Toad Triumphant (15 page)

· VII ·

At the Sign of the Hat and Boot

The weeks that followed the Rat and the Mole’s decision to continue their journey by way of the tributary they had discovered, were among the most exciting and happiest the Mole could remember, amply fulfilling his early expectations of the expedition.

The Rat, being a practical animal little given to expressions of sentiment, was disinclined to speak in dramatic terms, preferring at the end of each day’s doings to sum things up with brief phrases such as “that was a close shave” and “not for the faint-hearted” or, as was sometimes the case, “a rum go”.

As for happiness, he confined its expression to pleasurable sighs and agreeable silences, with, on a very few occasions, the addition of some such sentiment as, “Well Mole, old fellow, I think this is proving to be well worthwhile.”

On rarer occasions still the Rat would forget himself and make up a shanty-like song, just as he had in his younger days when the Mole first knew him, and half hum and half sing it, with words to match the mood and moment.

The Mole had none of the Rat’s reservations and, apart from the “close shaves”, he expressed his pleasure and joy at the many things they saw and did, and chatted away most contentedly when the day was done and they were preparing their encampment for the night.

The country they passed through was hillier than they were used to, and more given to undergrowth and heath, and the River’s flow was a little faster. Here and there where its turns were sharp, deep pools had formed whose cold and peaty depths yielded little to the sun, remaining opaque and mysterious. In such places the air could be chill and dank, and where the bank was tangled and overgrown there was a permanent impression of evening coming, even on a sunny day.

“We’ve not yet gone as far as you might think, Mole. That’s because we can’t see much beyond the banks, and the River’s route twists and turns a good deal here, giving a false impression of distance travelled,” he explained a few days into this phase of the journey.

The Rat had to navigate with care, for such was the flow of the water, and the sudden turns in its course, that they could quite suddenly find themselves beset by gusting, fluky winds, on waters whose surface was rough and choppy and whose currents had a will of their own. For this reason, and because in the Rat’s view the River was beginning to have about it the smell of coming challenge and even danger, they proceeded slowly and on some days chose to stay where they were.

Once they reached more open countryside they saw no purpose or pleasure in hurrying along and seeing nothing, especially as the weather had turned hot. The bank was hardening and drying as they went, and they took care to moor their craft out of the sunshine, lest their provisions suffer too much from the heat, their butter grow rancid, and the water they carried become too warm to be refreshing.

The Mole, the expedition’s cellarman as well as victualler, adopted a variety of devices to keep things cool —his first duty on stopping being to lower certain of the provisions into the water, wrapped in waterproof paper where necessary and attached by string for easy retrieval.

They also took care to set their camp in such a way that they could keep a good eye on all of it at all times. They had heard that the weasels and stoats they were likely to come across were even more rough and treacherous than those they knew from the Wild Wood.

“Be careful, Ratty,” the Otter had warned, “my grandfather told me that many a traveller who voyaged as far as the upper reaches never came back to tell their tale —”

They had a goodly stock of dry goods and iron rations set aside against emergencies, and when their initial supply of fresh produce ran out, they did their best to maintain a varied diet. It was the season of salads and fresh green growth, and the Mole could not pass a clump of mint or a raft of water-cress without pausing awhile to put some by to have with their meal later in the day.

Fresh dairy produce proved more difficult to find, and for a week or two they had none at all. But just when they were beginning to despair of ever tasting milk again, the River came to the end of its run through uninhabited heathland and brought them to a farm with a water-driven mill. Here they were made welcome and most comfortable for two nights in a barn, the farmer being away for a day or two on business, and his wife and daughter more than content to entertain the travellers.

They were amused to find that stories of the River Bank and its inhabitants were well known in those parts, and in particular of the “famous Mr Toad of Toad Hall”.

“You mean the infamous and notorious Mr Toad, do you not?” said the Rat, thinking they had made some mistake.

“Indeed not, sir,” responded the farmer’s wife heartily “and you must be thinking of a different gentleman to call him so. Why Mr Toad single-handedly saved the Town from destruction with his courage and skill at the controls of the flying machine he bravely piloted —”

“I really must protest —” began the Rat before the Mole restrained him and let their hostess continue.

“Aye, you’re right, sir,” said she warmly; “I should have said
very
bravely should I not?”

“Indeed,” said the Mole, his restraining hand on the Rat’s arm still firm.

“But then again,” said her daughter, “the tale I like about that Mr Toad is how he lived for several months with the High Judge, not letting on who he was at all. All free and for nothing!”

“That was clever and cunning, that was, and whereas some might say it weren’t right to do as he did, others would say that that High Judge — O, he’s a terrible cold man, he is, and do stand so on his rights — had it coming to him. And so you say you know Mr Toad, and he might even recognize you if he passed you by in his motor-car?”

