The Willows and Beyond Read online

  “Make a speech.”

  “A speech?” said Toad with incredulous delight, for it was not often that the Badger offered him this concession, knowing that his speeches went on too long and generally dwelt upon a single theme, namely the glory of toads as exemplified by himself.

  “We would like you to make the Christmas speech,” said the Badger, “though it is a great deal to ask and you might not have time to prepare. Perhaps you would prefer it if Mole —“Mole? Ha! Can’t string two words together without pausing in the middle of them.”

  “Or Ratty, if he’s well enough?”

  “Ratty? Never could make speeches except with a nautical flavour and we’re a long way from the sea.

  “Or myself, perhaps?”

  “You, Badger? Make the Christmas speech? I don’t mean to be discourteous, old chap, but you’d need a lot of coaching before you could raise a laugh from an audience, and there just isn’t time.”

  “Humph!” said the Badger.

  “Of course I shall do it! It’ll take time to prepare and I regret I won’t have time to help with the other things, and I’ll have to find a suitable subject, and — Badger, I must go to my study at once. I’m sorry to leave you, but — My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen — Will there be any ladies? My Lords and Gentlemen doesn’t sound quite right. Will there be any Lords?”

  Prattling thus, and with his time now answered for very fully till Christmas, Toad happily left them to sort out everything else.

  As the Mole had hoped, it did prove to be a Christmas to remember. The heavy snow that finally began to fall three days before the festive day soon turned the countryside soft, and quiet. Yet the snow was not so thick that the field-mice, who from time immemorial had made their round of carol-singing upon Christmas Eve, could not struggle through, make themselves heard, and step shyly inside the door of each house they visited to eat mince pies and drink hot punch. Their last call was at Rat’s house where Ratty was bundled up by Mole and Young Rat and put into his boat to be rowed gently up the River to Toad Hall, the choir following his passage by way of the River Bank, their lights bobbing and ducking in the dark, and the carols clear in the still and snowy night.

  The next morning dawned crisp and clear as Toad’s honoured guests Rat and Mole came downstairs to join Toad and his ward for the sumptuous Christmas breakfast that Toad Hall traditionally served its guests. This continued long enough for Badger, Grandson, Otter, Portly and finally Nephew to join in as they arrived during the course of the morning.

  It was then that Toad enjoined the staff to leave their own festivities backstairs to share the moment when a hall (however grand), or a house (however humble), becomes a simple home and safe retreat, as symbolized by the lighting of the Yule log.

  To the Rat was accorded this great honour, in the hearth of the banqueting hall where Christmas dinner was later to be served. Happy tears came to his eyes as the fire took at the first touch of his spill, and with the birth of its flames and warmth Christmas began for one and all.

  “Have you made your wishes?” asked the Mole of Young Rat.

  “For peace and happiness, yes,” said he.

  “And for yourself?”

  “I have all I want, sir; you’ve all been very good to me.”

  “There must be something you want for yourself alone,” said the Mole kindly, “so wish again.”

  Young Rat turned back to the flames and pondered the point long and hard, and then the Mole saw him grow still as he made his wish, and he hoped it might come true.

  “Champagne all round!” cried Toad, who on such occasions as these did not stand on ceremony and included everybody, even the bootboy.

  If that meant that younger members of the staff became a little giggly, and the deputy butler a shade wobbly, and the housekeeper inclined to forget herself and kiss the butler on the cheek — and if it meant that the Badger had to sit down for a moment, and the Mole could not stop grinning, and the Otter chuckling and Portly and Nephew laughing, well, what did Toad of Toad Hall mind? His only desire was to see that all in his care were happy and content, just as they had been in his father’s day, and his father’s before that.

  If, too, the staff retreated back to their own quarters full of praise for their employer, it was not because he proffered them a glass of champagne once a year, but because in that offering, and in the good and generous words he spoke in praise of them, they knew that in Mr Toad’s heart, despite his eccentric and sometimes self-centred ways, Christmas was all the year, for his friends, for them and for Toad Hall.

  Yet for one among them that day Christmas seemed a little overwhelming, and this was Young Rat, whose first it was. Try as he might to join in the games of blind-man’s-buff and bobbing apples, which he had never played before, others, like Nephew, could not but notice how sombre he seemed at times, and how inclined to find a place a little apart, and stare out at the River across the snow-bound garden.

  “Anything wrong?” asked Nephew, who knew that with Young Rat, as with Ratty, direct talk was best.

  “I miss my Pa,” said the youngster, “and wish he could see all this. The Yule log Mr Ratty lit: he mentioned logs. The tree with all those candles on it: he said he had a tree. The people, he had those about him as a lad. The games: he knew ‘em all and more.

  “Well now,” murmured Nephew gently, “I think he would have been glad to see you so well set and able to enjoy all those things in his place.”

  “He would,” said Young Rat, “but how much better if he were here as well!”

  Yet Christmas would not be the same without such quieter moments of reflection and regret as these, for it is right to reflect upon the losses of the year and lay them to rest, just as it is good to celebrate the triumphs and the coming of a new season, and new hope.

  “Come on,” said Nephew gently, “it’s time for dinner.”

