prompt:
Chapter: The Water Rat was restless, and he did not exactly know why. To all
appearance the summer's pomp was still at fullest height, and although
in the tilled acres green had given way to gold, though rowans were
reddening, and the woods were dashed here and there with a tawny
fierceness, yet light and warmth and colour were still present in
undiminished measure, clean of any chilly premonitions of the passing
year. But the constant chorus of the orchards and hedges had shrunk to
a casual evensong from a few yet unwearied performers; the robin was
beginning to assert himself once more; and there was a feeling in the
air of change and departure. The cuckoo, of course, had long been
silent; but many another feathered friend, for months a part of the
familiar landscape and its small society, was missing too, and it
seemed that the ranks thinned steadily day by day. Rat, ever observant
of all winged movement, saw that it was taking daily a southing
tendency; and even as he lay in bed at night he thought he could make
out, passing in the darkness overhead, the beat and quiver of
impatient pinions, obedient to the peremptory call.

Nature's Grand Hotel has its Season, like the others. As the guests one
by one pack, pay, and depart, and the seats at the _table-d'hote_ shrink
pitifully at each succeeding meal; as suites of rooms are closed, carpets
taken up, and waiters sent away; those boarders who are staying on, _en
pension_, until the next year's full re-opening, cannot help being
somewhat affected by all these flittings and farewells, this eager
discussion of plans, routes, and fresh quarters, this daily shrinkage in
the stream of comradeship. One gets unsettled, depressed, and inclined to
be querulous. Why this craving for change? Why not stay on quietly here,
like us, and be jolly? You don't know this hotel out of the season, and
what fun we have among ourselves, we fellows who remain and see the whole
interesting year out. All very true, no doubt, the others always reply;
we quite envy you--and some other year perhaps--but just now we have
engagements--and there's the bus at the door--our time is up! So they
depart, with a smile and a nod, and we miss them, and feel resentful. The
Rat was a self-sufficing sort of animal, rooted to the land, and, whoever
went, he stayed; still, he could not help noticing what was in the air,
and feeling some of its influence in his bones.

It was difficult to settle down to anything seriously, with all this
flitting going on. Leaving the water-side, where rushes stood thick
and tall in a stream that was becoming sluggish and low, he wandered
country-wards, crossed a field or two of pasturage already looking
dusty and parched, and thrust into the great sea of wheat, yellow,
wavy, and murmurous, full of quiet motion and small whisperings. Here
he often loved to wander, through the forest of stiff strong stalks
that carried their own golden sky away over his head--a sky that was
always dancing, shimmering, softly talking; or swaying strongly to
the passing wind and recovering itself with a toss and a merry laugh.
Here, too, he had many small friends, a society complete in itself,
leading full and busy lives, but always with a spare moment to gossip,
and exchange news with a visitor. To-day, however, though they were
civil enough, the field-mice and harvest mice seemed pre-occupied.
Many were digging and tunnelling busily; others, gathered together in
small groups, examined plans and drawings of small flats, stated to be
desirable and compact, and situated conveniently near the Stores. Some
were hauling out dusty trunks and dress-baskets, others were already
elbow-deep packing their belongings; while everywhere piles and
bundles of wheat, oats, barley, beech-mast and nuts, lay about ready
for transport.

"Here's old Ratty!" they cried as soon as they saw him. "Come and bear
a hand, Rat, and don't stand about idle!"

"What sort of games are you up to?" said the Water Rat severely. "You
know it isn't time to be thinking of winter quarters yet, by a long
way!"

"O yes, we know that," explained a field-mouse rather shamefacedly;
"but it's always as well to be in good time, isn't it? We really
_must_ get all the furniture and baggage and stores moved out of this
before those horrid machines begin clicking round the fields; and
then, you know, the best flats get picked up so quickly nowadays, and
if you're late you have to put up with _anything_; and they want such
a lot of doing up, too, before they're fit to move into. Of course,
we're early, we know that; but we're only just making a start."

