The Willows and Beyond (8 page)

 “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!

“Mon Dieu!”
cried Master Toad, reverting to his native tongue in his panic and fear. “There!
Ah non!
O!”

He pointed a trembling finger at the bridge as the others scrambled onto the bank. Even the normally fearless Otter was struck dumb by what he saw.

A huge, strange, hunchbacked figure on the bridge, ghastly eyes white and shining just as the two lovers had claimed, and carrying an enormous thick stave that might easily strike all of them down with one blow.

It seemed to see them and moved to descend the bridge towards them. Only the Otter’s stolid stance and Young Rat’s calm kept Master Toad and Portly from fleeing headlong in the opposite direction.

“Here you, what do you want?” cried the Otter boldly, while Young Rat sensibly took up a boathook and held it out most threateningly.