The Willows and Beyond Page 5

  “Well, I suppose you could put it that way”

  “And he has entrusted that ‘item’ to the only animal in all the world — and I daresay he met a great many in his time — upon whom he felt he could rely”

  “Well… “began the Rat, weakening. But then he looked down the aisle to that unkempt, dirtily dressed stranger, and he thought of his own small quarters, shipshape and orderly No, he couldn’t possibly.

  “I won’t do it, Mole!” cried Ratty. “Why, if I let go of the tiller now upon the stormy and uncertain waters of the Sea Rat’s presumption, and your wrong-headed persuasion, there’s no knowing where I’ll run aground!”

  “And what did you advise when Nephew turned up at my door, Ratty?” said the Mole, who in circumstances such as these could be formidable. “Did you tell me to send him packing?”

  “No, I suppose I didn’t.”

  “Did you not tell me to put up with it? Did you not suggest that it might even do me some good?”

  “I suppose I might have said some such thing,” conceded the Rat grudgingly.

  “And that it might make me a little less self—centred?”

  “Yes, yes, Mole, I did think those things, and I do think them. But Nephew is one thing, and a relative to boot; but this young fellow… why no, I won’t do it and that’s final!”

  With a fierce and irritable look on his face, Ratty turned back to the cage to give his decision.

  The youngster looked very frightened and sorry for himself. He certainly was grubby, and hungry, too.

  “Well, sir,” said the Post Office official, joining them once more. “Having seen the item, are you to accept it or send it back? Naturally it makes no difference to us, as under recent agreements with the government of Egypt return passage is paid for in the case of non-acceptance, and in the circumstances I would quite understand.”

  “Humph,” said the Rat, glowering.

  “If you won’t, Ratty,” cried the Mole, much distressed, “let me take him in, for though my home is small, I can surely find space!”

  “Ah!” said the Post Office official. “Now that would not be permitted, no, not at all. It must be the addressee who accepts, or nobody, and as I say, returns of such items are quite a regular occurrence. Those parrots you saw will be on their way back next week, seeing as they don’t speak English. If you do not wish to accept the item, then it would simply be a matter of completing the correct paperwork, and then shipping the item to Egypt again. That item could be back in Cairo in less than a year.

  “Hmmm,” growled the Rat, frowning even more.

  “But, Ratty,” interrupted Nephew, “you cannot possibly send him back! At least you could see if he knows something about river-work by asking him some questions. He might be useful to you.

  The Water Rat went closer to the item in question, and after some thought asked, “You can scull a boat, I suppose?”

  The item nodded.

  “Tie a bowline?”

  The item nodded.

  “Tack and gybe and punt one-handed across a five-knot current in a Force Six wind?”

  The item nodded a third time.

  “What can’t you do?” said the Rat grumpily.

  The item frowned thoughtfully and finally spoke.

  “Can’t swim,” it said.

  “Can’t swim!” cried the Rat. “Did you hear that, Mole. Here is a rat, brought up on the water, and he can’t swim! Can’t swim, indeed. Well, I’m not having a water rat going out into the world who can’t swim: it’s not right, it’s not dignified and it’s not good for my kind’s reputation. Imagine how eagles would feel if one of their number went about in public who couldn’t fly!”

  “He’d have to walk,” said Nephew, winking at the item” to indicate that despite Ratty’s huffing and puffing he was on the way to coming round a little. Though a wink must have seemed a poor weight to set upon the balance of that animal’s future expectation against the frowns, glowering, and determined words the Rat had so far spoken, and so he continued to look very frightened and pathetic.

  “Or imagine,” continued the Rat, “a rabbit that couldn’t burrow or —“Yes, yes, Ratty,” said the Mole, intervening. “So what are you going to do about it?”

  “He can stay with me till he’s learnt to swim.

  “And then he can stay a little longer,” said Nephew, feeling perhaps that this was the moment to set the future straight for the young rat, “till he has, as his father put it so fairly, ‘worked his passage’.”

  “So you’ll accept the item, sir?” enquired the Post Office official.

