The Willows in Winter Read online

But of all this poor Toad knew nothing. Re-captured and confined as he now was, he had no access to news, or friends, or help. Villains such as he, whose heart seemed stained more than that of any criminal in living memory — must be put away, and utterly forgotten.

  “But —” he faltered some weeks later to the only one he might call friend, his gaoler, a talkative but pessimistic man, “won’t they at least try me? Won’t they give me a chance? I can explain everything.”

  “They would try you if they could but they can’t, for they say there aren’t any laws big enough, and wide enough, and terrible enough to try you by,” said his cheerful friend. “It’s a poor lookout for you, Mr Toad!”

  “Is there no hope at all?” whispered Toad.

  “None,” said the gaoler, “or none that I can see. You’re in here for life plus twenty-five years I reckon.”

  “O dear!” said Toad, slumping.

  “But look on the bright side,” said the gaoler, who liked to try to cheer his charges up, for he had a kindly heart, “you’re getting on a bit so you’re not likely to survive more than twenty years or so. It’ll go by in a flash!”

  But twenty years of prison life did not pass through Toad’s imagination in a flash at all, but rather dragged by, long second by second, tick—tock—tick—tock, or as slow as the drips of water from the roof of his dank cell, and as aimless as the cockroaches which trod their heavy way across the granite flags beneath his iron bed.

  “What’s the charge?” asked Toad, some time later. “Charges plural, you mean. Charges manifold. They do say they are too many and too great to name.

  “Is there no hope?”

  “None.”

  “No news?”

  “None.”

  “No — sign of anything at all?”

  “Hardly any.

  “Hardly any?” repeated the desperate Toad, sensing if not quite a glimmer of hope, then at least a distant chink of light.

  “Shouldn’t say this, Mr Toad, but they’re thinking of having an identity parade.”

  “For who?” whispered Toad with widening eyes, for far from finding hope in this he saw only further trouble.

  “Can’t say more, Mr Toad, as I’ve said quite enough. Now eat your bread and dripping like a good fellow and would you like a second mug of cold water, seeing as it’s Sunday?”

  Toad shook his head and sighed.

  “I’m not very hungry or thirsty’ he said in a very small voice.

  “Well, I’ll leave it there all the same,” said the gaoler, and went on his way.

  An identity parade! Could there be doubt about who he was? Of course not! He was Toad, the reprehensible escapee Toad, they knew that. No, the only possibility was very grim indeed, it meant that Toad had been accused of some additional crime, and his accuser was to come and pick him out, just to be certain.

  Toad bowed his head, and sighed again.

  “I am lost and forgotten forever,” he told himself. “I have no friends to care for me, and if I had what could they do for me now? Nothing. Yes, Toad is forgot.” Great tears came to Toad’s eyes and rolled down his cheeks and fell with audible plops upon the ungiving stone floor.

  “Forgot’ he whispered once again, and wept.

  Yet Toad was not forgotten at all. His name, for those few days after his capture and before other more salacious news displaced him from the scandal sheets and daily papers, was on every lip and elicited much excitement. More than that, so serious were the implications of his suspected crimes considered to be, so profound the possible threat to society, so very grave the threat to national security if such a trend continued, that questions were asked not only in Parliament and Privy Council, but in the Mansion House and in the Royal Courts of Justice too.

  All of which meant that the matter of the infamous Mr Toad attracted the attentions not just of the popular press, but also of The Times, in which it was granted a single paragraph of type, somewhere below the Agricultural News.

  Now, it was many a year since a newspaper from the Town had found its way anywhere near the inhabitants of bank and river, meadows and Wild Wood. Indeed, the only newspaper most had ever seen, and those were the rare and lucky ones who had at some time in their lives won the confidence of the Badger sufficiently to catch a glimpse of a copy he had framed on his wall, was that which carried the report of the Jubilee, which was back in his great-grandfather’s time.

  But somehow, some weeks after Toad’s incarceration, a copy of The Times, or rather that fell paragraph of print concerning Toad, found its way to the Badger, who, having read it, summoned the Mole and the Rat forthwith.

