Toad Triumphant

by William Horwood

  It would be impossible to describe in any detail the confusion of the following moments. But as Toad began to retreat before his skilled adversary once more, their battleground, the morning room, began to fill up with an increasingly large number of men, some in blue uniforms, some in black robes, and not a few wearing clerical outfits. All were eager to help, and to be seen to help. They needed only the clear command of the superior who had summoned them to know what they must do.

  The Commissioner of Police was quite sure that the law was being broken, if only on the grounds of the peace being disturbed, and that arrests should be made by his officers there and then, and he cried, “Arrest him!”

  Twelve constables then attempted to do so.

  The High Judge was certain that a large number of crimes were being committed before his very eyes, including trespass (of his property and person), felony larceny and burglary (of his specimen plants and garden implements), assault and battery and probably grievous bodily harm and attempted murder (upon Madame’s son) and a variety of additional crimes he was pondering upon. So he cried, “Try him!”

  Six clerks of court proceeded towards the preparation of the paperwork by asking the suspect his full name, address and date of birth.

  The Senior Bishop saw a tormented soul upon the slippery slopes of spiritual decline who might still be drawn back into the family of the Church, given sufficient help and guidance. He therefore cried out, “Save him!”

  And a Deacon Parishionary, a Dean-in-Ordinary, and an Acting Bishop Extraordinary, each brandishing various gospels, crosses and crosiers, rushed towards him who needed immediate spiritual help and sustenance.

  O fickle fickle Fate, which makes such a mockery of Man’s best intentions, and leads the forces of the Law and Justice and the Church so far astray.

  For though they all rushed forward to do their duty, it was towards the wrong toad. Mischievous and wicked Fate did not guide them towards Toad of Toad Hall, for he wielded merely a rake, and seemed, so far as they could judge, to be defending himself and a female personage against a trained and murderous swordsman.

  It was upon the callow Count d’Albert-Chapelle they charged, to arrest, arraign and save his soul. It was he whose sword was torn from his grasp and sent skittering across the floor; he whose hat was trampled upon and whose silken garb was torn; and he who protested loudly in a foreign tongue, thereby compounding his obvious guilt (and need of saving) a hundredfold with each foreign word that was uttered.

  While Toad of Toad Hall, astonished, found himself sitting upon the floor by the side of his cousin, some way from the mêlée, unmolested and unnoticed.

  A variety of thoughts went through his mind, the chief one being that if he were to escape with his life, now was the moment to do it; to which was added the idea that he might as well escape with the one he loved and leave the insolent son to his fate.

  Far, far behind these thoughts was a vague disquiet at seeing his rival so brutally suppressed, handcuffed and arraigned, and asked by various prelates whether or not he had any last words, and if he had would he be good enough to speak them in the mother tongue, which is to say English.

  Toad was about to rise, offer himself once more to the Madame, allay any doubts she might have about leaving her son behind and suggest they flee His Lordship’s House immédiatement.

  But the lady spoke first.

  “Mon dieu!” cried she. “Cousin, save ‘im from these devils! ‘E is my son! ‘E has never been good, never do what I say but ‘e ‘as not been so bad as this!”

  Toad rose and stared across the room at where the youth struggled still and those words she spoke “he has not been as bad as this” struck a chord deep within his heart, very deep indeed. And now that her son’s sword had been taken from him, and his hat removed, and his clothes half torn off he was but a sorry and pathetic sight, and Toad saw that the look of spoilt petulance had gone, gone completely as had the smugness he had displayed but minutes before when he had been about to humiliate Toad with his superior swordplay.

  Instead he saw a very frightened young toad, and one who could not quite understand how a bit of fun, harmless as it had seemed, had brought upon him the wrath of so many men in uniforms whose sole intention was to take all the fun away and replace it with the misery of deprivation and incarceration.

