The Willows and Beyond (9 page)

This seemed enough to halt the Beast’s advance, for it paused and stared at them awhile, its huge head swaying from side to side, before it turned away went back over the bridge and disappeared over the far side, where it was lost in the mists and shadows of the evening.

“Did you hear its rasping, groaning voice?” said Master Toad.

“Did you see its thick, clawed hands?” cried Portly.

Considerably chastened, the four animals retreated along the bank to the Rat’s house. That brave and resourceful animal listened with some scepticism at first, for like the Mole he was no believer in ghosts and beasts, but knowing the Otter to be an utterly reliable witness, and impressed by Young Rat’s calm affirmation of what his old friend reported, he was finally inclined to take the matter seriously. But as for it being the legendary Beast of the Wild Wood.

“Beast, indeed!” declared the Rat dismissively. “It is probably some wanderer who is the worse for drink. He has no business frightening folk like that — what he needs is a good drubbing, and that’s what he’ll receive if I get my hands on him!”

“That’s just what my uncle has been saying,” observed Nephew.

“Well, if you’d come with us today you could have given him that drubbing there and then,” said the Otter, who had been surprised when the Rat had declined to join them for River work that day.

“I had business in the kitchen,” explained the Rat. “Nephew reminded me that it is Mole’s birthday tomorrow and though that modest and retiring animal has never celebrated the event with a party before we felt that he should do so now. Nephew has arranged for Mole to call on me at lunchtime tomorrow, leaving him a clear run to prepare Mole End for our surprise, and make some sandwiches and so forth. I shall ferry Mole back, and bring with me the cake I have spent the day baking.”

The Rat led them to his stove and showed them the currant cake he had made, which was covered in white icing upon which he had inscribed the message “For Our Friend Mole, Happy Birthday!” along with a picture of the Mole sitting in the Rat’s boat, in which the two friends had spent so many happy hours.

“Why, Ratty, I am most impressed,” said the Otter warmly.

“And so will Mole be, I hope,” said the Rat, “when we all meet on his doorstep tomorrow at three in the afternoon and surprise him with a party! I have asked Badger to make sure that Toad arrives on time — we all know his irritating propensity for lateness. Master Toad, there is no need to look so smug, for you are not much better in my experience! Now where were we?”

By the time they had finished their ruminations on the subject of the Beast the hour was late. As the Rat’s home was too small for them all, the Otter took Master Toad back to his own home, where it was proposed that he should stay the night, whilst Nephew was quickly ferried back across the River to take the short route up to Mole End.

The Otter was very much surprised to hear Master Toad say as he reached his house, “You know, Otter old chap, it’s good of you to offer me a bed, but I ought to be getting back.”

“Toad won’t miss you overnight,” said the Otter heartily “He knows you’re in good hands.”

“Well, that’s just it, you see, he’s imposed a curfew on me till I return to school. I should have been back in the study at six for a final hour of work and in bed by half past seven with the light out. It’s most irksome but he’s threatened not to pay my school fees! I should have been back long ago really”

The Otter laughed to see how Toad had imposed his will on the wayward youth, and was about to offer to accompany him home when to their surprise Toad himself suddenly appeared out of the darkness, lantern in hand.

“Is that you, Otter? I was looking for… ah, there he is, skulking about and —“

“Not at all, Monsieur Toad, you see we —But the Otter put a hand on Master Toad’s arm to quieten him. They had already agreed not to mention the second sighting of the Beast to Toad lest it upset him, and caused him to do something foolish such as hire a posse of armed guards.

“My fault, Toad,” interposed the Otter. “Late getting back from our River work, at which Master Toad has excelled himself by the way He was just saying he must hurry home and was willing to do so alone, despite that scare we had some nights ago.

“Pooh to that!” said Toad. “That was just some stuff and nonsense that gardeners and scullery maids dream up. Nothing that honest and upright citizens such as ourselves need fear or even give a second thought.”

“So you’re not nervous of the Beast, Toad?” said the Otter, who had been very surprised indeed to see him walking about alone at night.

“Me? Not a bit!” cried Toad. “Now, come on, Master Toad; it’s late and you need sleep, for tomorrow —”

“Yes, Pater? What shall we do tomorrow?”

A grim and determined look came upon Toad’s face. “Tomorrow you shall begin that educational exercise I promised you.”

“Ah, non!”
groaned the youth.

“O
yes!”
declared Toad.

With that, and a wave of farewell to the Otter, the determined Toad led his ward back over the bridge.

“But are you not frightened at all, Monsieur Toad?” said the youth with very considerable respect as they approached Toad Hall.

“Not at all,” said Toad, feeling the revolver, three knives and sabre he had secreted beneath his coat, just in case. “No, not at all.”

