THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS - VIII. TOAD’S ADVENTURES

THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS

By Kenneth Grahame

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

VIII. TOAD’S ADVENTURES

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

Now the gaoler had a daughter, a pleasant wench and good-hearted,
who assisted her father in the lighter duties of his post. She was
particularly fond of animals, and, besides her canary, whose cage hung
on a nail in the massive wall of the keep by day, to the great annoyance
of prisoners who relished an after-dinner nap, and was shrouded in an
antimacassar on the parlour table at night, she kept several piebald
mice and a restless revolving squirrel. This kind-hearted girl, pitying
the misery of Toad, said to her father one day, ‘Father! I can’t bear to
see that poor beast so unhappy, and getting so thin! You let me have the
managing of him. You know how fond of animals I am. I’ll make him eat
from my hand, and sit up, and do all sorts of things.’

Her father replied that she could do what she liked with him. He was
tired of Toad, and his sulks and his airs and his meanness. So that day
she went on her errand of mercy, and knocked at the door of Toad’s cell.

‘Now, cheer up, Toad,’ she said, coaxingly, on entering, ‘and sit up
and dry your eyes and be a sensible animal. And do try and eat a bit of
dinner. See, I’ve brought you some of mine, hot from the oven!’

It was bubble-and-squeak, between two plates, and its fragrance filled
the narrow cell. The penetrating smell of cabbage reached the nose of
Toad as he lay prostrate in his misery on the floor, and gave him the
idea for a moment that perhaps life was not such a blank and desperate
thing as he had imagined. But still he wailed, and kicked with his legs,
and refused to be comforted. So the wise girl retired for the time, but,
of course, a good deal of the smell of hot cabbage remained behind,
as it will do, and Toad, between his sobs, sniffed and reflected, and
gradually began to think new and inspiring thoughts: of chivalry,
and poetry, and deeds still to be done; of broad meadows, and cattle
browsing in them, raked by sun and wind; of kitchen-gardens, and
straight herb-borders, and warm snap-dragon beset by bees; and of the
comforting clink of dishes set down on the table at Toad Hall, and the
scrape of chair-legs on the floor as every one pulled himself close up
to his work. The air of the narrow cell took a rosy tinge; he began to
think of his friends, and how they would surely be able to do something;
of lawyers, and how they would have enjoyed his case, and what an ass
he had been not to get in a few; and lastly, he thought of his own great
cleverness and resource, and all that he was capable of if he only gave
his great mind to it; and the cure was almost complete.

When the girl returned, some hours later, she carried a tray, with a
cup of fragrant tea steaming on it; and a plate piled up with very hot
buttered toast, cut thick, very brown on both sides, with the butter
running through the holes in it in great golden drops, like honey from
the honeycomb. The smell of that buttered toast simply talked to Toad,
and with no uncertain voice; talked of warm kitchens, of breakfasts on
bright frosty mornings, of cosy parlour firesides on winter evenings,
when one’s ramble was over and slippered feet were propped on the
fender; of the purring of contented cats, and the twitter of sleepy
canaries. Toad sat up on end once more, dried his eyes, sipped his tea
and munched his toast, and soon began talking freely about himself, and
the house he lived in, and his doings there, and how important he was,
and what a lot his friends thought of him.

The gaoler’s daughter saw that the topic was doing him as much good as
the tea, as indeed it was, and encouraged him to go on.

‘Tell me about Toad Hall,’ said she. ‘It sounds beautiful.’

‘Toad Hall,’ said the Toad proudly, ‘is an eligible self-contained
gentleman’s residence very unique; dating in part from the fourteenth
century, but replete with every modern convenience. Up-to-date
sanitation. Five minutes from church, post-office, and golf-links,
Suitable for----’

‘Bless the animal,’ said the girl, laughing, ‘I don’t want to TAKE it.
Tell me something REAL about it. But first wait till I fetch you some
more tea and toast.’

She tripped away, and presently returned with a fresh trayful; and Toad,
pitching into the toast with avidity, his spirits quite restored to
their usual level, told her about the boathouse, and the fish-pond, and
the old walled kitchen-garden; and about the pig-styes, and the stables,
and the pigeon-house, and the hen-house; and about the dairy, and the
wash-house, and the china-cupboards, and the linen-presses (she liked
that bit especially); and about the banqueting-hall, and the fun they
had there when the other animals were gathered round the table and Toad
was at his best, singing songs, telling stories, carrying on generally.
Then she wanted to know about his animal-friends, and was very
interested in all he had to tell her about them and how they lived, and
what they did to pass their time. Of course, she did not say she was
fond of animals as PETS, because she had the sense to see that Toad
would be extremely offended. When she said good night, having filled his
water-jug and shaken up his straw for him, Toad was very much the same
sanguine, self-satisfied animal that he had been of old. He sang a
little song or two, of the sort he used to sing at his dinner-parties,
curled himself up in the straw, and had an excellent night’s rest and
the pleasantest of dreams.

