself as a sweep and call at the back-door with brushes over
his shoulder, asking for a job. There’s going to be a big banquet to-morrow
night. It’s somebody’s birthday—the Chief Weasel’s, I believe—and all the
weasels will be gathered together in the dining-hall, eating and drinking and
laughing and carrying on, suspecting nothing. No guns, no swords, no
sticks, no arms of any sort whatever!”
“But the sentinels will be posted as usual,” remarked the Rat.
“Exactly,” said the Badger; “that is my point. The weasels will trust
entirely to their excellent sentinels. And that is where the passage comes in.
That very useful tunnel leads right up under the butler’s pantry, next to the
dining-hall!”
“Aha! that squeaky board in the butler’s pantry!” said Toad. “Now I
understand it!”
“We shall creep out quietly into the butler’s pantry—” cried the Mole.
“—with our pistols and swords and sticks—” shouted the Rat.
“—and rush in upon them,” said the Badger.
“—and whack ’em, and whack ’em, and whack ’em!” cried the Toad in
ecstasy, running round and round the room, and jumping over the chairs.
“Very well, then,” said the Badger, resuming his usual dry manner, “our
plan is settled, and there’s nothing more for you to argue and squabble
about. So, as it’s getting very late, all of you go right off to bed at once. We
will make all the necessary arrangements in the course of the morning to-
morrow.”
Toad, of course, went off to bed dutifully with the rest—he knew better
than to refuse—though he was feeling much too excited to sleep. But he
had had a long day, with many events crowded into it; and sheets and
blankets were very friendly and comforting things, after plain straw, and not
too much of it, spread on the stone floor of a draughty cell; and his head had
not been many seconds on his pillow before he was snoring happily.
Naturally, he dreamt a good deal; about roads that ran away from him just
when he wanted them, and canals that chased him and caught him, and a
barge that sailed into the banqueting-hall with his week’s washing, just as

he was giving a dinner-party; and he was alone in the secret passage,
pushing onwards, but it twisted and turned round and shook itself, and sat
up on its end; yet somehow, at the last, he found himself back in Toad Hall,
safe and triumphant, with all his friends gathered round about him,
earnestly assuring him that he really was a clever Toad.
He slept till a late hour next morning, and by the time he got down he
found that the other animals had finished their breakfast some time before.
The Mole had slipped off somewhere by himself, without telling any one
where he was going to. The Badger sat in the arm-chair, reading the paper,
and not concerning himself in the slightest about what was going to happen
that very evening. The Rat, on the other hand, was running round the room
busily, with his arms full of weapons of every kind, distributing them in
four little heaps on the floor, and saying excitedly under his breath, as he
ran, “Here’s-a-sword-for-the-Rat, here’s-a-sword-for-the Mole, here’s-a-
sword-for-the-Toad, here’s-a-sword-for-the-Badger! Here’s-a-pistol-for-the-
Rat, here’s-a-pistol-for-the-Mole, here’s-a-pistol-for-the-Toad, here’s-a-
pistol-for-the-Badger!” And so on, in a regular, rhythmical way, while the
four little heaps gradually grew and grew.
“That’s all very well, Rat,” said the Badger presently, looking at the busy
little animal over the edge of his newspaper; “I’m not blaming you. But just
let us once get past the stoats, with those detestable guns of theirs, and I
assure you we shan’t want any swords or pistols. We four, with our sticks,
once we’re inside the dining-hall, why, we shall clear the floor of all the lot
of them in five minutes. I’d have done the whole thing by myself, only I
didn’t want to deprive you fellows of the fun!”
“It’s as well to be on the safe side,” said the Rat reflectively, polishing a
pistol-barrel on his sleeve and looking along it.
The Toad, having finished his breakfast, picked up a stout stick and
swung it vigorously, belabouring imaginary animals. “I’ll learn ’em to steal
my house!” he cried. “I’ll learn ’em, I’ll learn ’em!”
“Don’t say ‘learn ’em,’ Toad,” said the Rat, greatly shocked. “It’s not
good English.”
“What are you always nagging at Toad for?” inquired the Badger, rather
peevishly. “What’s the matter with his English? It’s the same what I use
myself, and if it’s good enough for me, it ought to be good enough for you!”