  The great dining table had been laid the day before, though that morning it was further dusted, manicured and finished, and embellished with crackers, streamers and candles, the best silver and the mightiest serving spoons and ladles, carving knives and forks. In the centre was a great decoration of holly and ivy all tinselled gold and silver.

  “I shall be making a great many speeches in the course of the next five hours or so,” cried Toad once everybody had sat down but before any food was served, “and this is merely the second!”

  “The third,” said the Otter.

  “I make it four,” whispered the Mole to the Rat, who sat in the place of honour at the left hand of Toad.

  “It was my father’s tradition and has been my own —and one day I pray it will be that of Master Toad here as well — to propose a toast to the Uninvited Guest, whose place is always set here at my right side, though he never turns up, I’m glad to say, leaving all the more for the rest of us! Badger, you remember the old days and my father better than any of us, so would you propose that toast?”

  “With great pleasure,” said the Badger, rising. “For I remember my first such dinner here, in the old Hall before the fire, and Mr Toad Senior himself offering up that hallowed toast. He offered it, as I now do, in the name of those who have no place to go this day, no company to keep, no table at which to sit. People whose lives and circumstances have not brought them family or friends as we have, or have taken them far from those they love on this day when they have most need of them.

  “Therefore, in Toad Hall, as in all true Christmas homes, a place is laid for the Uninvited Guest, that we think of him before we eat and drink; and reflect upon the fact that were he to come and join us, the greater blessing would be ours! And what is more. .

  How the Yule log flamed and crackled as the Badger spoke, and how the embers glowed! How bright and cheerful the faces of those who listened to his words, nodding their heads in approval, holding their well-charged glasses ready for the toast.

  Outside Toad Hall the winter wind drove the falling snow against the casement panes, to pause, swirl and settle. Along th
e River Bank, the old dead sedge stems trembled, the leafless willow branches swung dark against the driving sky and the River’s surface flurried with the breeze, and all seemed devoid of life.

  Yet there was one lost and lonely soul abroad.

  How slowly he came, he who had no certain place to go that day! With what sinking heart he had battled for days through the snow-obstructed lanes of the country south of the Weir, sheltering beneath hedges or in a ruined barn through the long, cold nights, wondering if, come the morn, he should turn back. Yet he had not done so, driven on by hope, though he was shivering now and hungry, and as cold as bleak despair.

  He who had no company to keep that day had reached the River Bank, thinking perhaps that here at last he might find respite, and a welcome of a sort, but found instead homes devoid of light and occupants. No light in the Water Rat’s house where his slow steps first brought him; nor next in the Otter’s, though there a hanging on the door reminded him that for some it was a happy Christmas, for some. Not knowing those parts well, and thinking he might find shelter in the Wild Wood, it was that way he turned next, and to the Badger’s home he came.

  “No light again!” he muttered. “And nobody at home!” But then he saw two sets of prints leading from that old door, and though they were nigh filled up with snow he followed them, if only to give himself the forlorn sense he had company, though it had gone before.

  “Hmmm!” he said, reaching the Iron Bridge. Thinking its hump almost too steep for his tired, cold legs, he pausing awhile to stare into the River. Then with a sigh and a shake of the head, he turned from the dark waters below, and began to climb.

  It was then he had sight of something to cheer his eye, and lighten his heart, if only as an outsider passing by. He saw the lights of Toad Hall, warm and bright already in the darkening afternoon.

  “Ah, sweet Christmas!” said he. “Those were the days!” Then down the other side of the Bridge he walked, alongside the wall about Toad’s estate, till he reached the gates, where he paused once more and stared again at the lights. Why, were those gentry folk he could see through the windows there?

  “They’ve had a feast and a half, I’ll be bound’ said he, without envy or malice, “and, who knows, tomorrow, if I can find a place that will give me work along the way, maybe I’ll find my Christmas fare.”

  “—and therefore, my friends,” said the Badger, concluding his toast, “I ask you now to rise and raise your glasses and join with me in a toast to the Uninvited Guest, wherever he may be, that he may find comfort and welcome this day, and bring a blessing upon the house he honour’s with his presence!”

  They raised their glasses high, and each in his own way, but all with warmth and sincerity, uttered the words: “To the Uninvited Guest!”

  What good spirit rose among them then and travelled out of the casement and across the snow-covered lawns, as they sipped their drink and pondered upon that person Badger had evoked? And what species of magic is it comes at Christmas, to make a mystery of simple candlelight and bring forth hope, and cause the Yule log’s flame to shine with a light brighter and more far-reaching than is seen on ordinary days?

  Was it then the great Friend and Helper who whispered these words on the winter wind, “Yet turn about, my friend, for seek and ye shall find”?

  For as Badger, Toad and all the others made that toast, he who had travelled so very far to the River Bank, and had thought to journey on, turned back and stared again at the lights of Toad Hall, and remembered an ancient tradition he had known his father keep.

  “The Uninvited Guest, dare I be he?”

  “Yes,” whispered the wind, “you may”

  Toad and his guests had already sat down again and were ready to be served when there came a tentative knocking at the Hall’s great front door, and the Butler looked enquiringly at Toad.