  “He has not been as bad as this,” she had said, and Toad could not but think how often, how very often, such a thing might have been said about himself and his own harmless deeds; and how, when Fate was not upon his side, his friends along the River Bank often were, and came quickly to his aid.

  Toad stared aghast at the defeated and now helpless, hopeless, friendless youth, and saw himself when young, and remembered how rare it was that help came when it was needed, and how infrequently the true cause of Justice and of Law was served in so punishing him.

  “Cousin —” Madame began again, but she had no need to plead.

  Toad rose as if in a dream, and a chord louder than love rang in his heart, and one that drove off fear.

  Taking up the sword that had fallen on the floor, and feeling perhaps that what the outnumbered French youth needed was the sound of his own language, he cried the inspiring words of the new-found selfless revolutionary, “Liberte’! Egalite’! Fraternité!”, and charged to rescue his former foe.

  If words failed earlier to describe the arrival of the constables, clerks and clerics, they utterly do so now to give any adequate account of the confusion of the retreat of these henchmen before Toad’s might and ire.

  It was enough to see the look in his eyes, and to see the purposeful strength with which he wielded the sword, to be still; it was enough to hear his raging commands to yield, to let the lad go, his handcuffs quickly undone.

  “Madame!” cried Toad, her son now propped half fainting in his left arm and the sword raised still in his right hand. “You shall not suffer punishment, for you have done no wrong. Therefore it is safe to leave you behind for the moment. But we, that is your son here the Count and I, Toad of Toad Hall, who both hold you in love and esteem, are fugitives from justice now Love has caused us to break the paltry laws of the state; may love support us through the long years of flight that must lie ahead!”

  Such was Toad’s final speech before he turned back to the French doors into the hothouse, pulling the youth bodily after him, and pushed the Head Gardener (retired) back once more into the flower bed from which he had been struggling so hard to emerge.

  Then, with a laugh both light and cavalier, Toad thrust the sword through the handles of the doors to prevent them being opened, and was gone, leaving behind him a room of silent, wondering men.

  And a single woman too. One who with Toad’s rescue of her errant son, and with Toad’s heroic speech, had seen at last the one for whom she would willingly move the very earth; and upon whom she would now bestow the passion and the favour of her heart.

  · IX ·

  The Lathbury Pike

  Once the Mole and the Rat had left behind the Hat and Boot Tavern to continue their journey the banks of the River grew steeper and the vegetation about them thicker and more tangled. Where there had been placid pools before there were rapids now, and it seemed prudent to leave behind the smaller boat, securely tied and hidden in the undergrowth, to be reclaimed on their return.

  The River roared so loud at times, and the banks on either side loomed so high, that the brightest part of the day seemed dark, and they often had to communicate with shouts and gestures. The further they went the more gorge-like the route became, and in places they had to drag the boat through the water with ropes about their chests, for punting or rowing was not always possible.

  “A few more days, Mole, and we’ll have to think of turning back,” said the Rat.

  But peering up the course of the roaring River, through the overhanging trees, they occasionally caught glimpses of huge skies and distant hills and mountains, and these intrigued the Mole.

  “I just want t
o get beyond that rise of ground, even if we must leave the boat and walk the last part,” he explained. “If only we can catch a glimpse of that mysterious place beyond all this, and also prove there’s no great Pike here that travellers should worry about! Perhaps one day in the future my brave Nephew will come this way and take up the journey where we must soon leave it —”

  A rush of wind, an extra roar of water.

  “I can’t hear you, Mole, old fellow; the River’s roar is too loud,” shouted the Rat. “Let’s go on a bit, for it’s too cold here to hang about.”

  “What I said can wait,” the Mole shouted back; “so let’s get on!”

  On the third day after this, or perhaps the fourth or fifth — for time in that strange enshadowed place seemed to pass according to its own strange rules — the River widened into a run of deep, peat-stained pools. The banks were steep now, and very high, and the ground beyond so treacherous with the tangle of wet roots and moss, loose rocks and great impenetrable ferns that the only way forward was by water.