"O, bother _starts_," said the Rat. "It's a splendid day. Come for a
row, or a stroll along the hedges, or a picnic in the woods, or
something."

"Well, I _think_ not _to-day_, thank you," replied the field-mouse
hurriedly. "Perhaps some _other_ day--when we've more _time_--"

The Rat, with a snort of contempt, swung round to go, tripped over a
hat-box, and fell, with undignified remarks.

"If people would be more careful," said a field-mouse rather stiffly,
"and look where they're going, people wouldn't hurt themselves--and
forget themselves. Mind that hold-all, Rat! You'd better sit down
somewhere. In an hour or two we may be more free to attend to you."

"You won't be 'free' as you call it, much this side of Christmas, I
can see that," retorted the Rat grumpily, as he picked his way out of
the field.

He returned somewhat despondently to his river again--his faithful,
steady-going old river, which never packed up, flitted, or went into
winter quarters.

In the osiers which fringed the bank he spied a swallow sitting.
Presently it was joined by another, and then by a third; and the
birds, fidgeting restlessly on their bough, talked together earnestly
and low.

"What, _already_," said the Rat, strolling up to them. "What's the
hurry? I call it simply ridiculous."

"O, we're not off yet, if that's what you mean," replied the first
swallow. "We're only making plans and arranging things. Talking it
over, you know--what route we're taking this year, and where we'll
stop, and so on. That's half the fun!"

"Fun?" said the Rat; "now that's just what I don't understand. If
you've _got_ to leave this pleasant place, and your friends who will
miss you, and your snug homes that you've just settled into, why, when
the hour strikes I've no doubt you'll go bravely, and face all the
trouble and discomfort and change and newness, and make believe that
you're not very unhappy. But to want to talk about it, or even think
about it, till you really need--"

"No, you don't understand, naturally," said the second swallow.
"First, we feel it stirring within us, a sweet unrest; then back come
the recollections one by one, like homing pigeons. They flutter
through our dreams at night, they fly with us in our wheelings and
circlings by day. We hunger to inquire of each other, to compare notes
and assure ourselves that it was all really true, as one by one the
scents and sounds and names of long-forgotten places come gradually
back and beckon to us."

"Couldn't you stop on for just this year?" suggested the Water Rat,
wistfully. "We'll all do our best to make you feel at home. You've no
idea what good times we have here, while you are far away."

"I tried 'stopping on' one year," said the third swallow. "I had grown
so fond of the place that when the time came I hung back and let the
others go on without me. For a few weeks it was all well enough, but
afterwards, O the weary length of the nights! The shivering, sunless
days! The air so clammy and chill, and not an insect in an acre of it!
No, it was no good; my courage broke down, and one cold, stormy night
I took wing, flying well inland on account of the strong easterly
gales. It was snowing hard as I beat through the passes of the great
mountains, and I had a stiff fight to win through; but never shall I
forget the blissful feeling of the hot sun again on my back as I sped
down to the lakes that lay so blue and placid below me, and the taste
of my first fat insect! The past was like a bad dream; the future was
all happy holiday as I moved southwards week by week, easily, lazily,
lingering as long as I dared, but always heeding the call! No, I had
had my warning; never again did I think of disobedience."

"Ah, yes, the call of the South, of the South!" twittered the other
two dreamily. "Its songs, its hues, its radiant air! O, do you
remember--" and, forgetting the Rat, they slid into passionate
reminiscence, while he listened fascinated, and his heart burned
within him. In himself, too, he knew that it was vibrating at last,
that chord hitherto dormant and unsuspected. The mere chatter of these
southern-bound birds, their pale and second-hand reports, had yet
power to awaken this wild new sensation and thrill him through and
through with it; what would one moment of the real thing work in
him--one passionate touch of the real southern sun, one waft of the
authentic odour? With closed eyes he dared to dream a moment in full
abandonment, and when he looked again the river seemed steely and
chill, the green fields grey and lightless. Then his loyal heart
seemed to cry out on his weaker self for its treachery.