They had many interesting talks together, after that, as the dreary days
went on; and the gaoler’s daughter grew very sorry for Toad, and thought
it a great shame that a poor little animal should be locked up in prison
for what seemed to her a very trivial offence. Toad, of course, in
his vanity, thought that her interest in him proceeded from a growing
tenderness; and he could not help half-regretting that the social gulf
between them was so very wide, for she was a comely lass, and evidently
admired him very much.

One morning the girl was very thoughtful, and answered at random, and
did not seem to Toad to be paying proper attention to his witty sayings
and sparkling comments.

‘Toad,’ she said presently, ‘just listen, please. I have an aunt who is
a washerwoman.’

‘There, there,’ said Toad, graciously and affably, ‘never mind; think no
more about it. _I_ have several aunts who OUGHT to be washerwomen.’

‘Do be quiet a minute, Toad,’ said the girl. ‘You talk too much, that’s
your chief fault, and I’m trying to think, and you hurt my head. As I
said, I have an aunt who is a washerwoman; she does the washing for all
the prisoners in this castle--we try to keep any paying business of that
sort in the family, you understand. She takes out the washing on Monday
morning, and brings it in on Friday evening. This is a Thursday. Now,
this is what occurs to me: you’re very rich--at least you’re always
telling me so--and she’s very poor. A few pounds wouldn’t make any
difference to you, and it would mean a lot to her. Now, I think if she
were properly approached--squared, I believe is the word you animals
use--you could come to some arrangement by which she would let you have
her dress and bonnet and so on, and you could escape from the
castle as the official washerwoman. You’re very alike in many
respects--particularly about the figure.’

‘We’re NOT,’ said the Toad in a huff. ‘I have a very elegant figure--for
what I am.’

‘So has my aunt,’ replied the girl, ‘for what SHE is. But have it your
own way. You horrid, proud, ungrateful animal, when I’m sorry for you,
and trying to help you!’

‘Yes, yes, that’s all right; thank you very much indeed,’ said the Toad
hurriedly. ‘But look here! you wouldn’t surely have Mr. Toad of Toad
Hall, going about the country disguised as a washerwoman!’

‘Then you can stop here as a Toad,’ replied the girl with much spirit.
‘I suppose you want to go off in a coach-and-four!’

Honest Toad was always ready to admit himself in the wrong. ‘You are a
good, kind, clever girl,’ he said, ‘and I am indeed a proud and a stupid
toad. Introduce me to your worthy aunt, if you will be so kind, and
I have no doubt that the excellent lady and I will be able to arrange
terms satisfactory to both parties.’

Next evening the girl ushered her aunt into Toad’s cell, bearing his
week’s washing pinned up in a towel. The old lady had been prepared
beforehand for the interview, and the sight of certain gold sovereigns
that Toad had thoughtfully placed on the table in full view practically
completed the matter and left little further to discuss. In return for
his cash, Toad received a cotton print gown, an apron, a shawl, and a
rusty black bonnet; the only stipulation the old lady made being that
she should be gagged and bound and dumped down in a corner. By this not
very convincing artifice, she explained, aided by picturesque fiction
which she could supply herself, she hoped to retain her situation, in
spite of the suspicious appearance of things.

Toad was delighted with the suggestion. It would enable him to leave the
prison in some style, and with his reputation for being a desperate
and dangerous fellow untarnished; and he readily helped the gaoler’s
daughter to make her aunt appear as much as possible the victim of
circumstances over which she had no control.

‘Now it’s your turn, Toad,’ said the girl. ‘Take off that coat and
waistcoat of yours; you’re fat enough as it is.’

Shaking with laughter, she proceeded to ‘hook-and-eye’ him into the
cotton print gown, arranged the shawl with a professional fold, and tied
the strings of the rusty bonnet under his chin.

‘You’re the very image of her,’ she giggled, ‘only I’m sure you never
looked half so respectable in all your life before. Now, good-bye, Toad,
and good luck. Go straight down the way you came up; and if any one says
anything to you, as they probably will, being but men, you can chaff
back a bit, of course, but remember you’re a widow woman, quite alone in
the world, with a character to lose.’

