Toad Triumphant (4 page)

It had been Mole’s firm intention after his frustrating interview with Toad to forget his own worries and go straight to the Badger to express his concern about their mutual friend’s sudden lapse into behaviour that seemed likely to take him back into his bad old ways.

But deep and abiding though the Mole’s sense of concern and responsibility for others was, on this occasion his own concerns got the better of him. He reached the bridge, beyond which the path to the Badger’s home lay, but went no further. He paused for a time, stared down into the mysterious depths of the River, and that wistful and disquieting mood that had first led him to Toad’s overtook him once more.

He turned back and made his lonely and unhappy way to Mole End. There, refusing all conversation with his Nephew, he sought comfort in sleep.

Before long it was the Mole rather than Toad who had become a cause of concern along the River Bank, for it was plain he had not been his normal cheerful self for many weeks past. His Nephew knew it, the Water Rat knew it, everyone along the River Bank knew it: why, even
he
seemed to know it. But none of them, not even the Mole himself, seemed to know quite why.

His Nephew had no explanation, and none of the Mole’s friends seemed able to help. The Water Rat, for example, could make no sense of it at all and grew quite irritable and impatient as the Mole’s gloominess and lack of interest in life continued, while Toad had time only for his own grand plans.

But Nephew did not give up easily, especially where the welfare of the Mole was concerned. No one in all the world meant more to him and he would leave no stone unturned, no course of action untried, in his efforts to help the Mole back to normality. So he decided to take his courage in his hands and call upon Mr Badger. The wisest of animals, the Badger had lived there longer than any of them, remembering a past none of them had ever known. Indeed, he was the only remaining animal living who could remember Toad’s father.

Nephew had visited the Badger a good few times alone, yet he always felt a sense of awe as he approached his house. It was not only that the Badger’s moods were unpredictable — on occasion he chose not to answer the door at all — but also the sense of darkness and danger that the Wild Wood inspired in the hearts of those who did not live there. Even in broad daylight on a summer’s day the place seemed dark, the trees huge, and what gaps there were between the trees filled with sinister, shifting shadows; while the rustling thickets, near and far, seemed to creak and groan with ill intent.

So when he had made his way to the centre of the Wild Wood that day and had finally built up the courage to knock at the Badger’s door, he listened to the sound of movement inside, and then the bolts and chains being drawn and undone, with considerable relief.

Any fears regarding the Badger’s response were soon dispelled, for he held the Mole in particular affection, and when Nephew explained the seriousness of the situation and his concern that no one had been able to help, the Badger needed little urging to forgo all else and depart for Mole End immediately, leading Nephew by the secret ways of the Wild Wood in silence, deep in contemplation.

When they arrived at Mole End, the Mole, ever courteous, served tea, and it was some time before the Badger felt he could get to the point.

“That fact is, Mole, that I’ve come to see you because I understand you are somewhat down in the dumps, and it’s no good denying the fact. I thought you might care to unburden yourself to me?”

“O, I know you mean it for the best, Badger, and believe me I am greatly honoured that you have made this call on me, but I assure you there is nothing wrong,” responded the Mole.

“Nothing at all?” queried the Badger, rather stumped by the Mole’s calm denials.

“Nothing, really nothing,” averred the Mole before adding, to change the subject, “now, please, have another cup of tea. Nephew, put that kettle on again and bring out that extra plate of cucumber sandwiches I prepared earlier —”

The Badger sighed, seeing that for now he could do nothing more. Though the Mole was putting on a brave face, the Badger could see the truth in his eyes: a definite gloominess and even, he told himself unhappily, a certain despair.

In the days that followed this well-meaning attempt to get to the bottom of the Mole’s problem he seemed to decline yet further and nothing anyone could say or do made any difference.

A few nights later, when Nephew was away fulfilling a kindness for Toad, the Mole took a nocturnal walk. By what starry tear-stained routes he wandered that night none will ever know The alarm would certainly have been raised by Nephew had he been at Mole End, but, fatally, he was not. So no one witnessed the Mole’s distracted wanderings along the River and in the Wild Wood, over the rough ground of the open fields and along the uncut hedgerows in the black shadows of deepest night; no one saw his wild gaze searching the shifting stars and moon as he grew ever more tired and cold, unable to put a name to the despair he felt.

Perhaps he paused along the way to rest his weary head and aching limbs, hoping still to find an answer to that which worried him. None can tell. However it was, and however he got there, dawn found him sitting upon the obscure and reedy bank west of the island, that mysterious eyot that lies just a little way above the dangerous weir, whose threatening roar can be heard so plainly from that dark spot.