“I’m very sorry,” said the Rat humbly. “Only I think it ought to be ‘teach
’em,’ not ‘learn ’em.’”
“But we don’t want to teach ’em,” replied the Badger. “We want to learn
’em—learn ’em, learn ’em! And what’s more, we’re going to do it, too!”
“Oh, very well, have it your own way,” said the Rat. He was getting
rather muddled about it himself, and presently he retired into a corner,
where he could be heard muttering, “Learn ’em, teach ’em, teach ’em, learn
’em!” till the Badger told him rather sharply to leave off.
Presently the Mole came tumbling into the room, evidently very pleased
with himself. “I’ve been having such fun!” he began at once; “I’ve been
getting a rise out of the stoats!”
“I hope you’ve been very careful, Mole?” said the Rat anxiously.
“I should hope so, too,” said the Mole confidently. “I got the idea when I
went into the kitchen, to see about Toad’s breakfast being kept hot for him. I
found that old washerwoman-dress that he came home in yesterday,
hanging on a towel-horse before the fire. So I put it on, and the bonnet as
well, and the shawl, and off I went to Toad Hall, as bold as you please. The
sentries were on the look-out, of course, with their guns and their ‘Who
comes there?’ and all the rest of their nonsense. ‘Good morning,
gentlemen!’ says I, very respectful. ‘Want any washing done to-day?’
“They looked at me very proud and stiff and haughty, and said, ‘Go
away, washerwoman! We don’t do any washing on duty.’ ‘Or any other
time?’ says I. Ho, ho, ho! Wasn’t I funny, Toad?”
“Poor, frivolous animal!” said Toad, very loftily. The fact is, he felt
exceedingly jealous of Mole for what he had just done. It was exactly what
he would have liked to have done himself, if only he had thought of it first,
and hadn’t gone and overslept himself.
“Some of the stoats turned quite pink,” continued the Mole, “and the
Sergeant in charge, he said to me, very short, he said, ‘Now run away, my
good woman, run away! Don’t keep my men idling and talking on their
posts.’ ‘Run away?’ says I; ‘it won’t be me that’ll be running away, in a
very short time from now!’”
“O Moly, how could you?” said the Rat, dismayed.
The Badger laid down his paper.

“I could see them pricking up their ears and looking at each other,” went
on the Mole; “and the Sergeant said to them, ‘Never mind her; she doesn’t
know what she’s talking about.’”
“‘O! don’t I?’” said I. “‘Well, let me tell you this. My daughter, she
washes for Mr. Badger, and that’ll show you whether I know what I’m
talking about; and you’ll know pretty soon, too! A hundred bloodthirsty
badgers, armed with rifles, are going to attack Toad Hall this very night, by
way of the paddock. Six boatloads of Rats, with pistols and cutlasses, will
come up the river and effect a landing in the garden; while a picked body of
Toads, known at the Die-hards, or the Death-or-Glory Toads, will storm the
orchard and carry everything before them, yelling for vengeance. There
won’t be much left of you to wash, by the time they’ve done with you,
unless you clear out while you have the chance!’ Then I ran away, and when
I was out of sight I hid; and presently I came creeping back along the ditch
and took a peep at them through the hedge. They were all as nervous and
flustered as could be, running all ways at once, and falling over each other,
and every one giving orders to everybody else and not listening; and the
Sergeant kept sending off parties of stoats to distant parts of the grounds,
and then sending other fellows to fetch ’em back again; and I heard them
saying to each other, ‘That’s just like the weasels; they’re to stop
comfortably in the banqueting-hall, and have feasting and toasts and songs
and all sorts of fun, while we must stay on guard in the cold and the dark,
and in the end be cut to pieces by bloodthirsty Badgers!”’
“Oh, you silly ass, Mole!” cried Toad, “You’ve been and spoilt
everything!”
“Mole,” said the Badger, in his dry, quiet way, “I perceive you have more
sense in your little finger than some other animals have in the whole of their
fat bodies. You have managed excellently, and I begin to have great hopes
of you. Good Mole! Clever Mole!”
The Toad was simply wild with jealousy, more especially as he couldn’t
make out for the life of him what the Mole had done that was so particularly
clever; but, fortunately for him, before he could show temper or expose
himself to the Badger’s sarcasm, the bell rang for luncheon.
It was a simple but sustaining meal—bacon and broad beans, and a
macaroni pudding; and when they had quite done, the Badger settled
himself into an arm-chair, and said, “Well, we’ve got our work cut out for