  The Rat nodded curtly and signed the card offered him. He did not linger once his decision was made, but on the way back to their craft he sought to insist that they visit a clothes shop to kit out the newcomer in something clean and decent. But once more the sensitive Mole intervened, saying that since his clothes were the only possessions the youngster had from his past life, apart from the marlin spike about his neck, perhaps he might feel more comfortable hanging on to them a short while longer, grubby and heathen though they were.

  “I am sure that Nephew here, who is about his size, or Master Toad, who has a very extensive wardrobe, will be happy to kit him out for a time till he can make his own choice.”

  “Humph!” said the Rat, who had not yet so much as smiled upon the poor youngster, or given him the slightest encouragement.

  But then, as they reached the end of a narrow street and turned the last corner, the River, with all the jetties and boats and multifarious activity of a busy riverfront, came into view, and a heart-warming change immediately came over the young rat.

  Till that moment he had stayed close by the Mole, for he was frightened and confused and the Mole seemed the only friendly thing about. The horses, the carts, the shouting of street-sellers and the honking of occasional motor-cars had been almost too much for him.

  Now there was the River, and in the air its watery scent. The youngster stopped quite suddenly Thinking that there was difficulty or danger about, the Mole stopped as well, while a little way off, where he had been walking along huffily, the Rat also came to a halt, slowed by the sight of the River perhaps, but caught still more by the expression on the youth’s face.

  The fear had gone from his eyes, the confusion, too, and had all the horses and carts and people in the world descended upon that very spot, it would not have mattered one whit. A dreamy vacant look had come to his face, and even as the Mole started to urge him on, for they could not stand in everyone’s way at so busy a junction, it was the Rat’s turn to be sensitive.

  He raised a hand to still his good friend the Mole, and they watched together as the youngster, like a pigeon flying home to roost, made his own way towards the River’s edge. Slowly and dreamily he went, not quite looking here, nor quite there, yet taking in everything at once by sight and sense, and by touch as well. His hands felt the worn metal-hooped bollards as he passed them as if they were old friends, lingered on a barge half hauled out of the water, and finally found a resting place on a rope that ran down from the barge in a great sweeping curve to the water, where it was tied fast to an upright timber.

  On this rope the youngster leaned his weight, and then gently rocked back and forth, as if to shed from himself all the cares he had carried so long alone. Those watching him could not but reflect how hard his journey must have been, how alarming, and how often he must have wondered what his final destination would be.

  Having lingered thus at peace for a time, watching the River’s flow and all its varied currents near and far, he let go of the rope and went to sit upon a wooden jetty his feet dangling over its high edge down towards the water.

  He sat quite still there, as if considering something, till at last he cocked his head to one side, listening, then raised one hand and finally another, and moved them gently to and fro.

  “But he’s…” began Nephew, for he had only ever seen one other animal do what the youngster was doing now.

 
; “He is!” whispered the Mole with delight.

  “Yes,” breathed the Water Rat, “yes —he’s communing with her, whom he’s missed for so long. The Nile, the Ganges, the Danube and the River are all one, you know, and speak the same language to those who can hear it, as we water rats can. She’s welcoming him home!”

  Ratty stepped over and joined him, and they sat together for a while, till he was finally ready — long after the Mole thought they should have left if they were ever to get back to Toad Hall in time for dinner — and they all headed over to where Toad’s craft was moored.

  Of the youngster’s pleasure at going aboard, of his insistence on examining its every nook and cranny and working part, of the dangerous way he had of expertly skipping about from bow to stern, from one side of the deck to another, why, any boatman would understand and need no description.

  That he was an expert upon deck there was no doubt, for he cast off the painter with a skill excelled only by the Rat’s own, and set the rope ready and right for landing later just as the Rat himself liked to do. Nor was there a moment upon that voyage back to Toad’s estate when his eyes were not upon the boat or the River, or rather both at once, just as the Rat’s always were.

  As they came within sight of Toad’s estate at last, Ratty said, “You can take the helm.”