  They had to stop sometimes to rest and eat, but all they could do was tie their painter to an overhanging root and dig their oars hard into what mud and grit there was to keep the boat steady. But the constant unremitting roar of water made them uneasy and they fancied the trees had eyes and the wet vegetation about them hid the faces of enemies who spied on them and wished them ill.

  In one such place they succeeded in clambering up the rocky banks and exploring a little, but when they returned to their craft they found the wet ground bore the unmistakable footprints of other creatures.

  “Humph!” declared the Rat, gripping the cutlass he now habitually carried and staring into the shadows to make sure they were not about to be ambushed. “These are big fellows who have been here.”

  “Not just mere weasels and stoats, that’s certain,” said the Mole, “but they do not seem to have interfered with our boat or the gear in it. They could have caused us a good deal of inconvenience if they had.”

  The Water Rat glowered, annoyed with himself for taking such a risk, for he knew what a parlous position they would have been in had the person or persons who had spied on them — and might be spying still — untied their craft and let it drift out into the dangerous waters. The regulars at the Tavern far downstream would have had rather more than hats and boots to gossip about.

  Chastened by this experience and resolved not to leave the boat unattended again, they set off once more.

  “We must be careful, Mole, for this is no place to capsize or tumble in. The currents are swift and it would be too dangerous to try to turn back to rescue someone. Are you quite sure you’re game to carry on?”

  The water ran wide and deep now, and far ahead they saw a waterfall, above and beyond which was that alluring mountainous prospect they had seen earlier, and the drift of huge birds circling black against the sky.

  “As far as the waterfall,” said the Mole; “that’s our destination, for we can take the boat no further. If we can climb up to the plateau above, well and good, but if not I shall be well satisfied. And we’ll have proved there’s no such thing as the Lathbury Pike!”

  They decided to try to rest well that last night of their outward journey satisfied with what they had done, though disappointed they had not done more; and tired, very tired, for the last days had been almost too much, and so noisy an animal could hardly think straight …

  The Mole woke with a start in the night to the sound of his dreams and nightmares of a Pike and its brood, rapine and dangerous; and the whoosh! whoosh! whoosh! of its tail in the dark.

  “What’s that, Ratty?” said he fearfully.

  “Nothing, Mole, nothing. Just the roar of the River torrents in the night.”

  Morning came at last, and with it the blessed relief of sunshine. The pools of the River ahead sparkled as the Rat rowed well and cheerfully for they had been heartened to see a craft moored up near the waterfall — an old punt of rude but sturdy design — which suggested somebody must be about.

  “Not far now, Ratty,” said the Mole, for the air was growing damp with the mist from the waterfall.

  “Go back! You two! Go back this instant!”

  The warning seemed to come from the shadows surrounding the great deep pool, and as the Rat stopped sculling and held the boat steady they searched to see who called.

  “Turn and go back, for the Pike breeds here! Go back! No one wants you here. Go!”

  Then the Mole saw him, standing on a rock steadying himself with a stave: a badger huge and dark, shaking a fist at them. And he wore sturdy boots of the kind that might very well have left the marks they had seen upon the bank.

  “Ratty, he’s over there, just there, can’t you see?”

  Perhaps in the moment the Rat turned to look he loosened his grip on one of the oars, or perhaps the thumping jolt of the underwater obstruction that seemed to catch the boat at that same instant was so powerful he could never have held her steady anyway.

  But even as the badger gave another warning shout, the water on their right side heaved darkly and something golden—dark and huge surged and turned, and they saw eyes as evil and yellow as bile, with scales as ruddy red as the setting sun, and the boat rocked and heaved uncontrollably till it was suddenly turned over by the power of the beast that sought to take them.

  “Ratty, help!”

  “Mole, I can’t —!”

  All then was raging water, and surf, and the boil of river depths filled with the race of bubbles, and the tangle of gear and rope, and loose oars, and a creature that seemed more huge and terrible than anything they had ever known.