us to-night, and it will probably be pretty late before we’re quite through
with it; so I’m just going to take forty winks, while I can.” And he drew a
handkerchief over his face and was soon snoring.
The anxious and laborious Rat at once resumed his preparations, and
started running between his four little heaps, muttering, “Here’s-a-belt-for-
the-Rat, here’s-a-belt-for-the-Mole, here’s-a-belt-for-the-Toad, here’s-a-
belt-for-the-Badger!” and so on, with every fresh accoutrement he
produced, to which there seemed really no end; so the Mole drew his arm
through Toad’s, led him out into the open air, shoved him into a wicker
chair, and made him tell him all his adventures from beginning to end,
which Toad was only too willing to do. The Mole was a good listener, and
Toad, with no one to check his statements or to criticise in an unfriendly
spirit, rather let himself go. Indeed, much that he related belonged more
properly to the category of what-might-have-happened-had-I-only-thought-
of-it-in-time-instead-of ten-minutes-afterwards. Those are always the best
and the raciest adventures; and why should they not be truly ours, as much
as the somewhat inadequate things that really come off?

XII.
THE RETURN OF ULYSSES

When it began to grow dark, the Rat, with an air of excitement and
mystery, summoned them back into the parlour, stood each of them up
alongside of his little heap, and proceeded to dress them up for the coming
expedition. He was very earnest and thoroughgoing about it, and the affair
took quite a long time. First, there was a belt to go round each animal, and
then a sword to be stuck into each belt, and then a cutlass on the other side
to balance it. Then a pair of pistols, a policeman’s truncheon, several sets of
handcuffs, some bandages and sticking-plaster, and a flask and a sandwich-
case. The Badger laughed good-humouredly and said, “All right, Ratty! It
amuses you and it doesn’t hurt me. I’m going to do all I’ve got to do with
this here stick.” But the Rat only said, “please, Badger. You know I
shouldn’t like you to blame me afterwards and say I had forgotten
anything!”
When all was quite ready, the Badger took a dark lantern in one paw,
grasped his great stick with the other, and said, “Now then, follow me!
Mole first, “cos I’m very pleased with him; Rat next; Toad last. And look
here, Toady! Don’t you chatter so much as usual, or you’ll be sent back, as
sure as fate!”
The Toad was so anxious not to be left out that he took up the inferior
position assigned to him without a murmur, and the animals set off. The
Badger led them along by the river for a little way, and then suddenly
swung himself over the edge into a hole in the river-bank, a little above the
water. The Mole and the Rat followed silently, swinging themselves
successfully into the hole as they had seen the Badger do; but when it came
to Toad’s turn, of course he managed to slip and fall into the water with a
loud splash and a squeal of alarm. He was hauled out by his friends, rubbed
down and wrung out hastily, comforted, and set on his legs; but the Badger

