The Wind in the Willows
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,