THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS - XII. THE RETURN OF ULYSSES

THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS

By Kenneth Grahame

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

XII. THE RETURN OF ULYSSES

When it began to grow dark, the Rat, with an air of excitement and
mystery, summoned them back into the parlour, stood each of them up
alongside of his little heap, and proceeded to dress them up for the
coming expedition. He was very earnest and thoroughgoing about it, and
the affair took quite a long time. First, there was a belt to go round
each animal, and then a sword to be stuck into each belt, and then
a cutlass on the other side to balance it. Then a pair of pistols, a
policeman’s truncheon, several sets of handcuffs, some bandages and
sticking-plaster, and a flask and a sandwich-case. The Badger laughed
good-humouredly and said, ‘All right, Ratty! It amuses you and it
doesn’t hurt me. I’m going to do all I’ve got to do with this here
stick.’ But the Rat only said, ‘PLEASE, Badger. You know I shouldn’t
like you to blame me afterwards and say I had forgotten ANYTHING!’

When all was quite ready, the Badger took a dark lantern in one paw,
grasped his great stick with the other, and said, ‘Now then, follow me!
Mole first, ‘cos I’m very pleased with him; Rat next; Toad last. And
look here, Toady! Don’t you chatter so much as usual, or you’ll be sent
back, as sure as fate!’

The Toad was so anxious not to be left out that he took up the inferior
position assigned to him without a murmur, and the animals set off. The
Badger led them along by the river for a little way, and then suddenly
swung himself over the edge into a hole in the river-bank, a little
above the water. The Mole and the Rat followed silently, swinging
themselves successfully into the hole as they had seen the Badger do;
but when it came to Toad’s turn, of course he managed to slip and fall
into the water with a loud splash and a squeal of alarm. He was hauled
out by his friends, rubbed down and wrung out hastily, comforted, and
set on his legs; but the Badger was seriously angry, and told him that
the very next time he made a fool of himself he would most certainly be
left behind.

So at last they were in the secret passage, and the cutting-out
expedition had really begun!

It was cold, and dark, and damp, and low, and narrow, and poor Toad
began to shiver, partly from dread of what might be before him, partly
because he was wet through. The lantern was far ahead, and he could not
help lagging behind a little in the darkness. Then he heard the Rat call
out warningly, ‘COME on, Toad!’ and a terror seized him of being left
behind, alone in the darkness, and he ‘came on’ with such a rush that
he upset the Rat into the Mole and the Mole into the Badger, and for a
moment all was confusion. The Badger thought they were being attacked
from behind, and, as there was no room to use a stick or a cutlass, drew
a pistol, and was on the point of putting a bullet into Toad. When he
found out what had really happened he was very angry indeed, and said,
‘Now this time that tiresome Toad SHALL be left behind!’

But Toad whimpered, and the other two promised that they would be
answerable for his good conduct, and at last the Badger was pacified,
and the procession moved on; only this time the Rat brought up the rear,
with a firm grip on the shoulder of Toad.

So they groped and shuffled along, with their ears pricked up and their
paws on their pistols, till at last the Badger said, ‘We ought by now to
be pretty nearly under the Hall.’

Then suddenly they heard, far away as it might be, and yet apparently
nearly over their heads, a confused murmur of sound, as if people were
shouting and cheering and stamping on the floor and hammering on tables.
The Toad’s nervous terrors all returned, but the Badger only remarked
placidly, ‘They ARE going it, the Weasels!’

The passage now began to slope upwards; they groped onward a little
further, and then the noise broke out again, quite distinct this time,
and very close above them. ‘Ooo-ray-ooray-oo-ray-ooray!’ they heard, and
the stamping of little feet on the floor, and the clinking of glasses
as little fists pounded on the table. ‘WHAT a time they’re having!’ said
the Badger. ‘Come on!’ They hurried along the passage till it came to a
full stop, and they found themselves standing under the trap-door that
led up into the butler’s pantry.

Such a tremendous noise was going on in the banqueting-hall that there
was little danger of their being overheard. The Badger said, ‘Now, boys,
all together!’ and the four of them put their shoulders to the trap-door
and heaved it back. Hoisting each other up, they found themselves
standing in the pantry, with only a door between them and the
banqueting-hall, where their unconscious enemies were carousing.