  “My friends,” he said gravely, “I have bad news.”

  “It is Toad,” said the Mole, spontaneous tears coming to his eyes as he saw the Badger raise the newspaper up to read aloud from it, ‘just as I said on the way here!”

  He addressed this to the Water Rat, who sighed and said, “I fear it must be,” and they both sat down disconsolately.

  “It is indeed’ said the Badger, not quite sensitive to his friends’ assumptions, and distress. “It certainly is.”

  “Read it,” said the practical Rat.

  “I was about to’ said the Badger. What he read out was printed under the forbidding headline “TOAD ARRESTED” which was followed by a second headline: “FULL CHARGES TO BE BROUGHT WHEN ALL HIS CRIMES ARE KNOWN”.

  The paragraph succinctly set out the long list of wretched crimes and felonies which all the circumstantial evidence pointed to Toad having committed, and said much else besides. It spoke of weddings ruined, of brides distraught, of Lords and Bishops, and the police, and it exposed the attempted abduction of an innocent wife, a crime of the lowest and most scurrilous kind. It left no doubt that Toad was guilty, very guilty indeed, and the only question remaining was how exemplary and how savage must his sentencing be.

  “What does it mean?” asked the Mole, who did not understand at all.

  “It means that Toad’s got himself in a mess again,” said the Rat reasonably. “But at least he’s not — he hasn’t passed away as we feared, Mole.”

  “It means that it is a mess Toad is unlikely to get out of this time,” added the Badger.

  “Is there nothing we can do?”

  “Against such evidence, when Lords and Bishops and police and wronged wives have been invoked?” said the Badger. “I doubt it very much indeed. I suppose that a successful plea might perhaps mean that rather than being quartered, he might be merely hanged.”

  “O my!” said the Mole softly. “I feel quite unwell.” They sat in silence, ruminating sombrely, for this was so far out of their domain that they saw no way to help their errant friend.

  “One thing’s rum about it all,” said the Rat last. “In fact, I would call it peculiar.”

  “What’s that?” said the Mole almost indifferently, for what was the point of musing on it when nothing could be done?

  “There’s no mention of the flying machine, is there? That’s right, isn’t it, Badger?”

  Badger sat up, suddenly a little more alert.

  “You are right,” he said, examining the newspaper once more. “That is most observant of you and it is certainly, as you put it, very rum indeed. I must think.”

  The Badger began to think very hard and went into so profound and impenetrable a silence that the Rat and the Mole eventually left him to it, and set off towards Otter’s house.

  It was the time of year when winter seemed almost done, but spring had not yet quite shown its face. Snowdrops and the catkins of alder are all very well, and certainly signal the stirring of something or other, but what animals like the Rat and the Mole really want to see and feel is bright warm sunshine on the budding branches, and what they yearn to hear and smell is the rushing song of the smaller birds busy about their broods, and the first balmy scents of the bluebells through the wood, and the violet on the banks.

  Then, too, both knew full well that winter was quite capable of asserting itself again,
and bringing upon them all its cold and rain, winds and hail, as if to say, “I’m soon going for quite a time, but this is just to remind you that one day I shall be back.”

  “Ratty’ said the Mole, as they drew near the Otter’s place, “do you think there’s any hope at all for Toad? Or should we try now to forget him, remembering him sometimes only in our wishes and prayers?”

  Mole said this so gently, and in so caring a way, that it almost brought tears to the sturdy Water Rat’s eyes. Yet, what hope could there be, given the mess Toad had got himself into? Why, not even Badger —”I think,” said the Water Rat cautiously, “that if there’s anyone hereabouts who could find a way out for Toad, however slim and slight it might be, it would be Badger. I don’t know what he was thinking about when we left him, but that he was thinking there can be no doubt. We both know that when Badger thinks like that things tend to happen. So we’ll just have to wait and hope. Now, let’s see if Otter can cheer us up with a warm drink and better news than we’ve had so far today?