  This was a high honour from Ratty, and the youngster jumped to as quick as a flash, while the Mole, who had always had trouble steering Toad’s great craft, sat back and admired the way he handled her, smooth and safe.

  “Watch the cross wind as we round the final bend,” sang out Ratty happily.

  But the youth had already seen the tell-tale signs of the breeze in the trees along the bank ahead and had turned the prow a shade windward moments before.

  “Will you take her in?” called out the Rat, when Toad’s boat-house came into view.

  “Aye aye, sir!” sang out the youth, as merrily as any sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy to his captain.

  “We’ll moor her first and set our passengers to land and put her into the boat-house later. Now cut the —“

  But the Rat had no need to complete his instruction, even though the evening wind was stronger across the bows than he normally liked, for the engine was cut just as the Rat would have done it, and the youngster grasped an oar and, using it as a rudder and not punting it as the Rat might have done, he settled the craft in its berth as sweetly as a broad-bean in its pod.

  Otter and Portly who were sitting on the jetty, their eyes wide in astonishment, could not believe what they saw: the Rat standing on the prow, painter in hand, while a grubby-looking fellow wearing clothes out of Arabia, like a boatman from a Bible tale, was at the helm of Toad’s great craft, and apparently knew what he was about.

  “What’s that?” said the Otter, as Ratty jumped ashore and made the painter fast.

  “Livestock,” said Ratty with a smile.

  “Livestock?” repeated Portly, catching and making fast the other painter that the helmsman threw.

  “He’ll be working his passage with me for a time,” added Ratty, by way of further explanation.

  Mole and Nephew were helped off the craft, like passengers from an ocean-going liner, while the Water Rat’s apprentice leaned his weight against the oar in the water to keep the craft steady as a rock.

  “Doesn’t seem to need much further education before you grant him his articles,” said the Otter dryly, and with considerable respect.

  “He can’t swim, though,” said the Rat, “and that takes a lot of learning if you come to it late in life.”

  “I suppose it does,” said the Otter with a grin. The young rat was last ashore and he wobbled about for the first few steps as sailormen often do. Then he stared up at Toad Hall, where the lights were just coming on for the evening, and he said, “Is that your home, Mr Water Rat, sir?”

  For the first time that day Ratty laughed out loud. “No, no — that’s the famous Mr Toad’s house, where we’re having supper tonight. My home’s further along the River Bank, where a water rat’s should be. We’ll not make passage down there till midnight or later if I know Toad, but if you get tired, don’t worry, Toad’ll find a berth for you tonight.”

  At that moment they spotted Toad up on his terrace, Master Toad at his side, both waving a greeting, for if there was one thing the two agreed on full-heartedly, it was the importance of welcoming guests.

  So up through Toad’s garden they all went, happy and hungry after a good day’s work, livestock and all.

  IV

  The Beast of the

  Iron Bridge

  The strange and tragic circumstances of the arrival of the Sea Rat’s son, and Ratty’s decision to accept him as a live-in assistant (Able Seaman, First Class), naturally attracted a good deal of attention and gossip along the River Bank.

  It is in the nature of society, however, even one so generally benign and peaceable as that of which Badger, Rat, Mole and Mr Toad of Toad Hall were the leaders, to grow bored with talking about things when they go right, and to look about instead for things that are going wrong. The River Bank did not have far to look or long to wait before it found a subject of general debate and concern — and alarm as well.

  It was but a few days after the Rat’s return from the Town, when a chill September dusk was settling upon the River and the moorhens were clucking their good-nights, just as the first stars began to show, that an extraordinary and terrifying creature made an appearance near the Iron Bridge.

  Two of Mr Toad’s employees, an apprentice gardener and a scullery maid, who were then walking out together, were lingering in the gloaming upon the Iron Bridge and ignoring the cold, as such sweethearts will, when they were alarmed to see a loathsome and malevolent creature approaching them from the direction of the Wild Wood.

  In their determination to get as far away from the terrible apparition as possible, they fled blindly in the opposite direction, past the entrance to Toad Hall and some time later found themselves at Mole End, in a frightened and dishevelled state.