The noise, as they emerged from the passage, was simply deafening. At
last, as the cheering and hammering slowly subsided, a voice could
be made out saying, ‘Well, I do not propose to detain you much
longer’--(great applause)--‘but before I resume my seat’--(renewed
cheering)--‘I should like to say one word about our kind host, Mr. Toad.
We all know Toad!’--(great laughter)--‘GOOD Toad, MODEST Toad, HONEST
Toad!’ (shrieks of merriment).

‘Only just let me get at him!’ muttered Toad, grinding his teeth.

‘Hold hard a minute!’ said the Badger, restraining him with difficulty.
‘Get ready, all of you!’

‘--Let me sing you a little song,’ went on the voice, ‘which I have
composed on the subject of Toad’--(prolonged applause).

Then the Chief Weasel--for it was he--began in a high, squeaky voice--

          ‘Toad he went a-pleasuring
          Gaily down the street--’

The Badger drew himself up, took a firm grip of his stick with both
paws, glanced round at his comrades, and cried--

‘The hour is come! Follow me!’

And flung the door open wide.

My!

What a squealing and a squeaking and a screeching filled the air!

Well might the terrified weasels dive under the tables and spring madly
up at the windows! Well might the ferrets rush wildly for the fireplace
and get hopelessly jammed in the chimney! Well might tables and chairs
be upset, and glass and china be sent crashing on the floor, in the
panic of that terrible moment when the four Heroes strode wrathfully
into the room! The mighty Badger, his whiskers bristling, his great
cudgel whistling through the air; Mole, black and grim, brandishing his
stick and shouting his awful war-cry, ‘A Mole! A Mole!’ Rat; desperate
and determined, his belt bulging with weapons of every age and every
variety; Toad, frenzied with excitement and injured pride, swollen to
twice his ordinary size, leaping into the air and emitting Toad-whoops
that chilled them to the marrow! ‘Toad he went a-pleasuring!’ he yelled.
‘I’LL pleasure ‘em!’ and he went straight for the Chief Weasel. They
were but four in all, but to the panic-stricken weasels the hall seemed
full of monstrous animals, grey, black, brown and yellow, whooping and
flourishing enormous cudgels; and they broke and fled with squeals
of terror and dismay, this way and that, through the windows, up the
chimney, anywhere to get out of reach of those terrible sticks.

The affair was soon over. Up and down, the whole length of the hall,
strode the four Friends, whacking with their sticks at every head that
showed itself; and in five minutes the room was cleared. Through the
broken windows the shrieks of terrified weasels escaping across the lawn
were borne faintly to their ears; on the floor lay prostrate some dozen
or so of the enemy, on whom the Mole was busily engaged in fitting
handcuffs. The Badger, resting from his labours, leant on his stick and
wiped his honest brow.

‘Mole,’ he said,’ ‘you’re the best of fellows! Just cut along outside
and look after those stoat-sentries of yours, and see what they’re
doing. I’ve an idea that, thanks to you, we shan’t have much trouble
from them to-night!’

The Mole vanished promptly through a window; and the Badger bade the
other two set a table on its legs again, pick up knives and forks and
plates and glasses from the debris on the floor, and see if they could
find materials for a supper. ‘I want some grub, I do,’ he said, in that
rather common way he had of speaking. ‘Stir your stumps, Toad, and look
lively! We’ve got your house back for you, and you don’t offer us so
much as a sandwich.’ Toad felt rather hurt that the Badger didn’t say
pleasant things to him, as he had to the Mole, and tell him what a
fine fellow he was, and how splendidly he had fought; for he was rather
particularly pleased with himself and the way he had gone for the Chief
Weasel and sent him flying across the table with one blow of his stick.
But he bustled about, and so did the Rat, and soon they found some guava
jelly in a glass dish, and a cold chicken, a tongue that had hardly
been touched, some trifle, and quite a lot of lobster salad; and in the
pantry they came upon a basketful of French rolls and any quantity of
cheese, butter, and celery. They were just about to sit down when the
Mole clambered in through the window, chuckling, with an armful of
rifles.

‘It’s all over,’ he reported. ‘From what I can make out, as soon as the
stoats, who were very nervous and jumpy already, heard the shrieks and
the yells and the uproar inside the hall, some of them threw down their
rifles and fled. The others stood fast for a bit, but when the weasels
came rushing out upon them they thought they were betrayed; and the
stoats grappled with the weasels, and the weasels fought to get away,
and they wrestled and wriggled and punched each other, and rolled
over and over, till most of ‘em rolled into the river! They’ve all
disappeared by now, one way or another; and I’ve got their rifles. So
that’s all right!’

