The River Bank

by Kij Johnson

  Here is where Quality will tell. The Mole and (we must not forget, though it is quite easy to do so) the Toad were seasoned veterans of battle. Had they not driven entire armies of Stoats and Weasels from Toad Hall only the year before? There had been only four champions that time, as well—the Mole, the Toad, the Water Rat and the Badger—and while it is true that on that occasion they had been armed to the teeth and their foes had not expected the assault, still a Mole enraged is a force to be reckoned with in any circumstance, and the unpredictability of a beleaguered Toad ought not but strike trepidity into even the most hardened of foes.

  The heroes wasted not a moment. The Mole tossed the cutlass to the Toad and charged forward, giving his awful war cry, “A Mole! A Mole!” Beryl ran beside him, silent and with her pistol raised. The Toad, entangled for a moment with the cutlass but straightening himself out quickly, ripped his weapon from its scabbard and leapt forward just behind them, bellowing, “A Toad! A Toad!” which had not the benefit of being original but was at least loud and unsettling. The Rabbit was in the rear, with her paws full of horseshoes.

  All might not have gone so well for the River Bank champions, save that a lucky first shot from the Mole’s pistol severed a rope and dropped a feed bucket upon the Fox’s head, rendering him temporarily hors de combat. Beryl fired and a Stoat threw himself backward howling, “I’m ’it! I’m ’it!” before scrambling away—patently not true, she knew, for she had aimed some feet over his head and was accounted a very fair shot, having learnt to fire pistols in her researches for M. Bourne, Vivisectionist. The massed enemy fell back a few paces and, as she and the Mole shot again, farther still. The Heroes surged forward.

  But alas! Virtue seldom wins the day easily. The grim struggle against Villainy is ever long. The fight was a desperate one: the Heroes striving to reach the barn door, and the bandits pressing them back, all by the light of a single dark lantern which cast crazed, flying shadows as the Stoats and Weasels dodged and wove around the outnumbered River Bankers. Beryl and the Mole shot until their pistols were empty, but their unwillingness to injure anyone, though commendatory to their character, operated against them practically. Soon they found their bullets exhausted and fell back on less sophisticated weapons: Beryl’s blackjack and an ancient cricket bat that Mole found leaning against a wall.

  The enemies were initially reluctant to engage with the ladies, shoving them aside to get at the Toad and the Mole, or even sidestepping them altogether; but Beryl’s efficiency with the blackjack won the heartfelt if pained admiration of many, while the Rabbit, who had been ladies’ quoits champion in her parish before she left the Hills and could cover the hob any time she liked, clipped foe after foe with her horseshoes, forcing them to stagger from the fray spouting blood as they clutched their ears, foreheads, or noses. In fact, the ladies were sufficiently dangerous that everyone overcame their reluctance to hit females, and the fighting grew hotter.

  How to record a battle so fierce, so desperate! Impossible to show it all; the pen fails and imperfect words hang limp upon the air. A vile Stoat dashes in from the side with a knife in one paw—swings—and jumps back before the Toad can reply as such a dastardly stroke deserves. A base Weasel leaps at the Rabbit, grasping for her arm—she pulls away and swings wildly with the horseshoe in her paw; it connects—he is fallen! An underhanded Barn Rat stretches out a long leg to trip the Mole—he stumbles and nearly falls, wrests himself upright, and swings a doughty reply. Another Stoat (and there are many) slashes with his sword at Beryl—she twists aside, steps in—and coshes him!

  And yet, the battle was not an even one. The heroes made it to the barn’s door and slipped through, but the bandits surged after them, and now all heard the Fox’s voice, conscious again and crying out, “Get ’em, lads!” in a tone that did not bode well, should they be got. They ran across the grassy yard toward the dark beechwood: Beryl first, then the Mole and the Rabbit, and the Toad laboring behind; but it was not going to be enough: the bandits were too close and too many.

  The Toad tripped upon a rock and fell flat, losing his cutlass. “Toady!” cried the Mole, and ran back to drag him to his feet; then together they, too, ran into the beechwood behind the others.

  “Can’t—breathe—” puffed the Toad, but the Mole bodily dragged him on.