  “Why, go and see who it is and if he looks half hungry invite him in, and if he doesn’t, invite him in all the same!” cried Toad, for though unexpected visitors had called upon Toad Hall from time to time in Christmases past, none had ever come at this hour, at this auspicious moment, with that good toast still ringing in their ears.

  All conversation and serving ceased, for there was about that knock something that stilled them all. They heard the door open, they heard quiet voices, they fancied they heard a polite protest of some kind, as of someone who had not expected to be invited in to more than the scullery, and that only for a moment or two.

  Then the Butler returned and whispered in Toad’s ear. Toad nodded, Toad looked surprised and then Toad said, “Are you quite sure?”

  “That’s what he said, sir.

  “Then show him in!” cried Toad, leaping to his feet and flinging down his napkin. “Gentlemen, please rise and be ready to welcome the Uninvited Guest!”

  Which they did with laughter and jollity, and not a little surprise and apprehension.

  “This way, sir, please’ they heard the Butler say “Mr Toad really does insist on it.”

  “But are they not eating?”

  “I rather think they are waiting for you, sir.

  “For me?”

  Then the Butler pushed open the door and ushered in the traveller.

  “Mr Toad and Gentlemen,” cried out the Butler formally, “I beg to announce the arrival of Mr Sea Rat, from Cairo, Egypt.”

  “But —”

  “But surely —“

  “But it can’t be!”

  How many “buts” there were then, though none more astonished than Ratty’s, and none more dumbfounded than Young Rat’s!

  “But Pa, I thought you was dead and gone down to Davy Jones’s locker!”

  “I was, son, or near enough,” said the Sea Rat, letting the Butler take his stick and the blue cotton handkerchief in which he portered his worldly goods. “I was—“

  But explanations had to wait, for the Young Rat had sprung from his seat and across the room into his father’s embrace, with tears giving way to laughter and then to chatter of delight, and finally to a faith, quite certain and for evermore, that Christmas wishes do come true.

  The Mole, meanwhile, could not but observe — and he did not resent it one little bit, indeed it brought him happiness and hope — that the unexpected arrival of the Sea Rat had put into the Rat’s eyes that look of brightness and hope that had been missing for so long, and the sense that, after all, that door upon a new world he had thought had been closed to him for evermore might yet be opened up again.

  Later, after the Sea Rat had taken his place at the right hand of Toad, and several courses of their grand repast had been eaten, but with a good many more still to come, he told the story of his survival and return:

  “After I caught the Gruesome, a worse pestilence than plague, and my boy was in the safe hands of the postal service, I lay down to die, at peace with the world. As I was lying there, however, I fell to thinking that I wanted to breathe the sea air one more time and since there was an Arab fellow in the market I’d done a favour for, who sold sea water fresh out of the Mediterranean for curing warts, I sent word for a jugful and I sniffed at it for comfort like, for it minded me of my old days round the Horn, and other happy days at sea.

  “Well, I thought to meself I might sup a mouthful or two to remind me of when I nearly drowned in the Roaring Forties, and since it didn’t taste too bad I had a bit more. Before I knew it I’d finished the jugful and was feeling a lot better!

  “Bless me vitals, but in a week I was completely cured, and in a month me and my new mate, the seawater salesman, were bottling it up as the only known cure for the Gruesome in the whole wide world, at twopence farthing a bottle!

  “Afore long I had enough for my passage home, third class. Wanted to see my boy was all right and if he was, to thank Mr Ratty here for taking him in, and anybody else who’s been kindly to him, which from what I’ve heard this hour or two past is all you good gentlemen here! So it was I made my way to the River Bank.”

  Of the rest of th
at day of celebration, memories were afterwards fuzzy and dim. Only one thing is certain: Toad made a very fine speech he had prepared upon the theme of hiking at Christmas and its benefits.

  The Sea Rat, a speechifier and wordsmith to rival Toad himself, spoke at length and in detail upon the theme of good food, and his experiences in the Caliph’s kitchen, which endeared him to the Mole, since it became very plain that both animals shared a common love of making food for others.

  The Badger spoke wisely and well upon friendship and Christmas, so well indeed that Nephew asked that if he fell asleep again would someone kindly wake him up since he did not wish to miss too much of what the Badger said.

  The Otter proposed they take a turn before dark and get some fresh air down on the River Bank, but met with no takers and instead, by general assent, they had a game of blind-man’s-buff in the conservatory, followed by hide-and-seek throughout Toad Hall for the younger element.

  With such pleasures the afternoon slid into evening, and the evening moved into night — and then, or sometime then, or possibly the next day, or perhaps even the day after, their Christmas celebration knew its last roundel of song and laughter, of feast and conversation, for another year at least.

  Everybody agreed that there had never been a better, and from out of the winter darkness shone the light of companionship and cheer, and the hope of still better times to come.

  VIII

  Till the First Day

  of Spring

  Mr Toad was so taken with the Sea Rat that at the start of the New Year when the festivities were over and all but the Rat had returned to their homes he suggested the wanderer should stay with him till such time as he felt inclined to move on.