was seriously angry, and told him that the very next time he made a fool of
himself he would most certainly be left behind.
So at last they were in the secret passage, and the cutting-out expedition
had really begun!
It was cold, and dark, and damp, and low, and narrow, and poor Toad
began to shiver, partly from dread of what might be before him, partly
because he was wet through. The lantern was far ahead, and he could not
help lagging behind a little in the darkness. Then he heard the Rat call out
warningly, “Come on, Toad!” and a terror seized him of being left behind,
alone in the darkness, and he “came on” with such a rush that he upset the
Rat into the Mole and the Mole into the Badger, and for a moment all was
confusion. The Badger thought they were being attacked from behind, and,
as there was no room to use a stick or a cutlass, drew a pistol, and was on
the point of putting a bullet into Toad. When he found out what had really
happened he was very angry indeed, and said, “Now this time that tiresome
Toad shall be left behind!”
But Toad whimpered, and the other two promised that they would be
answerable for his good conduct, and at last the Badger was pacified, and
the procession moved on; only this time the Rat brought up the rear, with a
firm grip on the shoulder of Toad.
So they groped and shuffled along, with their ears pricked up and their
paws on their pistols, till at last the Badger said, “We ought by now to be
pretty nearly under the Hall.”
Then suddenly they heard, far away as it might be, and yet apparently
nearly over their heads, a confused murmur of sound, as if people were
shouting and cheering and stamping on the floor and hammering on tables.
The Toad’s nervous terrors all returned, but the Badger only remarked
placidly, “They are going it, the Weasels!”
The passage now began to slope upwards; they groped onward a little
further, and then the noise broke out again, quite distinct this time, and very
close above them. “Ooo-ray-ooray-oo-ray-ooray!” they heard, and the
stamping of little feet on the floor, and the clinking of glasses as little fists
pounded on the table. “What a time they’re having!” said the Badger.
“Come on!” They hurried along the passage till it came to a full stop, and
they found themselves standing under the trap-door that led up into the
butler’s pantry.

Such a tremendous noise was going on in the banqueting-hall that there
was little danger of their being overheard. The Badger said, “Now, boys, all
together!” and the four of them put their shoulders to the trap-door and
heaved it back. Hoisting each other up, they found themselves standing in
the pantry, with only a door between them and the banqueting-hall, where
their unconscious enemies were carousing.
The noise, as they emerged from the passage, was simply deafening. At
last, as the cheering and hammering slowly subsided, a voice could be made
out saying, “Well, I do not propose to detain you much longer”—(great
applause)—“but before I resume my seat”—(renewed cheering)—“I should
like to say one word about our kind host, Mr. Toad. We all know Toad!”—
(great laughter)—“Good Toad, modest Toad, honest Toad!” (shrieks of
merriment).
“Only just let me get at him!” muttered Toad, grinding his teeth.
“Hold hard a minute!” said the Badger, restraining him with difficulty.
“Get ready, all of you!”
“—Let me sing you a little song,” went on the voice, “which I have
composed on the subject of Toad”—(prolonged applause).
Then the Chief Weasel—for it was he—began in a high, squeaky voice—
“Toad he went a-pleasuring
Gaily down the street—”

The Badger drew himself up, took a firm grip of his stick with both paws,
glanced round at his comrades, and cried—
“The hour is come! Follow me!”
And flung the door open wide.
My!
What a squealing and a squeaking and a screeching filled the air!
Well might the terrified weasels dive under the tables and spring madly
up at the windows! Well might the ferrets rush wildly for the fireplace and
get hopelessly jammed in the chimney! Well might tables and chairs be
upset, and glass and china be sent crashing on the floor, in the panic of that
terrible moment when the four Heroes strode wrathfully into the room! The
mighty Badger, his whiskers bristling, his great cudgel whistling through
the air; Mole, black and grim, brandishing his stick and shouting his awful

war-cry, “A Mole! A Mole!” Rat; desperate and determined, his belt bulging
with weapons of every age and every variety; Toad, frenzied with
excitement and injured pride, swollen to twice his ordinary size, leaping
into the air and emitting Toad-whoops that chilled them to the marrow!
“Toad he went a-pleasuring!” he yelled. “I’ll pleasure ’em!” and he went
straight for the Chief Weasel. They were but four in all, but to the panic-
stricken weasels the hall seemed full of monstrous animals, grey, black,
brown and yellow, whooping and flourishing enormous cudgels; and they
broke and fled with squeals of terror and dismay, this way and that, through
the windows, up the chimney, anywhere to get out of reach of those terrible
sticks.
The affair was soon over. Up and down, the whole length of the hall,
strode the four Friends, whacking with their sticks at every head that
showed itself; and in five minutes the room was cleared. Through the
broken windows the shrieks of terrified weasels escaping across the lawn
were borne faintly to their ears; on the floor lay prostrate some dozen or so
of the enemy, on whom the Mole was busily engaged in fitting handcuffs.
The Badger, resting from his labours, leant on his stick and wiped his
honest brow.
“Mole,” he said,” “you’re the best of fellows! Just cut along outside and
look after those stoat-sentries of yours, and see what they’re doing. I’ve an
idea that, thanks to you, we shan’t have much trouble from them to-night!”
The Mole vanished promptly through a window; and the Badger bade the
other two set a table on its legs again, pick up knives and forks and plates
and glasses from the débris on the floor, and see if they could find materials
for a supper. “I want some grub, I do,” he said, in that rather common way
he had of speaking. “Stir your stumps, Toad, and look lively! We’ve got
your house back for you, and you don’t offer us so much as a sandwich.”
Toad felt rather hurt that the Badger didn’t say pleasant things to him, as he
had to the Mole, and tell him what a fine fellow he was, and how splendidly
he had fought; for he was rather particularly pleased with himself and the
way he had gone for the Chief Weasel and sent him flying across the table
with one blow of his stick. But he bustled about, and so did the Rat, and
soon they found some guava jelly in a glass dish, and a cold chicken, a
tongue that had hardly been touched, some trifle, and quite a lot of lobster
salad; and in the pantry they came upon a basketful of French rolls and any