With a quaking heart, but as firm a footstep as he could command,
Toad set forth cautiously on what seemed to be a most hare-brained and
hazardous undertaking; but he was soon agreeably surprised to find how
easy everything was made for him, and a little humbled at the thought
that both his popularity, and the sex that seemed to inspire it, were
really another’s. The washerwoman’s squat figure in its familiar cotton
print seemed a passport for every barred door and grim gateway; even
when he hesitated, uncertain as to the right turning to take, he found
himself helped out of his difficulty by the warder at the next gate,
anxious to be off to his tea, summoning him to come along sharp and not
keep him waiting there all night. The chaff and the humourous sallies
to which he was subjected, and to which, of course, he had to provide
prompt and effective reply, formed, indeed, his chief danger; for Toad
was an animal with a strong sense of his own dignity, and the chaff
was mostly (he thought) poor and clumsy, and the humour of the sallies
entirely lacking. However, he kept his temper, though with great
difficulty, suited his retorts to his company and his supposed
character, and did his best not to overstep the limits of good taste.

It seemed hours before he crossed the last courtyard, rejected the
pressing invitations from the last guardroom, and dodged the outspread
arms of the last warder, pleading with simulated passion for just one
farewell embrace. But at last he heard the wicket-gate in the great
outer door click behind him, felt the fresh air of the outer world upon
his anxious brow, and knew that he was free!

Dizzy with the easy success of his daring exploit, he walked quickly
towards the lights of the town, not knowing in the least what he should
do next, only quite certain of one thing, that he must remove himself as
quickly as possible from the neighbourhood where the lady he was forced
to represent was so well-known and so popular a character.

As he walked along, considering, his attention was caught by some red
and green lights a little way off, to one side of the town, and the
sound of the puffing and snorting of engines and the banging of shunted
trucks fell on his ear. ‘Aha!’ he thought, ‘this is a piece of luck!
A railway station is the thing I want most in the whole world at this
moment; and what’s more, I needn’t go through the town to get it, and
shan’t have to support this humiliating character by repartees which,
though thoroughly effective, do not assist one’s sense of self-respect.’

He made his way to the station accordingly, consulted a time-table, and
found that a train, bound more or less in the direction of his home, was
due to start in half-an-hour. ‘More luck!’ said Toad, his spirits rising
rapidly, and went off to the booking-office to buy his ticket.

He gave the name of the station that he knew to be nearest to the
village of which Toad Hall was the principal feature, and mechanically
put his fingers, in search of the necessary money, where his waistcoat
pocket should have been. But here the cotton gown, which had nobly
stood by him so far, and which he had basely forgotten, intervened, and
frustrated his efforts. In a sort of nightmare he struggled with the
strange uncanny thing that seemed to hold his hands, turn all muscular
strivings to water, and laugh at him all the time; while other
travellers, forming up in a line behind, waited with impatience,
making suggestions of more or less value and comments of more or less
stringency and point. At last--somehow--he never rightly understood
how--he burst the barriers, attained the goal, arrived at where all
waistcoat pockets are eternally situated, and found--not only no money,
but no pocket to hold it, and no waistcoat to hold the pocket!

To his horror he recollected that he had left both coat and waistcoat
behind him in his cell, and with them his pocket-book, money, keys,
watch, matches, pencil-case--all that makes life worth living, all that
distinguishes the many-pocketed animal, the lord of creation, from the
inferior one-pocketed or no-pocketed productions that hop or trip about
permissively, unequipped for the real contest.

In his misery he made one desperate effort to carry the thing off, and,
with a return to his fine old manner--a blend of the Squire and the
College Don--he said, ‘Look here! I find I’ve left my purse behind. Just
give me that ticket, will you, and I’ll send the money on to-morrow? I’m
well-known in these parts.’

The clerk stared at him and the rusty black bonnet a moment, and then
laughed. ‘I should think you were pretty well known in these parts,’
he said, ‘if you’ve tried this game on often. Here, stand away from the
window, please, madam; you’re obstructing the other passengers!’

An old gentleman who had been prodding him in the back for some moments
here thrust him away, and, what was worse, addressed him as his good
woman, which angered Toad more than anything that had occurred that
evening.

