8
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,bd
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
judgements, 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
keepbe by
day, to the great annoyance of prisoners who relished an
after-dinner nap, and was shrouded in an antimacassarbf on
the parlour table at night, she kept several piebaldbg 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,bh
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 chairlegs on the floor as
every one pulled himself close up to his work. The air of the
narrow cell took on 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
boat-house, and the fish-pond, and the old walled kitchen-garden;
and about the pig-sties, 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!’bi
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 golden 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 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 chaffbj and
the humorous salliesbk 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 a
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 to 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 tomorrow. 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 recognizable. 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 tonight 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
tonight, 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 motor-car 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 this 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, bl
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 pillowcase 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.