"Why do you ever come back, then, at all?" he demanded of the swallows
jealously. "What do you find to attract you in this poor drab little
country?"

"And do you think," said the first swallow, "that the other call is
not for us too, in its due season? The call of lush meadow-grass, wet
orchards, warm, insect-haunted ponds, of browsing cattle, of
haymaking, and all the farm-buildings clustering round the House of
the perfect Eaves?"

"Do you suppose," asked the second one, "that you are the only living
thing that craves with a hungry longing to hear the cuckoo's note
again?"

"In due time," said the third, "we shall be home-sick once more for
quiet water-lilies swaying on the surface of an English stream. But
to-day all that seems pale and thin and very far away. Just now our
blood dances to other music."

They fell a-twittering among themselves once more, and this time
their intoxicating babble was of violet seas, tawny sands, and
lizard-haunted walls.

Restlessly the Rat wandered off once more, climbed the slope that rose
gently from the north bank of the river, and lay looking out towards
the great ring of Downs that barred his vision further southwards--his
simple horizon hitherto, his Mountains of the Moon, his limit behind
which lay nothing he had cared to see or to know. To-day, to him
gazing South with a new-born need stirring in his heart, the clear sky
over their long low outline seemed to pulsate with promise; to-day,
the unseen was everything, the unknown the only real fact of life. On
this side of the hills was now the real blank, on the other lay the
crowded and coloured panorama that his inner eye was seeing so
clearly. What seas lay beyond, green, leaping, and crested! What
sun-bathed coasts, along which the white villas glittered against the
olive woods! What quiet harbours, thronged with gallant shipping bound
for purple islands of wine and spice, islands set low in languorous
waters!

He rose and descended river-wards once more; then changed his mind and
sought the side of the dusty lane. There, lying half-buried in the
thick, cool under-hedge tangle that bordered it, he could muse on the
metalled road and all the wondrous world that it led to; on all the
wayfarers, too, that might have trodden it, and the fortunes and
adventures they had gone to seek or found unseeking--out there,
beyond--beyond!

Footsteps fell on his ear, and the figure of one that walked somewhat
wearily came into view; and he saw that it was a Rat, and a very dusty
one. The wayfarer, as he reached him, saluted with a gesture of
courtesy that had something foreign about it--hesitated a moment--then
with a pleasant smile turned from the track and sat down by his side
in the cool herbage. He seemed tired, and the Rat let him rest
unquestioned, understanding something of what was in his thoughts;
knowing, too, the value all animals attach at times to mere silent
companionship, when the weary muscles slacken and the mind marks time.

The wayfarer was lean and keen-featured, and somewhat bowed at the
shoulders; his paws were thin and long, his eyes much wrinkled at the
corners, and he wore small gold ear rings in his neatly-set well-shaped
ears. His knitted jersey was of a faded blue, his breeches, patched and
stained, were based on a blue foundation, and his small belongings that
he carried were tied up in a blue cotton handkerchief.

When he had rested awhile the stranger sighed, snuffed the air, and
looked about him.

"That was clover, that warm whiff on the breeze," he remarked; "and
those are cows we hear cropping the grass behind us and blowing softly
between mouthfuls. There is a sound of distant reapers, and yonder
rises a blue line of cottage smoke against the woodland. The river
runs somewhere close by, for I hear the call of a moorhen, and I see
by your build that you're a freshwater mariner. Everything seems
asleep, and yet going on all the time. It is a goodly life that you
lead, friend; no doubt the best in the world, if only you are strong
enough to lead it!"

"Yes, it's _the_ life, the only life, to live," responded the Water
Rat dreamily, and without his usual whole-hearted conviction.

"I did not say exactly that," replied the stranger cautiously; "but no
doubt it's the best. I've tried it, and I know. And because I've just
tried it--six months of it--and know it's the best, here am I,
footsore and hungry, tramping away from it, tramping southwards,
following the old call, back to the old life, _the_ life which is mine
and which will not let me go."