‘Excellent and deserving animal!’ said the Badger, his mouth full of
chicken and trifle. ‘Now, there’s just one more thing I want you to do,
Mole, before you sit down to your supper along of us; and I wouldn’t
trouble you only I know I can trust you to see a thing done, and I wish
I could say the same of every one I know. I’d send Rat, if he wasn’t a
poet. I want you to take those fellows on the floor there upstairs with
you, and have some bedrooms cleaned out and tidied up and made really
comfortable. See that they sweep UNDER the beds, and put clean sheets
and pillow-cases on, and turn down one corner of the bed-clothes, just
as you know it ought to be done; and have a can of hot water, and clean
towels, and fresh cakes of soap, put in each room. And then you can give
them a licking a-piece, if it’s any satisfaction to you, and put them
out by the back-door, and we shan’t see any more of THEM, I fancy. And
then come along and have some of this cold tongue. It’s first rate. I’m
very pleased with you, Mole!’

The goodnatured Mole picked up a stick, formed his prisoners up in a
line on the floor, gave them the order ‘Quick march!’ and led his squad
off to the upper floor. After a time, he appeared again, smiling, and
said that every room was ready, and as clean as a new pin. ‘And I didn’t
have to lick them, either,’ he added. ‘I thought, on the whole, they had
had licking enough for one night, and the weasels, when I put the point
to them, quite agreed with me, and said they wouldn’t think of troubling
me. They were very penitent, and said they were extremely sorry for
what they had done, but it was all the fault of the Chief Weasel and the
stoats, and if ever they could do anything for us at any time to make
up, we had only got to mention it. So I gave them a roll a-piece, and
let them out at the back, and off they ran, as hard as they could!’

Then the Mole pulled his chair up to the table, and pitched into the
cold tongue; and Toad, like the gentleman he was, put all his jealousy
from him, and said heartily, ‘Thank you kindly, dear Mole, for all
your pains and trouble tonight, and especially for your cleverness this
morning!’ The Badger was pleased at that, and said, ‘There spoke my
brave Toad!’ So they finished their supper in great joy and contentment,
and presently retired to rest between clean sheets, safe in Toad’s
ancestral home, won back by matchless valour, consummate strategy, and a
proper handling of sticks.

The following morning, Toad, who had overslept himself as usual, came
down to breakfast disgracefully late, and found on the table a certain
quantity of egg-shells, some fragments of cold and leathery toast, a
coffee-pot three-fourths empty, and really very little else; which did
not tend to improve his temper, considering that, after all, it was his
own house. Through the French windows of the breakfast-room he could
see the Mole and the Water Rat sitting in wicker-chairs out on the lawn,
evidently telling each other stories; roaring with laughter and kicking
their short legs up in the air. The Badger, who was in an arm-chair and
deep in the morning paper, merely looked up and nodded when Toad entered
the room. But Toad knew his man, so he sat down and made the best
breakfast he could, merely observing to himself that he would get square
with the others sooner or later. When he had nearly finished, the Badger
looked up and remarked rather shortly: ‘I’m sorry, Toad, but I’m afraid
there’s a heavy morning’s work in front of you. You see, we really ought
to have a Banquet at once, to celebrate this affair. It’s expected of
you--in fact, it’s the rule.’

‘O, all right!’ said the Toad, readily. ‘Anything to oblige. Though
why on earth you should want to have a Banquet in the morning I cannot
understand. But you know I do not live to please myself, but merely to
find out what my friends want, and then try and arrange it for ‘em, you
dear old Badger!’

‘Don’t pretend to be stupider than you really are,’ replied the Badger,
crossly; ‘and don’t chuckle and splutter in your coffee while you’re
talking; it’s not manners. What I mean is, the Banquet will be at night,
of course, but the invitations will have to be written and got off at
once, and you’ve got to write ‘em. Now, sit down at that table--there’s
stacks of letter-paper on it, with “Toad Hall” at the top in blue and
gold--and write invitations to all our friends, and if you stick to it
we shall get them out before luncheon. And I’LL bear a hand, too; and
take my share of the burden. I’LL order the Banquet.’

‘What!’ cried Toad, dismayed. ‘Me stop indoors and write a lot of
rotten letters on a jolly morning like this, when I want to go around my
property, and set everything and everybody to rights, and swagger about
and enjoy myself! Certainly not! I’ll be--I’ll see you----Stop a minute,
though! Why, of course, dear Badger! What is my pleasure or convenience
compared with that of others! You wish it done, and it shall be done.
Go, Badger, order the Banquet, order what you like; then join our young
friends outside in their innocent mirth, oblivious of me and my cares
and toils. I sacrifice this fair morning on the altar of duty and
friendship!’

