Stories
from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Toad’s Escape
In all the world of fantasy, there is perhaps no character more
lovable—or more exasperating—than the sly, boastful, and conceited
Toad. He is a constant trial to his good friends—Badger, Mole, and
Water Rat. Do what they will, the adventurous Toad is always in trouble.
It was a bright morning in the early part of summer; the river had
resumed its wonted banks and its accustomed pace, and a hot sun seemed
to be pulling everything green and bushy and spiky up out of the earth
towards him, as if by strings. The Mole and the Water Rat had been up
since dawn very busy on matters connected with boats and the opening of
the boating season; painting and varnishing, mending paddles, repairing
cushions, hunting for missing boathooks, and so on; and were finishing
breakfast in their little parlour and eagerly discussing their plans for
the day, when a heavy knock sounded at the door.
“Brother!” 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 tablecloth, 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 today!”
“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 very moment, perhaps. Toad is busy arraying himself in
those singularly hideous habiliments so dear to him, which transform him
from a (comparatively) good-looking Toad into an Object which throws any
decent-minded animal that comes across it into a violent fit. We must be
up and doing, before it is too late. You two animals will accompany
r
me instantly to Toad Hall, and the work of rescue shall be
accomplished.”
“Right you are!” cried the Rat, starting up. “We’ll rescue the poor
unhappy animal! We’ll convert him! He’ll be the most converted Toad that
ever was before we’re done with him!”
They set off up the road on their mission of mercy, Badger leading the
way. Animals when in company walk in a proper and sensible manner, in
single file, instead of sprawling all across the road and being of no
use or support to each other in case of sudden trouble or danger.
They reached the carriage-drive of Toad Hall to find, as the Badger had
anticipated, a shiny new motor-car, of great size, painted a bright red
(Toad’s favourite colour), standing in front of the house. As they
neared the door it was flung open, and Mr. Toad, arrayed in goggles,
cap, gaiters, and enormous overcoat, came swaggering down the steps,
drawing on his gauntleted gloves.
“Hullo! come on, you fellows!” he cried cheerfully on catching sight of
them. “You’re just in time to come with me for a jolly—to come for a
jolly—for a—er—jolly ”
His hearty accents faltered and fell away as he noticed the stern
unbending look on the countenances of his silent friends, and his
invitation remained unfinished.
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 today,” 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 and your rows with the police. Independence is
all very well, but we animals never allow our friends to make fools of
themselves beyond a certain limit; and that limit you’ve reached. Now,
you’re a good fellow in many respects, and I don’t want to be too hard
on you. I’ll make one more effort to bring you to reason. You will come
with me into the smoking-room, and there you will hear some facts about
yourself; and we’ll see whether you come out of that room the same Toad
that you went in.”
He took Toad firmly by the arm, led him into the smoking-room and closed
the door behind them.
“That’s no good!” said the Rat contemptuously. “Talking to Toad’ll
never cure him. He’ll say anything.”
They made themselves comfortable in armchairs and waited patiently.
Through the closed door they could just hear the long continuous drone
of the Badger’s voice, rising and falling in waves of oratory; and
presently they noticed that the sermon began to be punctuated at
intervals by long-drawn sobs, evidently proceeding from the bosom of
Toad, who was a soft-hearted and affectionate fellow, very easily
converted—for the time being—to any point of view.
After some three-quarters of an hour the door opened, and the Badger
reappeared, solemnly leading by the paw a very limp and dejected Toad.
His skin hung baggily about him, his legs wobbled, and his cheeks were
furrowed by the tears so plentifully called forth by the Badger’s moving
discourse.
“Sit down there, Toad,” said the Badger kindly, pointing to a chair. “My
friends,” he went on, “I am pleased to inform you that 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
forever. 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 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 scandalized. “You backsliding animal,
didn’t you tell me just now, in there——”
“0, 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 a bit sorry or repentant really, so it’s no earthly good saying
I am; now, is it?”
“Then you don’t promise,” said the Badger, “never to touch a motor-car
again?”
“Certainly not!” replied Toad emphatically. “On the contrary, I
faithfully promise that the very first motor-car I see, poop-poop! off I
go in it!”
“Told you so, didn’t I?” observed the Rat to the Mole.
“Very well, then,” said the Badger firmly, rising to his feet. “Since
you won’t yield to persuasion, we’ll try what force can do. I feared it
would come to this all along. You’ve often asked us three to come and
stay with you, Toad, in this handsome house of yours; well, now we’re
going to. When we’ve converted you to take a proper point of view we may
quit, but not before. Take him upstairs, you two, and lock him up in his
bedroom, while we arrange matters between ourselves.”
“It’s for your own good, Toady, you know,” said the Rat kindly, as Toad,
kicking and struggling, was hauled up the stairs by his two faithful
friends. “Think what fun we shall all have together, just as we used to,
when you’ve quite got over this—this painful attack of yours!”
“We’ll take great care of everything for you till you’re well, Toad,”
said the Mole; “and we’ll see your money isn’t wasted, as it has been.”
“No more of those regrettable incidents with the police, Toad,” said the
Rat, as they thrust him into his bedroom.