Baffled and full of despair, he wandered blindly down the platform where
the train was standing, and tears trickled down each side of his nose.
It was hard, he thought, to be within sight of safety and almost of
home, and to be baulked by the want of a few wretched shillings and by
the pettifogging mistrustfulness of paid officials. Very soon his escape
would be discovered, the hunt would be up, he would be caught, reviled,
loaded with chains, dragged back again to prison and bread-and-water and
straw; his guards and penalties would be doubled; and O, what sarcastic
remarks the girl would make! What was to be done? He was not swift of
foot; his figure was unfortunately recognisable. Could he not squeeze
under the seat of a carriage? He had seen this method adopted by
schoolboys, when the journey-money provided by thoughtful parents had
been diverted to other and better ends. As he pondered, he found
himself opposite the engine, which was being oiled, wiped, and generally
caressed by its affectionate driver, a burly man with an oil-can in one
hand and a lump of cotton-waste in the other.

‘Hullo, mother!’ said the engine-driver, ‘what’s the trouble? You don’t
look particularly cheerful.’

‘O, sir!’ said Toad, crying afresh, ‘I am a poor unhappy washerwoman,
and I’ve lost all my money, and can’t pay for a ticket, and I must get
home to-night somehow, and whatever I am to do I don’t know. O dear, O
dear!’

‘That’s a bad business, indeed,’ said the engine-driver reflectively.
‘Lost your money--and can’t get home--and got some kids, too, waiting
for you, I dare say?’

‘Any amount of ‘em,’ sobbed Toad. ‘And they’ll be hungry--and
playing with matches--and upsetting lamps, the little innocents!--and
quarrelling, and going on generally. O dear, O dear!’

‘Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,’ said the good engine-driver. ‘You’re
a washerwoman to your trade, says you. Very well, that’s that. And
I’m an engine-driver, as you well may see, and there’s no denying it’s
terribly dirty work. Uses up a power of shirts, it does, till my missus
is fair tired of washing of ‘em. If you’ll wash a few shirts for me when
you get home, and send ‘em along, I’ll give you a ride on my engine.
It’s against the Company’s regulations, but we’re not so very particular
in these out-of-the-way parts.’

The Toad’s misery turned into rapture as he eagerly scrambled up into
the cab of the engine. Of course, he had never washed a shirt in his
life, and couldn’t if he tried and, anyhow, he wasn’t going to begin;
but he thought: ‘When I get safely home to Toad Hall, and have money
again, and pockets to put it in, I will send the engine-driver enough to
pay for quite a quantity of washing, and that will be the same thing, or
better.’

The guard waved his welcome flag, the engine-driver whistled in
cheerful response, and the train moved out of the station. As the speed
increased, and the Toad could see on either side of him real fields, and
trees, and hedges, and cows, and horses, all flying past him, and as
he thought how every minute was bringing him nearer to Toad Hall, and
sympathetic friends, and money to chink in his pocket, and a soft bed
to sleep in, and good things to eat, and praise and admiration at the
recital of his adventures and his surpassing cleverness, he began to
skip up and down and shout and sing snatches of song, to the great
astonishment of the engine-driver, who had come across washerwomen
before, at long intervals, but never one at all like this.

They had covered many and many a mile, and Toad was already considering
what he would have for supper as soon as he got home, when he noticed
that the engine-driver, with a puzzled expression on his face, was
leaning over the side of the engine and listening hard. Then he saw him
climb on to the coals and gaze out over the top of the train; then he
returned and said to Toad: ‘It’s very strange; we’re the last train
running in this direction to-night, yet I could be sworn that I heard
another following us!’

Toad ceased his frivolous antics at once. He became grave and depressed,
and a dull pain in the lower part of his spine, communicating itself to
his legs, made him want to sit down and try desperately not to think of
all the possibilities.

By this time the moon was shining brightly, and the engine-driver,
steadying himself on the coal, could command a view of the line behind
them for a long distance.

Presently he called out, ‘I can see it clearly now! It is an engine, on
our rails, coming along at a great pace! It looks as if we were being
pursued!’

The miserable Toad, crouching in the coal-dust, tried hard to think of
something to do, with dismal want of success.

‘They are gaining on us fast!’ cried the engine-driver. And the engine
is crowded with the queerest lot of people! Men like ancient warders,
waving halberds; policemen in their helmets, waving truncheons; and
shabbily dressed men in pot-hats, obvious and unmistakable plain-clothes
detectives even at this distance, waving revolvers and walking-sticks;
all waving, and all shouting the same thing--“Stop, stop, stop!”’