The Badger looked at him very suspiciously, but Toad’s frank, open
countenance made it difficult to suggest any unworthy motive in this
change of attitude. He quitted the room, accordingly, in the direction
of the kitchen, and as soon as the door had closed behind him, Toad
hurried to the writing-table. A fine idea had occurred to him while he
was talking. He WOULD write the invitations; and he would take care to
mention the leading part he had taken in the fight, and how he had laid
the Chief Weasel flat; and he would hint at his adventures, and what a
career of triumph he had to tell about; and on the fly-leaf he would set
out a sort of a programme of entertainment for the evening--something
like this, as he sketched it out in his head:--

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

  ADDRESS. . . BY TOAD

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

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

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


The idea pleased him mightily, and he worked very hard and got all the
letters finished by noon, at which hour it was reported to him that
there was a small and rather bedraggled weasel at the door, inquiring
timidly whether he could be of any service to the gentlemen. Toad
swaggered out and found it was one of the prisoners of the previous
evening, very respectful and anxious to please. He patted him on the
head, shoved the bundle of invitations into his paw, and told him to
cut along quick and deliver them as fast as he could, and if he liked
to come back again in the evening, perhaps there might be a shilling
for him, or, again, perhaps there mightn’t; and the poor weasel seemed
really quite grateful, and hurried off eagerly to do his mission.

When the other animals came back to luncheon, very boisterous and
breezy after a morning on the river, the Mole, whose conscience had been
pricking him, looked doubtfully at Toad, expecting to find him sulky or
depressed. Instead, he was so uppish and inflated that the Mole began
to suspect something; while the Rat and the Badger exchanged significant
glances.

As soon as the meal was over, Toad thrust his paws deep into his
trouser-pockets, remarked casually, ‘Well, look after yourselves, you
fellows! Ask for anything you want!’ and was swaggering off in the
direction of the garden, where he wanted to think out an idea or two for
his coming speeches, when the Rat caught him by the arm.

Toad rather suspected what he was after, and did his best to get away;
but when the Badger took him firmly by the other arm he began to see
that the game was up. The two animals conducted him between them into
the small smoking-room that opened out of the entrance-hall, shut the
door, and put him into a chair. Then they both stood in front of
him, while Toad sat silent and regarded them with much suspicion and
ill-humour.

‘Now, look here, Toad,’ said the Rat. ‘It’s about this Banquet, and
very sorry I am to have to speak to you like this. But we want you to
understand clearly, once and for all, that there are going to be no
speeches and no songs. Try and grasp the fact that on this occasion
we’re not arguing with you; we’re just telling you.’

Toad saw that he was trapped. They understood him, they saw through him,
they had got ahead of him. His pleasant dream was shattered.

‘Mayn’t I sing them just one LITTLE song?’ he pleaded piteously.

‘No, not ONE little song,’ replied the Rat firmly, though his heart bled
as he noticed the trembling lip of the poor disappointed Toad. ‘It’s no
good, Toady; you know well that your songs are all conceit and boasting
and vanity; and your speeches are all self-praise and--and--well, and
gross exaggeration and--and----’

‘And gas,’ put in the Badger, in his common way.

‘It’s for your own good, Toady,’ went on the Rat. ‘You know you MUST
turn over a new leaf sooner or later, and now seems a splendid time to
begin; a sort of turning-point in your career. Please don’t think that
saying all this doesn’t hurt me more than it hurts you.’

Toad remained a long while plunged in thought. At last he raised his
head, and the traces of strong emotion were visible on his features.
‘You have conquered, my friends,’ he said in broken accents. ‘It was,
to be sure, but a small thing that I asked--merely leave to blossom
and expand for yet one more evening, to let myself go and hear the
tumultuous applause that always seems to me--somehow--to bring out my
best qualities. However, you are right, I know, and I am wrong. Hence
forth I will be a very different Toad. My friends, you shall never have
occasion to blush for me again. But, O dear, O dear, this is a hard
world!’

And, pressing his handkerchief to his face, he left the room, with
faltering footsteps.

‘Badger,’ said the Rat, ‘_I_ feel like a brute; I wonder what YOU feel
like?’