“And no more weeks in hospital, being ordered about by female nurses,
Toad,” 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 motor-car 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, 0, leave him alone, he wants nothing, perhaps
he’ll be better presently, it may pass off in time, don’t be unduly
anxious, and so on. Now, you look out, Rat! When Toad’s quiet and
submissive, and playing at being the hero of a Sunday-school prize, then
he’s at his artfullest. There’s sure to be something up. I know him.
Well, now I must be off.”
“How are you today, old chap?” inquired the Rat cheerfully, as he
approached Toad’s bedside.
He had to wait some minutes for an answer. At last a feeble voice
replied, “Thank you so much, dear Ratty! So good of you to inquire! But
first tell me how you are yourself, and the excellent Mole?”
“0, we’re all right,” replied the Rat. “Mole,” he added incautiously,
“is getting out for a run round with Badger. They’ll be out till
luncheon-time, so you and I will spend a pleasant morning together, and
I’ll do my best to amuse you. Now jump up, there’s a good fellow, and
don’t lie moping there on a fine morning like this!”
“Dear, kind Rat,” murmured Toad, “how little you
realize my condition, and how very far I am from ‘jumping up’ now—if
ever! But do not trouble about me. I hate being a burden to my friends,
and I do not expect to be one much longer. Indeed, I almost hope not.”
“Well, I hope not, too,” said the Rat heartily.
“You’ve been a fine bother to us all this time, and I’m glad to hear
it’s going to stop. And in weather like this, and the boating season
just beginning! It’s too bad of you, Toad! It isn’t the trouble we mind,
but you’re making us miss such an awful lot.”
“I’m afraid it is the trouble you mind, though,” replied the Toad
languidly. “I can quite understand it. It’s natural enough. 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 around 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, ‘Oh, 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 for 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 to step up? It would be a convenience to me, and there
are moments—perhaps I should say there is a moment—when one must
face disagreeable tasks, at whatever cost to exhausted nature!”
“A lawyer! 0, he must be really bad!” the affrighted Rat said to
himself, as he hurried from the room, not forgetting, however, to lock
the door carefully behind him.
Outside, he stopped to consider. The other two were far away, and he had
no one to consult.
“It’s best to be on the safe side,” he said, on reflection. “I’ve known
Toad fancy himself frightfully
bad before, without the slightest reason; but I’ve never heard him ask
for a lawyer! If there’s nothing really the matter, the doctor will tell
him he’s an old fool, and cheer him up; and that will be something
gained. I’d better humour him and go; it won’t take very long.” So he
ran off to the village on his errand of mercy.
The Toad, who had hopped lightly out of bed as soon as he heard the key
turned in the lock, watched him eagerly from the window till he
disappeared down the carriage-drive. Then, laughing heartily, he dressed
as quickly as possible in the smartest suit he could lay hands on at the
moment, filled his pockets with cash which he took from a small drawer
in the dressing-table, and next, knotting the sheets from his bed
together and tying one end of the improvised rope round the central
mullion of the handsome Tudor window w’hich formed such a feature of his
bedroom, he scrambled out, slid lightly to the ground, and, taking the
opposite direction to the Rat, marched off light-heartedly, whistling a
merry tune.
It was a gloomy luncheon for Rat when the 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 bypaths, 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.
“Smart piece of work that!” he remarked to himself, chuckling. “Brain
against brute force—and brain came out on top—as it’s bound to do.
Poor old Ratty! My!
won’t he catch it when the Badger gets back! A worthy fellow, Ratty,
with many good qualities, but very little intelligence and absolutely no
education. I must take him in hand some day, and see if I can make
something of him.”
Filled full of conceited thoughts such as these he strode along, his
head in the air, till he reached a little town, where the sign of “The
Red Lion,” swinging across the road half-way down the main street,
reminded him that he had not breakfasted that day, and that he was
exceedingly hungry after his long walk. He marched into the inn, ordered
the best luncheon that could be provided at so short a notice, and sat
down to eat it in the coffee-room.
He was about half-way through his meal when an
only too familiar sound, approaching down the street,
made him start and fall a-trembling all over. The poop-poop! drew
nearer and nearer, the car could be heard to turn into the inn-yard
and come to a stop, and Toad had to hold on to the leg of the table toconceal his overmastering emotion. Presently the party entered the
coffee-room, hungry, talkative, and gay, voluble on their experiences
of the morning and the merits of the chariot that had brought them
along so well. Toad listened eagerly, all ears, for a time; at last
he could stand it no longer. He slipped out of the room quietly, paid
his bill at the bar, and as soon as he got outside sauntered round
quietly to the inn-yard. “There cannot be any harm,” he said to himself,
“in my only just looking at it!”
The car stood in the middle of the yard, quite unattended, the
stable-helps and other hangers-on being all at their dinner. Toad walked
slowly round it, inspecting, criticizing, 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.
Will Badger, Mole, and Water Rat ever be able to save the reckless Toad
from himself? Read The Wind in the Willows, the book from which this
story came, and find out for yourself. And while you are at it, try The
Reluctant Dragon, another of Kenneth Grahame’s fanciful tales. Also, if
you turn the page, you’ll find a little song boastful Toad made up about
himself.