"Is this, then, yet another of them?" mused the Rat. "And where have
you just come from?" he asked. He hardly dared to ask where he was
bound for; he seemed to know the answer only too well.

"Nice little farm," replied the wayfarer, briefly. "Upalong in that
direction--" he nodded northwards. "Never mind about it. I had
everything I could want--everything I had any right to expect of life,
and more; and here I am! Glad to be here all the same, though, glad
to be here! So many miles further on the road, so many hours nearer to
my heart's desire!"

His shining eyes held fast to the horizon, and he seemed to be
listening for some sound that was wanting from that inland acreage,
vocal as it was with the cheerful music of pasturage and farmyard.

"You are not one of _us_," said the Water Rat, "nor yet a farmer; nor
even, I should judge, of this country."

"Right," replied the stranger. "I'm a seafaring rat, I am, and the
port I originally hail from is Constantinople, though I'm a sort of a
foreigner there too, in a manner of speaking. You will have heard of
Constantinople, friend? A fair city and an ancient and glorious one.
And you may have heard too, of Sigurd, King of Norway, and how he
sailed thither with sixty ships, and how he and his men rode up
through streets all canopied in their honour with purple and gold; and
how the Emperor and Empress came down and banqueted with him on
board his ship. When Sigurd returned home, many of his Northmen
remained behind and entered the Emperor's body-guard, and my ancestor,
a Norwegian born, stayed behind too, with the ships that Sigurd gave
the Emperor. Seafarers we have ever been, and no wonder; as for me,
the city of my birth is no more my home than any pleasant port between
there and the London River. I know them all, and they know me. Set me
down on any of their quays or foreshores, and I am home again."

"I suppose you go great voyages," said the Water Rat with growing
interest. "Months and months out of sight of land, and provisions
running short, and allowanced as to water, and your mind communing
with the mighty ocean, and all that sort of thing?"

"By no means," said the Sea Rat frankly. "Such a life as you describe
would not suit me at all. I'm in the coasting trade, and rarely out of
sight of land. It's the jolly times on shore that appeal to me, as
much as any seafaring. O, those southern seaports! The smell of them,
the riding-lights at night, the glamour!"

"Well, perhaps you have chosen the better way," said the Water Rat,
but rather doubtfully. "Tell me something of your coasting, then, if
you have a mind to, and what sort of harvest an animal of spirit might
hope to bring home from it to warm his latter days with gallant
memories by the fireside; for my life, I confess to you, feels to me
to-day somewhat narrow and circumscribed."

"My last voyage," began the Sea Rat, "that landed me eventually in
this country, bound with high hopes for my inland farm, will serve as
a good example of any of them, and, indeed, as an epitome of my
highly-coloured life. Family troubles, as usual, began it. The
domestic storm-cone was hoisted, and I shipped myself on board a small
trading vessel bound from Constantinople, by classic seas whose every
wave throbs with a deathless memory, to the Grecian Islands and the
Levant. Those were golden days and balmy nights! In and out of harbour
all the time--old friends everywhere--sleeping in some cool temple or
ruined cistern during the heat of the day--feasting and song after
sundown, under great stars set in a velvet sky! Thence we turned and
coasted up the Adriatic, its shores swimming in an atmosphere of
amber, rose, and aquamarine; we lay in wide landlocked harbours, we
roamed through ancient and noble cities, until at last one morning, as
the sun rose royally behind us, we rode into Venice down a path of
gold. O, Venice is a fine city, wherein a rat can wander at his ease
and take his pleasure! Or, when weary of wandering, can sit at the
edge of the Grand Canal at night, feasting with his friends, when the
air is full of music and the sky full of stars, and the lights flash
and shimmer on the polished steel prows of the swaying gondolas,
packed so that you could walk across the canal on them from side to
side! And then the food--do you like shell-fish? Well, well, we won't
linger over that now."

He was silent for a time; and the Water Rat, silent too and enthralled,
floated on dream-canals and heard a phantom song pealing high between
vaporous grey wave-lapped walls.