  They piled into Beryl, who had stopped suddenly, Rabbit nearly losing her balance as she narrowly avoided overrunning them all.

  “In front of us!” Beryl cried, and they could all hear it now: crackling, rustling noises in the woods ahead of them, the sounds of animals approaching at a run. They set themselves back to back and waited.

  “Doomed!” screamed the Toad.

  Chapter Twelve

  Return to the River Bank

  As it happened, it was the Water Rat and the Badger.

  If the Mole and Beryl had travelled quickly, the Water Rat and the Badger had raced. It was easy to follow the Moles’ trail: “Such a nice couple, asking for the church,” an old Mouse-wife had said with an indulgent smile; “an’ I’m sure I wish them the best, I do!” The Water Rat and the Badger had exchanged glances and pressed on. When they heard that the “charming couple” (which elicited more glances) had changed their direction and were instead, for reasons unknown, heading for an old barn that had of late become a haunt for bandits, they did not stop to ask themselves why and wherefore, but had rushed on. They were coming along the hollow lane when they heard shouts and the clash of arms, and then, astonishing to them both, the Toad’s clear voice crying, “Take—that! And—that!” They ran into the beechwoods, and found their friends.

  It was, as the Rabbit might perhaps put it, all very exciting. The Badger swung his great stick, tossing Weasels to one side and Stoats to the other while the Water Rat loosed his pistol over the heads of the enemy and then waded in with a cudgel in one paw and the pistol reversed in the other, intent upon subjugating the Barn Rat; bloody was the battle, but in the end, the Water Rat conquered, and the Barn Rat collapsed in a heap before him.

  The addition to the River Bankers’ ranks of what seemed to the Stoats and Weasels to be a dozen Badgers the size of cart horses, and a score of Water Rats who shot fire from their glowing red eyes, deflated any ambitions they might have had. They scattered, but the Mole and Beryl also seemed to be everywhere, clouting them until they cringed upon the ground, clutching their heads and injured limbs, and begging for mercy. As for the Fox? Sneaky as all his kind are, as soon as he saw the way the wind was blowing, he tried to slip away into the beechwood but was unhappily (for him) perceived doing so by the Badger, who followed on swift paws and struck him down.

  It was the work of only a few minutes for Beryl and the Water Rat to tie them all up with bits of the rope from Beryl’s pack: the Rat was of course familiar with anything at all that had to do with boats, knots included; and as for Beryl, an Authoress is mistress of many skills, and Beryl’s researches for The Haunted Treasure of Bone Island had included knots. Even now she could weave a Monkey’s Fist or a Turk’s Head (her knotwork bell-pulls were a popular holiday gift in the family); efficiently tying up criminals was child’s play to her.

  “Now, what should we do with these ruffians?” said the Water Rat, leaning heavily on his cutlass, and panting, for he was still out of breath.

  “Whack ’em, and whack ’em, and whack ’em!” cried the Toad in ecstasy.

  “No, I have a better idea,” said Beryl. “They were going to turn Toad in to Scotland Yard and receive a pardon. Why not turn the tables upon them?”

  The Mole gave a cheer. “Hurrah, Beryl, that’s really very clever! Let’s do it!”

  Beryl blushed and said, “O, pooh, you would have thought of it yourself, if I had not.”

  The Badger looked from Beryl to the Mole; clearly an understanding flourished between them. When he glanced across to the Water Rat, he saw that he, too, had noted this, and was looking a little unhappy. But he had no wish to be churlish, and was steeling himself to accept a difficu
lt truth, so he said only, “Beryl, as always, a very sensible notion. We will find out from this scoundrel”—he nudged the Fox with one paw—“how he was meaning to contact the authorities, and then we will turn them in, and receive a pardon for the Toad. Yes,” he said, more happily, “that will work very well.”

  And so they dragged the Stoats and Weasels and the Barn Rat and the Fox back to the barn and piled them in the middle of the main room’s floor, where they could be kept an eye on while the Badger and Beryl went into the nearest village and arranged for them to be taken away. After a while a closed wagon arrived, into which the criminals were slung without ceremony; a policeman shook Badger’s paw and nodded politely to Beryl; and then they were gone.