quantity of cheese, butter, and celery. They were just about to sit down
when the Mole clambered in through the window, chuckling, with an armful
of rifles.
“It’s all over,” he reported. “From what I can make out, as soon as the
stoats, who were very nervous and jumpy already, heard the shrieks and the
yells and the uproar inside the hall, some of them threw down their rifles
and fled. The others stood fast for a bit, but when the weasels came rushing
out upon them they thought they were betrayed; and the stoats grappled
with the weasels, and the weasels fought to get away, and they wrestled and
wriggled and punched each other, and rolled over and over, till most of ’em
rolled into the river! They’ve all disappeared by now, one way or another;
and I’ve got their rifles. So that’s all right!”
“Excellent and deserving animal!” said the Badger, his mouth full of
chicken and trifle. “Now, there’s just one more thing I want you to do,
Mole, before you sit down to your supper along of us; and I wouldn’t
trouble you only I know I can trust you to see a thing done, and I wish I
could say the same of every one I know. I’d send Rat, if he wasn’t a poet. I
want you to take those fellows on the floor there upstairs with you, and
have some bedrooms cleaned out and tidied up and made really
comfortable. See that they sweep under the beds, and put clean sheets and
pillow-cases on, and turn down one corner of the bed-clothes, just as you
know it ought to be done; and have a can of hot water, and clean towels,
and fresh cakes of soap, put in each room. And then you can give them a
licking a-piece, if it’s any satisfaction to you, and put them out by the back-
door, and we shan’t see any more of them, I fancy. And then come along
and have some of this cold tongue. It’s first rate. I’m very pleased with you,
Mole!”
The goodnatured Mole picked up a stick, formed his prisoners up in a
line on the floor, gave them the order “Quick march!” and led his squad off
to the upper floor. After a time, he appeared again, smiling, and said that
every room was ready, and as clean as a new pin. “And I didn’t have to lick
them, either,” he added. “I thought, on the whole, they had had licking
enough for one night, and the weasels, when I put the point to them, quite
agreed with me, and said they wouldn’t think of troubling me. They were
very penitent, and said they were extremely sorry for what they had done,
but it was all the fault of the Chief Weasel and the stoats, and if ever they