  “Ratty!” cried the Mole, reaching out to his friend with one hand while clinging on with the other to his cudgel. “Ratty —!”

  But it was no good, for poor Ratty, always the strongest swimmer, Ratty the friend who always found a solution to their problems — Ratty was torn by the beast from the Mole’s weakening grasp in a boiling, raging, swirling whoosh of water and cruel teeth, and then gone from sight at the murderous beat of a massive tail.

  Somehow or other the Mole clambered then to the shore, his club still in his hand, dazed and shaking with cold and fear. The place was dark and shadowed by great and ancient trees, the rocks covered in ferns and wet moss, and for a moment the Mole turned instinctively to try to climb up to dry land and out of harm’s way.

  Then he heard a cry, turned back towards the torrent and saw a heave of water, the slow rise of that great tail, and in the Pike’s fearful mouth the colour of a jacket he knew too well.

  Mole of Mole End of the River Bank, the one whom Nephew believed to be the greatest Mole who ever lived, knew no fear then. That Mole was suddenly courage personified.

  Back into the water he stormed, wading, swimming, pulling himself to where the Rat and the Pike struggled, flailing with his cudgel at the great vile thing, and continuing even after it finally let go the Rat’s spent form and turned upon him.

  “Ratty, I’ll never —!”

  But then the Mole knew no more.

  He felt a sharp tearing at the lower half of his body a searing pain, and knew the terror of descending into the enfolding darkness of deep ice-cold water, and the fading of the light, and air, and life far far above his head and beyond his reach.

  All was darkness and silence.

  The Mole woke to the bliss of a warm, lavender-scented bed in which he seemed to float in endless comfort, drifting from day to night, from night to day.

  “Sir! Please, sir, can you hear me now? Try to wake up —”

  A voice, which though deep was young, though gruff was kind and much concerned.

  “I’m Mole,” he whispered, very happily for to say his name was to say he was alive, “of Mole End —” and he drifted back to a healing sleep that had seemed to start long long before, in a place far far away.

  Only slowly as the days passed by did wakefulness begin to come more often, and he accepted with gratitude the kind help of the young bad
ger in whose home he was recovering. He accepted the water he was helped to drink, and the herbal teas as well; and finally the wholesome soups and nutty bread whose crumbs fell onto his chin and into his bed from where his helper removed them.

  Only slowly, and most reluctantly did he begin to remember what had happened, and to accept the fact that poor Ratty, his dearest closest friend was surely —The badger who tended him in those long days of recovery seemed sometimes to age and to stand over him, huge and dark, very fierce, just as the Badger himself had been when the Mole first met him. Then he seemed to grow young again, and to help the Mole out of bed that he might be washed, and the mattress turned, and the sheets shaken and then changed, the scent of lavender giving way to the subtle scents of eglantine and balm.

  “Ratty —” murmured the Mole, “my friend Ra——”

  “Go to sleep, sir. Go back to sleep, for it may be that your friend —”

  The gravely ill Mole drifted back to sleep, reaching towards the shred of hope that he found in those few words, “It may be that your friend —”

  Another day. The sun slanting across the room, doors opening, voices, and argument.

  “I will see him, I must go to him!”

  “It’d be better if you —” growled a deep rough voice.

  “But it’s Mole, don’t you see, my friend M”

  “You’re not so well yourself; now come along and go to him later.”

  “I will see him now I must!”

  The door burst open and as the Mole tried to open his eyes against the fierce light of day he heard his name spoken by one whose voice he had thought never to hear again.

  “Mole, old fellow, dear Mole, s—”

  “Ratty,” whispered the Mole, “you’re all right, you’re not —”

  He felt his hand taken up and held, and he opened his eyes to see his dearest friend staring down at him, shaking his head with wonder and tears in his eyes.

  “No, Moly I’m not, and it is only thanks to you and your great courage that it is so.”