The Willows at Christmas (23 page)

For two days, and with just one more to go before the trial was due to start, the Mole listened to Toad’s pleas and entreaties that he might be released, but remained firm. He plied his friend with food and comforting words, and said again and again that it was in their best interests that he stayed where he was.

“I wish only to breathe the fresh air of liberty,” said Toad. “Only to stretch my limbs into the firmament of freedom! Only to set my eyes upon the sunlight of hope! Only to… ha! ha!… got you, Mole!”

“Let me go!” cried the Mole, who in a single unguarded moment found the chain wrapped round him, his keys taken, the handcuffs loosened and replaced upon himself, and the thoughtless and ungrateful Toad climbing the stairs towards the world outside and leaving him in darkness.

“Toad, do not be so foolish!” cried the Mole. “Set me free at once!”

Toad made no reply, but skipped lightly through the outside door of their retreat, and headed off in the direction of the Town.

Being confined was never an easy thing for Toad and he had grown bored with the Mole’s conversation. If only he had freed him then what fun they might have had, but as he had refused, what else could a Toad do?

Thinking such thoughts, and dressed in the garb of a low type which the Rat had thought might be the best disguise, Toad soon found that wandering the streets was not to his liking. He needed sustenance. He needed company He needed an audience.

It alarmed him greatly to see the many “
WANTED
” signs that bore his image, and that of the Mole. He pulled his cap over his head and thought he would probably be better disguised in the dark, smoky atmosphere of a tavern, where he might also get some food.

The ever-practical Rat had provided both fugitives with cash, little thinking what dangerous use Toad would put it to.

“What d’yer want?” said the landlord.

“Boiled beef an’ carrerts,” said Toad in that rough accent he liked to adopt in such situations. “An’ a jug o’ yer best.”

The beer was quickly drawn, the food soon served, and the happy Toad found himself sitting in the shadows of an inglenook by a roaring fire, while the rest of the low clientele carried on with their own business.

It was only when he had eaten his food and had a slice of lardy cake as well as another jug of the best, that he harkened to the conversation of his fellow revellers. He was astonished and delighted to hear they were talking about him and his remarkable escape. What was more, they were doing so in words of respect and admiration!

The mystery of the escape remained unsolved and the Town’s evening paper had offered a special reward to anyone who could come up with a satisfactory explanation of how Mr Toad of Toad Hall had effected his brilliant escape.

“He didn’t do it on his tod but ‘ad ‘elp,” said one; “that’s for certain.

“Official ‘elp, if you ask me,” said another.

“It’s generally agreed ‘e’s an agent, but fer ‘oo, that’s the question.”

“Yeh, but just supposin’ ‘e didn’t ‘ave ‘elp, ‘ow could ‘e get out of his cell and leave no trace?”

“Well, actually, it wasn’t so difficult…” began Toad before he realized what he was doing.

“Not difficult?” said one near him. “I suppose you know how it was done then!”

There was a general laugh at this and all eyes turned on Toad.

“No, honestly, I haven’t, I mean I ‘aven’t no notion of wot ‘appened.”

“Well, mate, if you did ‘ave this paper ‘ere would give you a hundred pounds in cash if you tell ‘em how”

Another drinker held up the paper in question, which had a picture of Toad for all to see. Toad pulled his cap lower down his face, and held his beer close to him to add to his disguise.

“One thing’s certain, that Mr Toad’s the greatest toad wot ever lived. ‘E’s cocked a snook at authority like we all would like to do. ‘E must be the cleverest criminal that ever was.

“To Mr Toad,” cried another, raising his glass, “in the hope we might meet ‘im one day and shake ‘is ‘and.”

Once more Toad’s natural vanity and desire for applause briefly got the better of him and he rose as if to reply to the toast.

“Gentlemen,” he began, “I… I…” and then he sat down again with a thump.

Too late! For once more all eyes were on him and before their cheerful gaze Toad felt what he had not felt for many long days and nights — the thrill of others wanting to hear what he had to say.

“Don’t be bashful, chum,” said another, “if you want to speechify in ‘onour of Mr Toad there’s none ‘ere will stop you!”

That word “speechify” was like nectar to Toad, as were the shouts of others in his audience of “Speech! Speech!”

“Well then,” began Toad, quite forgetting himself and the danger he was in, “I think I may offer you an explanation of how the great Mr Toad and his feeble-minded accomplice Mr Mole escaped.”

Silence fell.

E’s got inside information,” whispered one.

“‘E looks like a member of the Albert gang,” said another in an awed voice, for that gang was known to be the most vicious and dangerous in the Town, and its name had been attached to the escape.

“I do indeed have inside information,” said Toad, his chest swelling, “and I can tell you exactly how the most audacious, most cleverly conceived, most memorable escape from a locked cell was done, without breaking the locks!”