There sat the Mole, disconsolate among the reeds, his feet dangling in a back-eddy of water, his eyes gazing with fatal fascination upon the faster-flowing current a few yards out. This was no place for a land animal to be, nor was it one where even a strong swimmer, such as the Otter, or the Water Rat, would lightly go and sit, wetting his feet as the Mole now did.

There, alone and miserable, with the other inhabitants of the River Bank unaware of the crisis, the Mole slumped among the swaying reeds, drifting dangerously between sleep and wakefulness. By the time morning came, it was not just the Mole’s feet that were in the water, but much of the lower half of his body, such that a watching animal might have thought that he was about to slip in the water for a swim — a very foolhardy swim, and one that might easily prove rather more final than most swims are meant to be.

Yet the Mole was not entirely alone and unobserved.

“‘Ere! What’s ‘is game then?” hissed a common and vulgar voice among the shadows of the vegetation a little higher up the bank from the Mole.

The question was answered by a creature whose voice was no less insinuating and sibilant.

“That’s Mr Mole of Mole End, if my eyes don’t deceive me, and ‘e’s asking for trouble.”

They were two stoats, those heartless and treacherous animals that inhabit the Wild Wood, out on a day’s hunt for mischief and opportunity.

“Funny place to take a dip,” said the first laconically.

“That won’t be a dip, chum, that’ll be a plunge.”

“Let’s watch and see what ‘appens.”

There was a period of silence as the Mole slipped perceptibly further into the water.

“Pound to a penny ‘e won’t surface more than once if ‘e goes over the weir.”

“Yer jokin’. ‘E’ll not get that far alive —”

And so did those wretched animals make mock of the Mole’s misery, and make wagers upon its outcome. It was not kindness that made them finally desist and hurry off to inform Mr Badger of the Mole’s plight, but pecuniary advantage. They hoped that the Badger might reward them for their trouble, perhaps five pounds sterling or so.

‘Five pounds. That’s about the worth of Mole to Badger and all those other animals, I reckon.”

The Badger immediately set off to where the Mole was, by now nearly submerged, and having dragged his friend from the water, with more hindrance than help from the stoats, he came to certain conclusions about the affair, and made certain decisions, the most important of which was that the matter must not be talked about by any of them to anyone.

“If a word of this
private
business gets abroad,” warned the Badger, “there will not only be no question of five pounds, five shillings or five pence, but the small matter of me pursuing the animal who talks of it and driving him from the River Bank forever! Is that clearly understood?”

“Yes, sir, Mr Badger, sir. You can rely on us; mum is certainly the word where we’re concerned!” whined the cowardly stoats, who sang a very different tune with Mr Badger than they had while watching the defenceless Mr Mole.

“Let it be so!” said the Badger darkly as the stoats scampered off.

He turned his attention back to his friend the Mole, insisting that he should come back to the Wild Wood, and there be cared for in his rough but comfortable home, where perhaps the truth of what had happened might come out.

“No, really, I’m p-p-perfectly all right,” the Mole insisted, his teeth chattering now with shock as well as cold as the Badger took off his waistcoat and draped it round him.

“No you’re not, Mole,” said the Badger firmly, “and my home is a good deal nearer than your own. Now you come with me.”

“But really, B-B-Badger I — I —”

How frail he seemed then to the Badger, and how close to tears.

“Come on, old fellow, you lean on my arm and I’ll have you by a warm fire with your feet up in no time at all!”

“Well, I — p—perhaps it’s for the b-best,” said the Mole. ,,I do feel very tired, I really d-d-do.”

The Badger put a reassuring arm about him and only then did the poor Mole finally sigh and lower his head, and sob out for the misery that had been so long in finding its expression.

“Come on, old chap,” said the Badger thickly, for he was much moved by the Mole’s open tears. “Come back and tell me what it is that troubles you.”

The Badger put the Mole in a small but comfortable spare room, and here the Mole slept non-stop for two whole days after his ordeal. Then he began to emerge into a more waking state, to sit up in bed, and to take in the details of the Badger’s spare room — a room he had never seen before, or even knew existed.

It was full of old mementoes and reminders of relatives no River-banker knew that the Badger had, and of pictures of places to which no animal thereabouts could ever have guessed the Badger had ever been. But there were other even more intriguing objects, the significance of which was unclear to the Mole. A few items of clothing hanging from a peg, clothes that seemed rather too small-for the Badger to wear now and which, he supposed, must have been articles he wore when young. Altogether more mysterious was the calendar that hung above the bed, many years out of date, being of a year somewhat prior to the Mole’s own arrival at the River Bank. Certain days in July and August of the year concerned were circled, and on the last day of September, in a hand that was certainly the Badger’s own, these cryptic words were scribed:
“The Final Date”.