could do anything for us at any time to make up, we had only got to
mention it. So I gave them a roll a-piece, and let them out at the back, and
off they ran, as hard as they could!”
Then the Mole pulled his chair up to the table, and pitched into the cold
tongue; and Toad, like the gentleman he was, put all his jealousy from him,
and said heartily, “Thank you kindly, dear Mole, for all your pains and
trouble tonight, and especially for your cleverness this morning!” The
Badger was pleased at that, and said, “There spoke my brave Toad!” So
they finished their supper in great joy and contentment, and presently
retired to rest between clean sheets, safe in Toad’s ancestral home, won
back by matchless valour, consummate strategy, and a proper handling of
sticks.
The following morning, Toad, who had overslept himself as usual, came
down to breakfast disgracefully late, and found on the table a certain
quantity of egg-shells, some fragments of cold and leathery toast, a coffee-
pot three-fourths empty, and really very little else; which did not tend to
improve his temper, considering that, after all, it was his own house.
Through the French windows of the breakfast-room he could see the Mole
and the Water Rat sitting in wicker-chairs out on the lawn, evidently telling
each other stories; roaring with laughter and kicking their short legs up in
the air. The Badger, who was in an arm-chair and deep in the morning
paper, merely looked up and nodded when Toad entered the room. But Toad
knew his man, so he sat down and made the best breakfast he could, merely
observing to himself that he would get square with the others sooner or
later. When he had nearly finished, the Badger looked up and remarked
rather shortly: “I’m sorry, Toad, but I’m afraid there’s a heavy morning’s
work in front of you. You see, we really ought to have a Banquet at once, to
celebrate this affair. It’s expected of you—in fact, it’s the rule.”
“O, all right!” said the Toad, readily. “Anything to oblige. Though why
on earth you should want to have a Banquet in the morning I cannot
understand. But you know I do not live to please myself, but merely to find
out what my friends want, and then try and arrange it for ’em, you dear old
Badger!”
“Don’t pretend to be stupider than you really are,” replied the Badger,
crossly; “and don’t chuckle and splutter in your coffee while you’re talking;
it’s not manners. What I mean is, the Banquet will be at night, of course, but

the invitations will have to be written and got off at once, and you’ve got to
write ’em. Now, sit down at that table—there’s stacks of letter-paper on it,
with ‘Toad Hall’ at the top in blue and gold—and write invitations to all our
friends, and if you stick to it we shall get them out before luncheon. And I’ll
bear a hand, too; and take my share of the burden. I’ll order the Banquet.”
“What!” cried Toad, dismayed. “Me stop indoors and write a lot of rotten
letters on a jolly morning like this, when I want to go around my property,
and set everything and everybody to rights, and swagger about and enjoy
myself! Certainly not! I’ll be—I’ll see you——Stop a minute, though!
Why, of course, dear Badger! What is my pleasure or convenience
compared with that of others! You wish it done, and it shall be done. Go,
Badger, order the Banquet, order what you like; then join our young friends
outside in their innocent mirth, oblivious of me and my cares and toils. I
sacrifice this fair morning on the altar of duty and friendship!”
The Badger looked at him very suspiciously, but Toad’s frank, open
countenance made it difficult to suggest any unworthy motive in this
change of attitude. He quitted the room, accordingly, in the direction of the
kitchen, and as soon as the door had closed behind him, Toad hurried to the
writing-table. A fine idea had occurred to him while he was talking. He
would write the invitations; and he would take care to mention the leading
part he had taken in the fight, and how he had laid the Chief Weasel flat;
and he would hint at his adventures, and what a career of triumph he had to
tell about; and on the fly-leaf he would set out a sort of a programme of
entertainment for the evening—something like this, as he sketched it out in
his head:—

SPEECH. . . . BY TOAD.
(There will be other speeches by TOAD during the evening.)

ADDRESS. . . BY TOAD
SYNOPSIS—Our Prison System—the Waterways of Old England—Horse-
dealing, and how to deal—Property, its rights and its duties—Back to the
Land—A Typical English Squire.

SONG. . . . BY TOAD.
(Composed by himself.)

OTHER COMPOSITIONS. BY TOAD
will be sung in the course of the evening by the. . . COMPOSER.