  The Toad had been hiding in the beechwood but rushed up as soon as the constables were gone. “Am I pardoned? Am I pardoned?” he cried, and began capering about.

  “Not yet,” said the Badger, but he looked pleased. “These are just the local force, taking custody. But we were right—they’ve been trying to catch these culprits for some time, and it was very much against the grain to pardon them. I don’t think we’ll have much trouble getting your pardon, but you will have to be patient.”

  The Toad leapt with joy. “Free! Ha, ha—yet another bullet dodged! Not even Scotland Yard can keep me—crashed a motor-cycle—a complete pardon! Toad—great as always! He, he!”

  “You are not pardoned yet,” warned Beryl with some desperation. “Toad, you must live quietly until then.”

  “I’ll be the patientest Toad that ever was! You’ll see!”

  The Badger met Beryl’s eyes with an expression that said, “I told you how it would be!” but said aloud only, “You’re right, Toad—because I am staying with you until it is complete.”

  “Couldn’t be better!” said the Toad genially. “Always happy to have you under my roof—always a welcome guest—for any amount of time, of course. He, he— Free!” It was clear that yet again he was lost to anything of sense that might be said to him; but everyone knew that was just Toad’s way, and no one minded much.

  The trip home should have felt like a triumphal procession: the Toad and the Rabbit had been saved from their imprisonment with no injuries to the River Bank party, and it seemed likely that the Toad could be saved from Scotland Yard, as well, by means of the pardon the Badger meant to get for him—and all without sacrificing a penny of Toad’s £50,000, or even the Rabbit’s £100; but in fact, the whole journey had a sour feel.

  For one thing, it began raining again, and, while the Mole, Beryl, the Water Rat, and the Badger were all equipped for overland travel, the Toad and the Rabbit had nothing but the ragged Town clothes they stood up in. The rain was neither hard nor cold, but it came down steadily and soon everyone was soaked to the skin. Nothing in anyone’s packs could be made to fit Toad, who went off into convulsive fits of shivering whenever he noticed that anyone was looking at him. “I’m—fine,” he would gasp out. “Nothing to—worry about! We Toads have—weak chests—indeed, my dear father . . . But I don’t mean to complain—we don’t always die . . . even in situations nearly this bad. A doctor and a hot bath—a mustard plaster—I might be spared—perhaps some hot gin-and-lemon—and at least I will die pardoned,” and he would go off into such an outburst of coughing that the soft-hearted Mole would say to the others, “Hear that? We must get him somewhere away from this weather!” and even the Water Rat would say, “It’s just Toad shamming as usual, but it’s going to be a miserable long slog if he’s going to gas like this all the way back.”

  In the end, matters came to a head when the Toad simply collapsed; and it mattered less that he might be faking it than that, faking or not, they couldn’t carry him all the way to the River Bank upon their backs, not with the best will in the world. But here they ran into their second problem: paying for rooms at an inn—if they could find an inn at all: barring that, a friendly farmhouse—was impossible, let alone paying for a doctor and the gin-and-lemon and all the rest. The Mole and Beryl had not come out with more than a few coins, for they had been in a hurry when they left. The Toad had nothing at all because of having thrown it away in Town. Even though she had spent nearly everything, the Rabbit had more money than any of them; but pin money for a Rabbit was in no way sufficient for the needs of a Toad accustomed to traveling in the first style of luxury, a Toad, further, who was going to need nursing and who knew what else.

  “But it’ll be fine!” said the Mole cheerily. “Ratty and Badger brought Toad’s ransom, didn’t they? We’ll just use a bit of that—”

  The Toad sat up suddenly, his coughing momentarily silenced.

  “Ransom?” said the Badger and the Water Rat together.

  “Why, the fifty thousand pounds the Fox and his gang were demanding for the Toad’s safe return,” said the Mole. “It was all in the ransom note I left for you. You—you didn’t receive that?” he faltered, looking at their faces.

  “We did not,” said the Badger, looking dark.

  The Water Rat added, “You mentioned a letter, but we looked everywhere and it wasn’t there. Moley, are you sure you enclosed it?”

  “Positive,” said the Mole, absently patting his pockets, as one does when something small is mislaid.