Then Toad fell on his knees among the coals and, raising his clasped
paws in supplication, cried, ‘Save me, only save me, dear kind Mr.
Engine-driver, and I will confess everything! I am not the simple
washerwoman I seem to be! I have no children waiting for me, innocent
or otherwise! I am a toad--the well-known and popular Mr. Toad, a landed
proprietor; I have just escaped, by my great daring and cleverness, from
a loathsome dungeon into which my enemies had flung me; and if
those fellows on that engine recapture me, it will be chains and
bread-and-water and straw and misery once more for poor, unhappy,
innocent Toad!’

The engine-driver looked down upon him very sternly, and said, ‘Now tell
the truth; what were you put in prison for?’

‘It was nothing very much,’ said poor Toad, colouring deeply. ‘I only
borrowed a motorcar while the owners were at lunch; they had no need
of it at the time. I didn’t mean to steal it, really; but
people--especially magistrates--take such harsh views of thoughtless and
high-spirited actions.’

The engine-driver looked very grave and said, ‘I fear that you have been
indeed a wicked toad, and by rights I ought to give you up to offended
justice. But you are evidently in sore trouble and distress, so I will
not desert you. I don’t hold with motor-cars, for one thing; and I don’t
hold with being ordered about by policemen when I’m on my own engine,
for another. And the sight of an animal in tears always makes me feel
queer and softhearted. So cheer up, Toad! I’ll do my best, and we may
beat them yet!’

They piled on more coals, shovelling furiously; the furnace roared, the
sparks flew, the engine leapt and swung but still their pursuers slowly
gained. The engine-driver, with a sigh, wiped his brow with a handful
of cotton-waste, and said, ‘I’m afraid it’s no good, Toad. You see, they
are running light, and they have the better engine. There’s just one
thing left for us to do, and it’s your only chance, so attend very
carefully to what I tell you. A short way ahead of us is a long tunnel,
and on the other side of that the line passes through a thick wood.
Now, I will put on all the speed I can while we are running through the
tunnel, but the other fellows will slow down a bit, naturally, for fear
of an accident. When we are through, I will shut off steam and put on
brakes as hard as I can, and the moment it’s safe to do so you must jump
and hide in the wood, before they get through the tunnel and see you.
Then I will go full speed ahead again, and they can chase me if they
like, for as long as they like, and as far as they like. Now mind and be
ready to jump when I tell you!’

They piled on more coals, and the train shot into the tunnel, and the
engine rushed and roared and rattled, till at last they shot out at the
other end into fresh air and the peaceful moonlight, and saw the wood
lying dark and helpful upon either side of the line. The driver shut off
steam and put on brakes, the Toad got down on the step, and as the train
slowed down to almost a walking pace he heard the driver call out, ‘Now,
jump!’

Toad jumped, rolled down a short embankment, picked himself up unhurt,
scrambled into the wood and hid.

Peeping out, he saw his train get up speed again and disappear at a
great pace. Then out of the tunnel burst the pursuing engine, roaring
and whistling, her motley crew waving their various weapons and
shouting, ‘Stop! stop! stop!’ When they were past, the Toad had a hearty
laugh--for the first time since he was thrown into prison.

But he soon stopped laughing when he came to consider that it was now
very late and dark and cold, and he was in an unknown wood, with no
money and no chance of supper, and still far from friends and home; and
the dead silence of everything, after the roar and rattle of the train,
was something of a shock. He dared not leave the shelter of the trees,
so he struck into the wood, with the idea of leaving the railway as far
as possible behind him.

After so many weeks within walls, he found the wood strange and
unfriendly and inclined, he thought, to make fun of him. Night-jars,
sounding their mechanical rattle, made him think that the wood was full
of searching warders, closing in on him. An owl, swooping noiselessly
towards him, brushed his shoulder with its wing, making him jump with
the horrid certainty that it was a hand; then flitted off, moth-like,
laughing its low ho! ho! ho; which Toad thought in very poor taste. Once
he met a fox, who stopped, looked him up and down in a sarcastic sort
of way, and said, ‘Hullo, washerwoman! Half a pair of socks and a
pillow-case short this week! Mind it doesn’t occur again!’ and swaggered
off, sniggering. Toad looked about for a stone to throw at him, but
could not succeed in finding one, which vexed him more than anything.
At last, cold, hungry, and tired out, he sought the shelter of a hollow
tree, where with branches and dead leaves he made himself as comfortable
a bed as he could, and slept soundly till the morning.

Posted in: ***English Literature***