On the whole, Toad was thus far well pleased with his campaign to bring Master Toad to heel, and instruct him in the pleasures of healthy routine, self-discipline and the academic arts and sciences. His threat to remove his ward from school and send him off to earn his own living seemed to have had a most salutary and beneficial effect. The youth had gone to bed early every night, woken each morning in good time for breakfast, and then risen from the table of his own accord and headed off to the study, where he worked diligently on all the exercises and items of reading set for him.

Why, he had even attempted to engage Toad in conversation about aspects of topography, geometry, trigonometry and the history of the colonies and the French Revolution! Toad’s knowledge of such things was a little rusty, to say the least, but that did not prevent him from giving his views on all five subjects, as well as certain aspects of Shakespearean tragedy and comedy that he thought Master Toad might find helpful.

Toad’s only regret was the gloomy feeling that came over him when he himself had to practise the austere habits he now daily preached over the breakfast table. His plight was somewhat eased, however, by certain private arrangements he had made with his butler. It was not so hard sticking to the healthful regime of orange juice, thin un-buttered toast, a solitary egg (poached) and single slice of bacon (lean) once a week that he had prescribed for them both, when he knew that a full English breakfast plus buttered crumpets (so necessary to stave off the advance of winter) were awaiting him in his bedroom, once he had packed his ward off to the study each morning at a quarter to nine.

“Aaah … !“ sighed Toad, who was rediscovering certain lost pleasures of youth as he tucked into his secret second daily breakfast, such as the fact that scrumped apples taste a good deal better than those honestly obtained.

It was true he was a mite puzzled that Master Toad seemed to be taking his medicine so willingly and without complaint, but then he remembered that he himself had taught the youngster the arts of cunning and deception. No doubt the youth had established his own lines of supply for extra sustenance, and no doubt they involved the Housekeeper (whom Master Toad had long since charmed) and certain drawers and shelves in the library as hiding places which Toad might himself have used.

One day soon, Master Toad would be off into the world and there he would discover that very often the end justified the means, and Toad felt sure he would be grateful for the lessons directly and indirectly taught him that autumn.

Toad ruminated on these matters as he led his ward back to Toad Hall that night. But as they went inside and Master Toad compliantly headed off to bed with only one final plea — “Pater, are we really to go ‘iking tomorrow?” — which Toad ignored, he turned his thoughts to the one area in which he had so far failed.

For the youth had successfully avoided each and every one of the planned afternoon sessions of educational exercise by resorting to all the tricks in the book, and many more that Toad had never come across.

Master Toad had been afflicted by sprained ankles, headaches, upset stomachs, grumbling appendices, double vision, fainting fits and many other physical ailments, as well as some mental ones, all of the kind that can be relied on to disappear the moment darkness descends and the threat of educational exercise has receded for another day, and dinner is in the offing.

So successful had these stratagems been, and so easily had Toad been daily defeated on this front, that his ward had begun to suspect that his pater’s heart was no more taken by the idea of hiking than his own. Indeed, he had the smug sense that the battle was won, and there would be no more talk of hiking from Mr Toad.

In this he was nearly right, but finally wrong. For Toad had indeed found the notion of hiking considerably to his distaste, and the vast stock of hiking equipment he had ordered up from a well-known emporium in the Town used to dealing with military needs had at first baffled and alarmed him. Its sheer weight was dispiriting for a start, for Toad had quickly realized that what was not to be worn was to be carried. Then, too, there was the difficulty of working out what each item of equipment was meant to do. Hobnail boots were easy enough, as were water bottles. But dangerous-looking knives? A mosquito net? And a spade that looked like a pick? For what strange reason were these supplied to a gentleman who wished to take a healthful stroll in the countryside?

Eventually, on Badger’s wise advice, he ordered several books on the subject of hiking, which was then attracting a good deal of attention from authors good and bad, experienced and inexperienced. Toad was no great reader and had eyed them askance for several days after their arrival. But then one morning, after a second helping of scrambled eggs and black pudding in his bedroom, Toad dipped into one of the tomes, and was fascinated by what he found there.

Stories of hikes through the Pyrenees (child’s play), accounts of the ascent of Mont Blanc (easy) and climbs in the Zillertaler in Austria (more problematic), and a race against a killer blizzard up the north face of the Eiger (nigh impossible).

All this, and a great deal more, Toad found he could achieve over an extended breakfast while seated in the comfort of a padded chair by his bedroom window, gazing out from time to time at the advance of autumn across the River Bank.

“Yes, yes!” he would sigh, resting his book on his plump and contented stomach, and imagining himself leading an expedition to. .

“Everest! I shall be its conqueror!”

“Sir?” his butler would interrupt him. “Would you care for some fresh coffee before partaking of your midmorning bath?”

“Yes, yes!” cried the ecstatic Toad, returning to his book. Though thus now persuaded that in theory at least hiking had a lot to commend it, Toad might very easily have got no further in his examination of the expensive equipment so impulsively bought and now safely stowed in the gun room, had his eye not alighted one day upon a book somewhat slimmer than the others, and of more austere aspect.