  Badger certainly did think, hard and long, barely moving from the chair that the Rat and the Mole had left him in till nightfall, when he rose slowly and stiffly, stretched and, lighting a candle, went into his study and sat down at his desk.

  It was many years since he had been moved to write a letter, and never before had he felt sufficiently moved by the importance and injustice of a matter, that he must address his letter to that most august and revered personage, The Editor of The Times.

  But so he did, marking the envelope clearly in his bold hand: PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL, NOT FOR PUBLICATION.

  Such was the result of his thoughts, and when morning came he summoned to his presence the swiftest and fleetest of the stoats, and began to address him thus:

  “We have not always seen eye to eye, you and I. Nor can I say that in the matter of the promised high tea in these modest rooms of mine I have behaved with the speed I should have. That can be rectified, and it will be. But there are some things harder to rectify, before which, when we face them, we must all forget our differences and fight for the common good.”

  “Yes?” said the stoat dubiously. “What particular thing have you in mind?”

  “A grave miscarriage of justice,” said the Badger. “Now, listen to me. You will take this letter and, using all your cunning and experience of the Wide World beyond the river, you will deliver it as addressed.”

  “What’s it all about?” asked the unwilling stoat. “Ask not what it’s about, but who it’s about,” said the Badger. “It is about Toad of Toad Hall.”

  “Ah, yes — Toad,” said the stoat, not without a certain respect and awe in his voice, which Badger did not miss, nor was surprised by. Toad’s escapades held a sorry fascination for the stoats and weasels, which one might expect, given their general low character and untrustworthy nature. Like with like. But at a time like this, needs must, and the Badger needed stoats, and this one in particular.

  “Will I, too, get an invitation to this tea you’re having?” he asked.

  The Badger smiled slightly and reached behind him to his mantelpiece, from where he took down a stack of elaborately printed cards on which in the most scrolly and embossed of lettering shone and shimmered the word INVITATION.

  “One of these shall be yours,” said the Badger, “if you take this letter and deliver it as I ask.”

  The stoat’s eyes glittered and glistened with social greed and expectation.

  “Personally inscribed by me with your own name, added the Badger.

  “And shall I be sitting on your right-hand side?” asked the stoat in a soft insinuating voice.

  Badger blinked at the boldness of it, bit back the words he might normally have spoken, and said, with some effort, “You shall!”

  The stoat did no more than sigh and reach forward to take the letter, before he turned and was off on his mission.

  “I can do no more,” whispered the Badger to himself, shaking his head sadly, for he cherished little hope that his words would hold much sway in the offices and corridors of the most influential in the land. “We can only hope —Hope was very far from Toad’s mind some days later when the heavy door of his cell was heaved open, and his gaoler, along with three of his largest colleagues, strode in.

  They chained and manacled their dangerous charge once more, leaving him only sufficient movement to shamble and struggle along the ancient passageways of his place of confinement, and then up its endless stone steps and stairways, which he saw now were worn and slippery with the downward passage of so many long-forgotten criminals.

  “Not that way!” cried his pessimistic friend, grasping Toad’s arm and directing him away from the especially grim and oppressive corridor into which his laboured steps seemed automatically to have led him. At its end was a set of bars beyond which was an archway leading out into the open air, where, caught by the first sunlight Toad had seen since his incarceration, was what was unmistakably a hangman’s noose, swaying invitingly in the morning breeze.

  Toad let out a gasp of dismay, but his gaoler reassured him. “It’s all right, sir, you’re not on today’s list.”

  “List?” faltered Toad.

  “Of the finally and irrecoverably condemned.”

  “Where am I being taken?” gasped Toad, sweat breaking out on his brow.

  “To your Preliminary and Final Hearing,” said the gaoler, urging him on up a last few steps.

  “Preliminary and Final! Isn’t there a Court of Appeal?” asked Toad.

  “That’s been and gone in your case, sir. The Court you’re going to is as Final as they come. So final in fact that it’s almost pointless to go through its doors, but one never knows, there might be an upset.”