"Southwards we sailed again at last," continued the Sea Rat, "coasting
down the Italian shore, till finally we made Palermo, and there I
quitted for a long, happy spell on shore. I never stick too long to
one ship; one gets narrow-minded and prejudiced. Besides, Sicily is
one of my happy hunting-grounds. I know everybody there, and their
ways just suit me. I spent many jolly weeks in the island, staying
with friends upcountry. When I grew restless again I took advantage of
a ship that was trading to Sardinia and Corsica; and very glad I was
to feel the fresh breeze and the sea-spray in my face once more."

"But isn't it very hot and stuffy, down in the--hold, I think you call
it?" asked the Water Rat.

The seafarer looked at him with the suspicion of a wink. "I'm an old
hand," he remarked with much simplicity. "The captain's cabin's good
enough for me."

"It's a hard life, by all accounts," murmured the Rat, sunk in deep
thought.

"For the crew it is," replied the seafarer gravely, again with the
ghost of a wink.

"From Corsica," he went on, "I made use of a ship that was taking
wine to the mainland. We made Alassio in the evening, lay to, hauled
up our wine-casks, and hove them overboard, tied one to the other by a
long line. Then the crew took to the boats and rowed shorewards,
singing as they went, and drawing after them the long bobbing
procession of casks, like a mile of porpoises. On the sands they had
horses waiting, which dragged the casks up the steep street of the
little town with a fine rush and clatter and scramble. When the last
cask was in, we went and refreshed and rested, and sat late into the
night, drinking with our friends, and next morning I took to the great
olive-woods for a spell and a rest. For now I had done with islands
for the time, and ports and shipping were plentiful; so I led a lazy
life among the peasants, lying and watching them work, or stretched
high on the hillside with the blue Mediterranean far below me. And so
at length, by easy stages, and partly on foot, partly by sea, to
Marseilles, and the meeting of old shipmates, and the visiting of
great ocean-bound vessels, and feasting once more. Talk of
shell-fish! Why, sometimes I dream of the shell-fish of Marseilles,
and wake up crying!"

[Illustration: _"It's a hard life, by all accounts," murmured the
Rat_]

"That reminds me," said the polite Water Rat; "you happened to mention
that you were hungry, and I ought to have spoken earlier. Of course,
you will stop and take your mid-day meal with me? My hole is close by;
it is some time past noon, and you are very welcome to whatever there
is."

"Now I call that kind and brotherly of you," said the Sea Rat. "I was
indeed hungry when I sat down, and ever since I inadvertently happened
to mention shell-fish, my pangs have been extreme. But couldn't you
fetch it along out here? I am none too fond of going under hatches,
unless I'm obliged to; and then, while we eat, I could tell you more
concerning my voyages and the pleasant life I lead--at least, it is
very pleasant to me, and by your attention I judge it commends itself
to you; whereas if we go indoors it is a hundred to one that I shall
presently fall asleep."

"That is indeed an excellent suggestion," said the Water Rat, and
hurried off home. There he got out the luncheon-basket and packed a
simple meal, in which, remembering the stranger's origin and
preferences, he took care to include a yard of long French bread, a
sausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which lay down and
cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask wherein lay bottled
sunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes. Thus laden, he
returned with all speed, and blushed for pleasure at the old seaman's
commendations of his taste and judgment, as together they unpacked the
basket and laid out the contents on the grass by the roadside.

The Sea Rat, as soon as his hunger was somewhat assuaged, continued
the history of his latest voyage, conducting his simple hearer from
port to port of Spain, landing him at Lisbon, Oporto, and Bordeaux,
introducing him to the pleasant harbours of Cornwall and Devon, and so
up the Channel to that final quayside, where, landing after winds long
contrary, storm-driven and weather-beaten, he had caught the first
magical hints and heraldings of another Spring, and, fired by these,
had sped on a long tramp inland, hungry for the experiment of life on
some quiet farmstead, very far from the weary beating of any sea.