‘O, I know, I know,’ said the Badger gloomily. ‘But the thing had to be
done. This good fellow has got to live here, and hold his own, and be
respected. Would you have him a common laughing-stock, mocked and jeered
at by stoats and weasels?’

‘Of course not,’ said the Rat. ‘And, talking of weasels, it’s lucky we
came upon that little weasel, just as he was setting out with Toad’s
invitations. I suspected something from what you told me, and had a look
at one or two; they were simply disgraceful. I confiscated the lot,
and the good Mole is now sitting in the blue boudoir, filling up plain,
simple invitation cards.’

* * * * *

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


                  TOAD’S LAST LITTLE SONG!

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

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

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

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


He sang this very loud, with great unction and expression; and when he
had done, he sang it all over again.

Then he heaved a deep sigh; a long, long, long sigh.

Then he dipped his hairbrush in the water-jug, parted his hair in the
middle, and plastered it down very straight and sleek on each side of
his face; and, unlocking the door, went quietly down the stairs to greet
his guests, who he knew must be assembling in the drawing-room.

All the animals cheered when he entered, and crowded round to
congratulate him and say nice things about his courage, and his
cleverness, and his fighting qualities; but Toad only smiled faintly,
and murmured, ‘Not at all!’ Or, sometimes, for a change, ‘On the
contrary!’ Otter, who was standing on the hearthrug, describing to an
admiring circle of friends exactly how he would have managed things had
he been there, came forward with a shout, threw his arm round Toad’s
neck, and tried to take him round the room in triumphal progress; but
Toad, in a mild way, was rather snubby to him, remarking gently, as he
disengaged himself, ‘Badger’s was the mastermind; the Mole and the Water
Rat bore the brunt of the fighting; I merely served in the ranks and did
little or nothing.’ The animals were evidently puzzled and taken aback
by this unexpected attitude of his; and Toad felt, as he moved from one
guest to the other, making his modest responses, that he was an object
of absorbing interest to every one.

The Badger had ordered everything of the best, and the banquet was a
great success. There was much talking and laughter and chaff among the
animals, but through it all Toad, who of course was in the chair, looked
down his nose and murmured pleasant nothings to the animals on either
side of him. At intervals he stole a glance at the Badger and the Rat,
and always when he looked they were staring at each other with their
mouths open; and this gave him the greatest satisfaction. Some of the
younger and livelier animals, as the evening wore on, got whispering
to each other that things were not so amusing as they used to be in the
good old days; and there were some knockings on the table and cries of
‘Toad! Speech! Speech from Toad! Song! Mr. Toad’s song!’ But Toad only
shook his head gently, raised one paw in mild protest, and, by pressing
delicacies on his guests, by topical small-talk, and by earnest
inquiries after members of their families not yet old enough to appear
at social functions, managed to convey to them that this dinner was
being run on strictly conventional lines.

He was indeed an altered Toad!

* * * * *

After this climax, the four animals continued to lead their lives,
so rudely broken in upon by civil war, in great joy and contentment,
undisturbed by further risings or invasions. Toad, after due
consultation with his friends, selected a handsome gold chain and locket
set with pearls, which he dispatched to the gaoler’s daughter with
a letter that even the Badger admitted to be modest, grateful, and
appreciative; and the engine-driver, in his turn, was properly thanked
and compensated for all his pains and trouble. Under severe compulsion
from the Badger, even the barge-woman was, with some trouble, sought
out and the value of her horse discreetly made good to her; though Toad
kicked terribly at this, holding himself to be an instrument of Fate,
sent to punish fat women with mottled arms who couldn’t tell a real
gentleman when they saw one. The amount involved, it was true, was not
very burdensome, the gipsy’s valuation being admitted by local assessors
to be approximately correct.

Sometimes, in the course of long summer evenings, the friends would take
a stroll together in the Wild Wood, now successfully tamed so far as
they were concerned; and it was pleasing to see how respectfully they
were greeted by the inhabitants, and how the mother-weasels would bring
their young ones to the mouths of their holes, and say, pointing, ‘Look,
baby! There goes the great Mr. Toad! And that’s the gallant Water Rat, a
terrible fighter, walking along o’ him! And yonder comes the famous Mr.
Mole, of whom you so often have heard your father tell!’ But when their
infants were fractious and quite beyond control, they would quiet them
by telling how, if they didn’t hush them and not fret them, the terrible
grey Badger would up and get them. This was a base libel on Badger, who,
though he cared little about Society, was rather fond of children; but
it never failed to have its full effect.





End of Project Gutenberg’s The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame

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