The idea pleased him mightily, and he worked very hard and got all the
letters finished by noon, at which hour it was reported to him that there was
a small and rather bedraggled weasel at the door, inquiring timidly whether
he could be of any service to the gentlemen. Toad swaggered out and found
it was one of the prisoners of the previous evening, very respectful and
anxious to please. He patted him on the head, shoved the bundle of
invitations into his paw, and told him to cut along quick and deliver them as
fast as he could, and if he liked to come back again in the evening, perhaps
there might be a shilling for him, or, again, perhaps there mightn’t; and the
poor weasel seemed really quite grateful, and hurried off eagerly to do his
mission.
When the other animals came back to luncheon, very boisterous and
breezy after a morning on the river, the Mole, whose conscience had been
pricking him, looked doubtfully at Toad, expecting to find him sulky or
depressed. Instead, he was so uppish and inflated that the Mole began to
suspect something; while the Rat and the Badger exchanged significant
glances.
As soon as the meal was over, Toad thrust his paws deep into his trouser-
pockets, remarked casually, “Well, look after yourselves, you fellows! Ask
for anything you want!” and was swaggering off in the direction of the
garden, where he wanted to think out an idea or two for his coming
speeches, when the Rat caught him by the arm.
Toad rather suspected what he was after, and did his best to get away; but
when the Badger took him firmly by the other arm he began to see that the
game was up. The two animals conducted him between them into the small
smoking-room that opened out of the entrance-hall, shut the door, and put
him into a chair. Then they both stood in front of him, while Toad sat silent
and regarded them with much suspicion and ill-humour.
“Now, look here, Toad,” said the Rat. “It’s about this Banquet, and very
sorry I am to have to speak to you like this. But we want you to understand
clearly, once and for all, that there are going to be no speeches and no
songs. Try and grasp the fact that on this occasion we’re not arguing with
you; we’re just telling you.”

Toad saw that he was trapped. They understood him, they saw through
him, they had got ahead of him. His pleasant dream was shattered.
“Mayn’t I sing them just one little song?” he pleaded piteously.
“No, not one little song,” replied the Rat firmly, though his heart bled as
he noticed the trembling lip of the poor disappointed Toad. “It’s no good,
Toady; you know well that your songs are all conceit and boasting and
vanity; and your speeches are all self-praise and—and—well, and gross
exaggeration and—and——”
“And gas,” put in the Badger, in his common way.
“It’s for your own good, Toady,” went on the Rat. “You know you must
turn over a new leaf sooner or later, and now seems a splendid time to
begin; a sort of turning-point in your career. Please don’t think that saying
all this doesn’t hurt me more than it hurts you.”
Toad remained a long while plunged in thought. At last he raised his
head, and the traces of strong emotion were visible on his features. “You
have conquered, my friends,” he said in broken accents. “It was, to be sure,
but a small thing that I asked—merely leave to blossom and expand for yet
one more evening, to let myself go and hear the tumultuous applause that
always seems to me—somehow—to bring out my best qualities. However,
you are right, I know, and I am wrong. Hence forth I will be a very different
Toad. My friends, you shall never have occasion to blush for me again. But,
O dear, O dear, this is a hard world!”
And, pressing his handkerchief to his face, he left the room, with
faltering footsteps.
“Badger,” said the Rat, “I feel like a brute; I wonder what you feel like?”
“O, I know, I know,” said the Badger gloomily. “But the thing had to be
done. This good fellow has got to live here, and hold his own, and be
respected. Would you have him a common laughing-stock, mocked and
jeered at by stoats and weasels?”
“Of course not,” said the Rat. “And, talking of weasels, it’s lucky we
came upon that little weasel, just as he was setting out with Toad’s
invitations. I suspected something from what you told me, and had a look at
one or two; they were simply disgraceful. I confiscated the lot, and the good
Mole is now sitting in the blue boudoir, filling up plain, simple invitation
cards.”

At last the hour for the banquet began to draw near, and Toad, who on
leaving the others had retired to his bedroom, was still sitting there,
melancholy and thoughtful. His brow resting on his paw, he pondered long
and deeply. Gradually his countenance cleared, and he began to smile long,
slow smiles. Then he took to giggling in a shy, self-conscious manner. At
last he got up, locked the door, drew the curtains across the windows,
collected all the chairs in the room and arranged them in a semicircle, and
took up his position in front of them, swelling visibly. Then he bowed,
coughed twice, and, letting himself go, with uplifted voice he sang, to the
enraptured audience that his imagination so clearly saw.
TOAD’S LAST LITTLE SONG!

The Toad—came—home!
There was panic in the parlours and howling in the halls,
There was crying in the cow-sheds and shrieking in the stalls,
When the Toad—came—home!

When the Toad—came—home!
There was smashing in of window and crashing in of door,
There was chivvying of weasels that fainted on the floor,
When the Toad—came—home!