  “Well,” said the Mole a few minutes later, after the ransom note was discovered and confessed to, and the Water Rat had expressed himself somewhat freely about chaps losing their heads if they were not sewn on; and the Mole had apologized, looking ashamed and miserable; and the Toad had relaxed (since the money wasn’t available to be spent, after all); and the Badger had said, “Now, now: there’s no need to go on about it, Rat; it doesn’t matter that we didn’t know about the ransom since we didn’t have to pay it, after all”; and Beryl had suggested that everyone might perhaps take a deep breath and calm down;—after all that, the Mole said, “Well, if you weren’t coming to pay the ransom—”

  The Water Rat made a grinding noise with his teeth.

  “—then why were you coming?” The Mole looked at them, curiosity plain in his honest face. “We’re deeply grateful that you showed up when you did, but it is very odd, you know.”

  Since the rescue, the Badger’s expression had been dour, and all the more so whenever he observed the Mole and Beryl as they helped one another over a stile or exchanged a soft word; and also, whenever he saw the Rabbit offer her paw to the Toad, as he staggered weakly along, saying, “Just a little farther, dear Toad ! You can do it, I know you can!” and the Toad replied feebly, “For you, Rabbit, I shall try!” Now it grew darker still. He harumphed, and glared at a broad stone wall they were approaching.

  “Ah,” said the Water Rat. “Well. Badger can probably explain it better than I can. He’s the chap for explaining things!”

  “We came to rescue you,” said the Badger.

  “From what?” asked Beryl. “Without the ransom note, you had no notion we were going into danger!”

  The Water Rat stared at Beryl. “Well, ah . . . That is to say—”

  “Sit down,” said the Badger gravely. “Beryl, you and Mole, sit there.” He pointed to a pile of rocks that had been cleared from the field of beans they had been crossing, and then to the stone wall: “And you, Rabbit, and you, Toad, sit there—for Heaven’s sake, Toad, don’t sprawl there in the dirt like a house cat—sit there.”

  Everyone sat as instructed. The Water Rat stood off to one side, looking for all the world like an aide-de-camp hearing the orders at Salamanca.

  The Badger rubbed a paw over his face. “You all know—well, some of you, anyway: you, Toad; and Mole and Rat—that I am not a proponent of matrimony. It is, in my opinion, the end of all comfort, an unnatural state full of brangling, needless disputations, and social obligations requiring tight collars and absurd demands for quite unnecessary changes of linen. . . .” He fell silent, brooding upon the enormities of wedlock.

  They waited patiently for a few moments. Then Beryl said, “Badger, are you well?”

  “I am nev
er ill,” said the Badger heavily.

  “But why all this talk of matrimony? It’s relevant to nothing,” she said.

  He shook his shaggy head. “There’s no way to wrap this up cleanly, no way to sweeten the pill. You must be wed.”

  Their voices tumbled over one other in their surprise and confusion: “We must be . . . what?”—“Wed?”—“Who?”—“Are you sure you’re all right, Badger?”

  “All of you,” replied the Badger. “Not all together, I mean: you, Toad, must wed the Rabbit. And you, Mole, must wed Beryl.”

  There was a silence.

  The Badger went on “Beryl, Rabbit, you have each travelled with a male, unaccompanied by any second female to lend you countenance. I know”—he emphasized the word in a minatory way—“that the Mole and the Toad will demonstrate their decency, dignity, and propriety and offer you the shelter of their names.”

  Beryl began laughing, and the Badger grew prickly. “It is not a laughing matter, Miss Mole. You are heedless. You do not realize—”

  “Pooh!” said Beryl. “I know, I don’t mean to laugh at you at all, and I apologize. But you are exactly like the father in a serialized novel! This is not the way things are any more, Badger. I should only marry if I chose to—which I do not.”

  And now Mole was laughing a little, as well: “And she cannot marry me, anyway, not if it were ever so. Beryl is my sister.”

  “Your—sister!” gasped everyone save the Rabbit, who only stared at the rest, surprised; she of course had known since the beginning, and had thought everyone else did, too.

  The Water Rat said, “So that is why you avoided her so! Your elder sister, by chance?” The Mole and Beryl nodded. He continued, “Of course. It all makes sense now,” and he went off in a peal of laughter that left him snorting and wiping his eyes.