  “Lor’, sir,” the maid told the Mole when he had taken them in and offered them a comforting drink, “he was as big as a tree, and rasped and groaned in anger as he came towards us!”

  “Did you not catch a glimpse of the stranger’s face?” asked the Mole.

  “I tell you, sir, that were no human thing we saw!” cried the swain. “He had great eyes that shone all white and carried a stave as high as a church steeple, I swear it!” Since the couple were unwilling to return to Toad Hall alone, Mole and Nephew put on their boots and overcoats, and Mole took up his trusty cudgel, the same one the Rat had given him many years before. Thus armed, though dubious of the foolish couple’s claims, they accompanied them to Toad Hall by way of the bridge, where they even ventured to shine a storm lantern in the general direction of the Wild Wood to satisfy themselves there were no real monsters about.

  They found nothing, and having returned the maid and her lover safely to the arms, respectively, of the Housekeeper and the Head Gardener at Toad Hall, proceeded to Toad’s drawing room, where they discussed the matter over some excellent mulled wine.

  Their news threw their host into a state of panic that seemed excessive even by Toad’s standards. After ordering every window and door to be securely bolted, he summoned the Head Gardener to see if there might be some explanation of the event.

  “Aye, sir, I have talked to the lad and know him to be a sober and sensible fellow If you ask me, this is a return of that foul fiend who terrorized the River Bank in my great-grandfather’s day”

  “And what fiend was that?” asked Toad nervously.

  “The Beast of the Iron Bridge,” said the Head Gardener darkly, his brow furrowing. “Aye, so evil and dangerous was he, that the women and children, my grandparents among ‘em, were evacuated to the Town, and the men lay in wait at night to catch ‘im, and put a wooden stake through his heart.”

  “Do you hear that, Mole?” cried Toad, jumping up and
mopping his brow “The Beast is back and we’re in mortal danger and must arm ourselves with guns and cannons!”

  But the Mole was laughing.

  “If I remember correctly, for I investigated the story some years ago in my pursuit of local history, the so-called ‘Beast’ proved to be no more than a drunken vagrant from Lathbury way sleeping rough by the bridge for a week or two.”

  “If you say so, sir,” said the Head Gardener darkly, “if you do say so. But us more unediccated folk, who have reason to go by way of the Iron Bridge and on into the Wild Wood once in a while, and have discussed the matter with the weasels and stoats, have heard and seen things, monstrous and terrible things. That there Beast do come up out of the undergrowth every hundred years and eat up babbies and older folk!”

  “Older folk?” gasped Toad, whose eyes were almost popping out of his head in terror.

  “And younger folk, for ‘e likes young flesh, they do say, if ‘e can get ‘is claws into it.”

  “Claws?” sobbed Master Toad who, for all his youthful hauteur and blustering, was no less a craven coward than his guardian.

  “Now then,” said the Mole, taking command of the situation and bringing the Head Gardener’s lurid talk to an abrupt end, “that will be all, that’s quite enough!”

  “We are besieged! We are in mortal danger!” wailed Toad and his ward, clutching each other in an unexpected display of unity in their mutual hour of need.

  It was only after they had supped a good deal more mulled wine, and the Mole had thoughtfully retired to the kitchen to create one of his soothing Nutmeg and Sloe sedatives and agreed to sleep outside Toad’s bedroom door, cudgel at the ready, that his friends calmed down.

  By morning Toad had his fears under control once more, and after three more days, when there was no sign of the Beast, despite a careful nocturnal watch by a good many of the more sturdy River Bank folk, Mr Toad was back to his normal cheerful self.

  So it was a very great pity that on the fourth evening after the first sighting it was Master Toad of all animals who had the next encounter with the Beast, in the company of Otter, Portly and Young Rat (as the River Bank folk had decided to call him). They had been out doing River work, and were just disembarking from Ratty’s boat and another the Otter sometimes used, both full of the dead reeds and foliage they had cut down, when… there it was!