“He hasn’t got a —”

“He certainly would,” said the Mole before the Rat could spoil things, “though, of course, he’s far too busy and important to have time to say hello to common folk like us!”

“Now that’s a pity,” rejoined the farmer’s wife confidentially “for I always say if folk can’t find time to pass the time of day there’s summat wrong with the way they’re living. ‘Course, in the old days we got a lot more boats and craft up this way but then they built that canal, and His High Judgeship blocked up the entrance to the River —”

“You do call this part the River then?” said the Rat, for the point had taxed them somewhat.

“Indeed we do. That shallow stagnant pond of a thing they call the River down Town way is nothing of the sort and never was. No, if it’s the real River you’re after, then you’re on the right track here. Mind you —”

Her face darkened.

“Yes?” queried the Water Rat, always eager for information about the River and its ways.

“Well, I’ve no need to say it to a knowledgeable nautical gentleman like you, sir, but you’ll not be taking the craft past the Hat and Boot Tavern up Lathbury way will you?”

“And why not?” asked the Mole, who rather feared he already knew the answer.

“You mean you don’t know?” she replied, taken aback.

“Why that
particular
tavern?” said the Rat.

“Well, they’m in a better position to answer that, sir, if they’ve a mind to talk about it —”

“— or talk at all,” added her daughter with a meaningful look.

“You wouldn’t mind telling us, would you?” said the Mole.

“It’s not summat us around here talk a lot of— I only mentioned it ‘cos I thought you knew already. You ask at the Hat and Boot, they’ll —” She busied herself about the place, plainly unwilling to say more.

Recognizing that it was time to press on with their journey the Rat and the Mole took their leave and, laden with fresh supplies, made their way back to their boats. But as they were casting off, the farmer’s daughter came down to see them with some sandwiches she had made wrapped up in cloth tied with a ribbon.

“I’m sorry my Ma went quiet an’ that but she comes from Lathbury way herself and don’t talk of such things, like a lot of her generation.”

“Is there really danger ahead?” asked the Rat. “Is that what she meant?”

“Not up as far as the Tavern there ain’t,” said she, “but I wouldn’t venture further ‘n that, not in so frail a craft as this, any road.”

“No?” said the Rat. “We were thinking —”A look of alarm came into the young girl’s eyes.

“Don’t think of goin’ further, promise you won’t, ‘cos she’ll have you for supper as quick as a flash.”

“Who will?” said the Mole, very much fearing that he already knew.

“The Lathbury Pike, sir,” said she in a very hushed and fearful voice. “She be active again.

As they thanked her for the sandwiches, and the advice, and set off up the River once again, they heard her final despairing call:

“Don’t go up past the Tavern, sirs; I wish you’d promise you wouldn’t!”

The Mole and the Rat waved, and called reassuringly back, but they made no promises, for if an expedition curtailed itself at mere speculation and rumour, or on the basis of local fears and superstitions, nowhere in the world that was backward and uncivilized would have ever been explored.

Their journey now took them past a series of deserted villages — some no more than raised terraces of grass across which sheep and cow now grazed, others more substantial affairs of broken homesteads and the ruins of ecclesiastical buildings and old factories of bygone times, with broken chimneys, boiler rooms, and rusting iron that lay where it had fallen or been piled decades before.

Then too there were ancient woods through which the water course wound its lonely way whose decayed and once-pollarded trees and acres of uniform younger growth spoke of a time when the woodland crafts were practised more than they were now Here charcoal burners had once worked in the summer months, and basket makers had cut the osiers and sedges and stacked them up to dry.

Old jetties, rotten now, were collapsing into the water, and here and there a thick-planked wooden barge was pulled up onto the bank, or lay half in the water and half out, far beyond the hope of salvage.

Yet never once did this ruin and decay seem gloomy or depressing to the two enterprising explorers. For nature was busily in the process of claiming back what had once been taken and then abandoned, and in the very decay and ruin of what they saw was new growth, the green shoots of new life yet to come. As in an old barge they passed, its split and broken prow glorious with the shining yellow blooms of marsh marigold; and the bank of a deserted railway near which they made their camp for three whole days, which was home to bats and sand martins, which flew and squeaked and made merry by dusk and by dawn.

As for the once-worked woodlands that they found, the gaps where trees had been felled were filling up already and the piles of wood spoil rotting back to earth.

“Look there!” cried the Mole with much delight, pointing again and again that the Rat might share his pleasure.

But it was not the broken bricks of some small mill he pointed at, but the honeysuckle that grew now in between, whose dew-dropped blooms caught the morning sun; not the old bridge that arced across their river-way that he meant the Rat to see, but the ragwort that clung now to the mortar of the bricks and competed with the bramble that was spreading all along; not even the rusting gate that blocked a forgotten bridle path through a forgotten field, but the blackbird that perched atop it, and the butterflies that tumbled in amongst the vivid purple blooms of the lilacs that already sought to push the gate aside forever.