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.

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

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

`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. `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

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,

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

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, justunder where their chins
would be if ducks had chins, till they were
forced tocome to the surface again in a
hurry, spluttering and angry and
shakingtheir feathers at him, for it is
impossible to say quite all you feel when
your head isunder 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
Up tails all!

`I don't know that I think so very much of that

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
slipped 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

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

`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 road side 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

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

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

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

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.'

Chapter 3 THE WILD WOOD

THE Mole had long wanted to make the I
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.'

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

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

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

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,

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.'

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 impa-
tiently.

`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.

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!'

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,

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

`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

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

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

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

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.'

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.

Chapter 5 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

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

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

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

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 wail 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,

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 '

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 field-
mice 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

`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.

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

`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 armchair, `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

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

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

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 motorcar
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

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. Tomorrow, 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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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 fulness 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

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

`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.'

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

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

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,

`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

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, un-equipped
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!'

`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,

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-

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

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

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

`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

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.

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,

Besides, Sicily is one of my happy hunting-
grounds. I know everybody there, and their
ways just suit me. I spent many jolly weeks
in the island, staying with friends up country.
When I grew restless again I took advantage
of a ship that was trading to Sardinia and
Corsica; and very glad I was to feel the
fresh breeze and the sea-spray in my face
once more.'

`But isn't it very hot and stuffy, down in the
hold, I think you call it?' asked the Water Rat.

The seafarer looked at him with the
suspicion go a wink. `I'm an old hand,' he
remarked with much simplicity. `The
captain's cabin's good enough for me.'

`It's a hard life, by all accounts,' murmured
the Rat, sunk in deep thought.

`For the crew it is,' replied the seafarer
gravely, again with the ghost of a wink.

`From Corsica,' he went on, `I made use of
a ship that was taking wine to the mainland.
We made Alassio in the evening, lay to,
hauled up our wine-casks, and hove them
overboard, tied one to the other by a long
line. Then the crew took to the boats and
rowed shorewards, singing as they went,
and drawing after them the long bobbing
procession of casks, like a mile of
porpoises. On the sands they had horses
waiting, which dragged the casks up the
steep street of the little town with a fine rush
and clatter and scramble. When the last cask
was in, we went and refreshed and rested,
and sat late into the night, drinking with our
friends, and next morning I took to the great
olive-woods for a spell and a rest. For now I
had done with islands for the time, and
ports and shipping were plentiful; so I led a
lazy life among the peasants, lying and
watching them work, or stretched high on
the hillside with the blue Mediterranean far

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

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 quaysides 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

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

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.

Chapter 10 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

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

`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,

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.'

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

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

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

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