  “An upset!” cried Toad, desperately grasping at straws. “There has been an upset before then? When?”

  “In 1376, sir, in the case of Saint Simon the Innocent.

  That was the last time,” said the gaoler dolefully.

  Each dragging step that Toad now took rang out about him like the tolling centuries and he dared not even raise his eyes when, brought finally to an immense oak door, the gaoler knocked upon it.

  There was a long wait, during which Toad could hear his own heart beat, before a thin voice called out from within, “Bring in the prisoner!”

  The door opened and Toad was led forward into an immense and echoing chamber, whose ancient arched windows rose before him and sent down such shafts of light into the dusty interior that for a moment he could see nothing more. But as his eyes adjusted to the light he saw that set beneath the windows, lengthways, was a vast oaken council table, on whose far side were ranged seven great high chairs, within whose imposing confines sat seven imposing figures, berobed, bewigged, long of face, cold of eye, aquiline of nostril, and judgemental of general disposition and effect.

  “Clerk, help the prisoner to the chair,” said the most severe-looking of them all, who sat in the centre, and was the High Judge.

  Toad’s gaolers had fallen away, to be replaced by a bent and aged man who gesticulated Toad forward with impatience, but not towards some dock or lectern where Toad might have found some physical support, and some cover behind which to hide his shaking form. Instead, his footfalls, chains and manacles all echoing out his obvious guilt, Toad was pushed towards something more fearsome by far than any dock, even the infamous dock of Court No 1, Old Bailey.

  It was a chair, huge and hard — so huge indeed that the Clerk produced from somewhere a small wooden step, that Toad might clamber up and be seated in a seat far too big for him. A seat so immense that his back was not quite supported, nor his knees quite far enough forward to go comfortably over its front edge, and so high that his legs and feet dangled down but could not reach the floor. The chair had immense wooden arms upon which, securely fastened with great hammered bolts, were metal restraints which had the general demeanour and character of thumb-screws. The Clerk raised Toad’s unresisting arms to these and fastened him so that he could n
ot, had the thought come to him and he been tempted to turn it into action, make a run for it.

  “Is the prisoner comfortable?” asked the High Judge.

  “As much as he’s likely to be,” said the Clerk.

  “Are you?” asked the High Judge.

  “Yes,” said Toad hoarsely, faintly hoping that if he was polite and agreeable his punishment might be a little swifter, and a little less harsh.

  “We know each other, do we not?” said the Judge. Toad squinted through the dusty beams of light and saw that they did indeed: this was the Judge who had been at His Lordship’s House when Toad was there; the same Judge who had once, as a mere Chairman of Magistrates, sentenced him so severely for a trifling offence. Toad’s head swam with despair as he saw he could expect no mercy here.

  “Do we not?” pressed the Judge.

  “We do,” whispered Toad forlornly.

  “You are then Mr Toad, of Toad Hall?” the Judge said with resignation.

  “Yes,” bleated Toad, for it was no use lying.

  “The infamous Toad of Toad Hall?”

  “I suppose so,” said Toad.

  “Not a good beginning,” said a different Judge, “not good at all. He only supposes so!”

  “I am then,” said Toad very, very politely “Hmmmm,” said the Judge and, with the others, fell into a silence which deepened by the second and quite robbed Toad of any hope.

  But then he dared have a thought.

  “Sirs, Your Honours, Your High Lordships,” he cried, “is there a lawyer who might represent me?”

  There were seven sharp intakes of breath, and seven more sighs of disappointment, and a sevenfold pursing of lips.

  But worse was to follow: finally, one by one, they smiled, ghastly smiles as it seemed to Toad, like fiends offering poisoned crumpets and butter to a teatime guest, and one of them said, “Toad of Toad Hall, why should you need a lawyer when you have us?”

  This was followed by another long silence, which itself was followed by a dry interrogative noise: “Eh?”

  “Am I to answer?” faltered Toad.