Complete silence had now fallen among the cognoscenti of the tavern as they pushed forward to hear the speaker — the more so because rumours had spread rapidly to the furthest reaches of the tavern to the effect that Mr Albert ‘imself, leader of the Albert gang, was even now spilling the beans on Mr Toad’s escape in the front bar.

Toad waxed eloquent, describing the escape in detail, making clear that at each stage Mr Toad showed great bravery, the more so because of the necessity of helping his weaker accomplice Mr Mole, who as the papers had frequently pointed out, was not of Mr Toad’s calibre, and indeed was as weak of brain as he was of body.

“Mr Albert,” cried one of his listeners to Toad during a brief recess while Toad gratefully accepted the offer of further liquid refreshment, “‘ow do you know all this if—?”

“Who’s Mr Albert?” asked Toad, not quite liking the idea of someone else muscling in on his patch.

The matter was quickly explained, and with many a nod and wink Toad’s new friends gave him to understand that they knew he was Mr Albert but his secret was safe with them.

This mistaken identity somewhat offended Toad, but as he resumed his account he felt it wisest not to react to it, for it would keep his disguise all the better. So it was that Toad continued to inflate himself in public, adding falsehood to fabrication to make himself appear ever more heroic, ever more brilliant and ever more beyond the reach of the law.

It was a pity, therefore, that when one of his listeners persisted in calling him Mr Albert, and worse, suggested that he, Mr Albert, was perhaps a braver person in many ways than Toad, that Toad’s common sense finally gave way He had not seen the people who had recently appeared at the tavern door, dressed in the blue and silver-button garb of constables.

“Gentlemen,” cried Toad, “I have one last secret to reveal before I must away.

With that he took his cap off and said, “No Albert am I, but Toad himself, here honouring you with his flesh and blood. Applaud me, honour me, but never attempt to do what I have done, for without my skill and brilliance you are bound to get caught!”

Toad could not resist holding up the newspaper with his image on its front page to prove what all there knew was true the moment he removed his cap.

“Strike a light!” cried one.

“Stap me vitals,” said another.

“Mr Albert
is
Mr Toad,” said a third.

“Arrest that Toad!” cried a police officer, and the constables charged Toad and after a brief struggle took him into custody.

Soon afterwards, the police moved in to arrest Mole where Toad had left him. But that sterling creature, realizing what a parlous position he was in and rightly thinking that in such a case prudence was the better part of valour, had secured his own release by using the spare key he kept in his waistcoat pocket. Then he had searched for Toad and, observing him in the tavern, realized at once the likely outcome and hidden outside against the vain hope that Toad might get away with it.

But he did not, and when the Mole saw him thrust into a Black Maria, surrounded by armed guards, he knew that for Toad the game was up. For himself, his only recourse was to make his solitary way by riverside and hedgerow back towards the River Bank, there to try to contact the Rat once again and see what they might do.

XI

Lord of the Manor

The trial of Toad of Toad Hall was due to start at eleven o’clock in the morning on the sixth of January, but for the assembled mob it began an hour earlier when the prisoner was brought in irons up the steps from his cell below the bridge, and thence to the Court House.

“There he be, the villain!” many cried.

“Can yer see ‘im, Alfie, ‘e’s on ‘is way to ‘is doom?!” cried another, hoisting his child up on to his shoulder to get a better look.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” began Toad when the press became so close that the constables who had now taken charge of him were brought to a halt, “may I take this opportunity of thanking you for coming today, because I want to say that
—”

“Wot’s ‘e on abaht?” cried one.

“Madam,” said Toad, “what I am on about, as you put it, is this
—”

But whatever it was, no one ever knew, for the hapless Toad was swiftly escorted through the throng and hauled into the Court House. There he was secured in a cage of iron bars set especially in the antechamber so that those who had paid 2/6d or more for their seats might have a preliminary view.

It was only then, as the crowd peered at him as they might some wild and exotic beast in the Town’s Zoological Gardens, that poor Toad began to understand the true nature of his awful plight.

There before him were the signs on the three great doors that Mole had seen during his visit before Christmas: “Legal Gentlemen and Witnesses”, “The Judge” and finally “The Condemned”.

It was the last one that brought Toad’s spirit low and caused him to slump down on the metal stool, which was the only furniture in his cage.

“‘E’s stopped speakin’ and ‘e’s sittin’!”

“‘E’s thinkin’.”

Toad saw only their feet, for he was suddenly too fearful, too daunted, to look up.

“The Condemned,” it said, and that he must surely be. He was alone, without friends, without hope.

“Toad!”

Then again,
“TOAD!”

He looked up in astonishment, for the voice he heard was none other than Mole’s!

“Toad, it’s me!”

Toad blinked in astonishment, but had the presence of mind not to give the game away. For there was Mole, and near him Ratty, and not far off Otter, in the disguise of peasant yeomanry.

“We shan’t desert you, Toad. We shall find a way to get you free, I’m sure we shall!”

It was all the Mole had time to whisper before the crowd surged forward and he felt it best to sink back into it to avoid being noticed and recognised.