Bang! go the drums!
The trumpeters are tooting and the soldiers are saluting,
And the cannon they are shooting and the motor-cars are hooting,
As the—Hero—comes!

Shout—Hoo-ray!
And let each one of the crowd try and shout it very loud,
In honour of an animal of whom you’re justly proud,
For it’s Toad’s—great—day!

He sang this very loud, with great unction and expression; and when he
had done, he sang it all over again.
Then he heaved a deep sigh; a long, long, long sigh.
Then he dipped his hairbrush in the water-jug, parted his hair in the
middle, and plastered it down very straight and sleek on each side of his
face; and, unlocking the door, went quietly down the stairs to greet his
guests, who he knew must be assembling in the drawing-room.

All the animals cheered when he entered, and crowded round to
congratulate him and say nice things about his courage, and his cleverness,
and his fighting qualities; but Toad only smiled faintly, and murmured, “Not
at all!” Or, sometimes, for a change, “On the contrary!” Otter, who was
standing on the hearthrug, describing to an admiring circle of friends
exactly how he would have managed things had he been there, came
forward with a shout, threw his arm round Toad’s neck, and tried to take
him round the room in triumphal progress; but Toad, in a mild way, was
rather snubby to him, remarking gently, as he disengaged himself,
“Badger’s was the mastermind; the Mole and the Water Rat bore the brunt
of the fighting; I merely served in the ranks and did little or nothing.” The
animals were evidently puzzled and taken aback by this unexpected attitude
of his; and Toad felt, as he moved from one guest to the other, making his
modest responses, that he was an object of absorbing interest to every one.
The Badger had ordered everything of the best, and the banquet was a
great success. There was much talking and laughter and chaff among the
animals, but through it all Toad, who of course was in the chair, looked
down his nose and murmured pleasant nothings to the animals on either
side of him. At intervals he stole a glance at the Badger and the Rat, and
always when he looked they were staring at each other with their mouths
open; and this gave him the greatest satisfaction. Some of the younger and
livelier animals, as the evening wore on, got whispering to each other that
things were not so amusing as they used to be in the good old days; and
there were some knockings on the table and cries of “Toad! Speech! Speech
from Toad! Song! Mr. Toad’s song!” But Toad only shook his head gently,
raised one paw in mild protest, and, by pressing delicacies on his guests, by
topical small-talk, and by earnest inquiries after members of their families
not yet old enough to appear at social functions, managed to convey to them
that this dinner was being run on strictly conventional lines.
He was indeed an altered Toad!

After this climax, the four animals continued to lead their lives, so rudely
broken in upon by civil war, in great joy and contentment, undisturbed by
further risings or invasions. Toad, after due consultation with his friends,

selected a handsome gold chain and locket set with pearls, which he
dispatched to the gaoler’s daughter with a letter that even the Badger
admitted to be modest, grateful, and appreciative; and the engine-driver, in
his turn, was properly thanked and compensated for all his pains and
trouble. Under severe compulsion from the Badger, even the barge-woman
was, with some trouble, sought out and the value of her horse discreetly
made good to her; though Toad kicked terribly at this, holding himself to be
an instrument of Fate, sent to punish fat women with mottled arms who
couldn’t tell a real gentleman when they saw one. The amount involved, it
was true, was not very burdensome, the gipsy’s valuation being admitted by
local assessors to be approximately correct.
Sometimes, in the course of long summer evenings, the friends would
take a stroll together in the Wild Wood, now successfully tamed so far as
they were concerned; and it was pleasing to see how respectfully they were
greeted by the inhabitants, and how the mother-weasels would bring their
young ones to the mouths of their holes, and say, pointing, “Look, baby!
There goes the great Mr. Toad! And that’s the gallant Water Rat, a terrible
fighter, walking along o’ him! And yonder comes the famous Mr. Mole, of
whom you so often have heard your father tell!” But when their infants
were fractious and quite beyond control, they would quiet them by telling
how, if they didn’t hush them and not fret them, the terrible grey Badger
would up and get them. This was a base libel on Badger, who, though he
cared little about Society, was rather fond of children; but it never failed to
have its full effect.

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