The Wind in the Willows
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.