Spellbound and quivering with excitement, the Water Rat followed the
Adventurer league by league, over stormy bays, through crowded
roadsteads, across harbour bars on a racing tide, up winding rivers
that hid their busy little towns round a sudden turn; and left him
with a regretful sigh planted at his dull inland farm, about which he
desired to hear nothing.

By this time their meal was over, and the Seafarer, refreshed and
strengthened, his voice more vibrant, his eye lit with a brightness that
seemed caught from some far-away sea-beacon, filled his glass with the
red and glowing vintage of the South, and, leaning towards the Water Rat,
compelled his gaze and held him, body and soul, while he talked. Those
eyes were of the changing foam-streaked grey-green of leaping Northern
seas; in the glass shone a hot ruby that seemed the very heart of the
South, beating for him who had courage to respond to its pulsation. The
twin lights, the shifting grey and the steadfast red, mastered the Water
Rat and held him bound, fascinated, powerless. The quiet world outside
their rays receded far away and ceased to be. And the talk, the wonderful
talk flowed on--or was it speech entirely, or did it pass at times into
song--chanty of the sailors weighing the dripping anchor, sonorous hum of
the shrouds in a tearing North-Easter, ballad of the fisherman hauling
his nets at sundown against an apricot sky, chords of guitar and
mandoline from gondola or caique? Did it change into the cry of the wind,
plaintive at first, angrily shrill as it freshened, rising to a tearing
whistle, sinking to a musical trickle of air from the leech of the
bellying sail? All these sounds the spellbound listener seemed to hear,
and with them the hungry complaint of the gulls and the sea-mews, the
soft thunder of the breaking wave, the cry of the protesting shingle.
Back into speech again it passed, and with beating heart he was following
the adventures of a dozen seaports, the fights, the escapes, the rallies,
the comradeships, the gallant undertakings; or he searched islands for
treasure, fished in still lagoons and dozed day-long on warm white sand.
Of deep-sea fishings he heard tell, and mighty silver gatherings of the
mile-long net; of sudden perils, noise of breakers on a moonless night,
or the tall bows of the great liner taking shape overhead through the
fog; of the merry home-coming, the headland rounded, the harbour lights
opened out; the groups seen dimly on the quay, the cheery hail, the
splash of the hawser; the trudge up the steep little street towards the
comforting glow of red-curtained windows.

Lastly, in his waking dream it seemed to him that the Adventurer had
risen to his feet, but was still speaking, still holding him fast with
his sea-grey eyes.

"And now," he was softly saying, "I take to the road again, holding on
southwestwards for many a long and dusty day; till at last I reach the
little grey sea town I know so well, that clings along one steep side
of the harbour. There through dark doorways you look down flights of
stone steps, overhung by great pink tufts of valerian and ending in a
patch of sparkling blue water. The little boats that lie tethered to
the rings and stanchions of the old sea-wall are gaily painted as
those I clambered in and out of in my own childhood; the salmon leap
on the flood tide, schools of mackerel flash and play past quay-sides
and foreshores, and by the windows the great vessels glide, night and
day, up to their moorings or forth to the open sea. There, sooner or
later, the ships of all seafaring nations arrive; and there, at its
destined hour, the ship of my choice will let go its anchor. I shall
take my time, I shall tarry and bide, till at last the right one lies
waiting for me, warped out into mid-stream, loaded low, her bowsprit
pointing down harbour. I shall slip on board, by boat or along hawser;
and then one morning I shall wake to the song and tramp of the
sailors, the clink of the capstan, and the rattle of the anchor-chain
coming merrily in. We shall break out the jib and the foresail, the
white houses on the harbour side will glide slowly past us as she
gathers steering-way, and the voyage will have begun! As she forges
towards the headland she will clothe herself with canvas; and then,
once outside, the sounding slap of great green seas as she heels to
the wind, pointing South!

"And you, you will come too, young brother; for the days pass, and
never return, and the South still waits for you. Take the adventure,
heed the call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes! 'Tis but a
banging of the door behind you, a blithesome step forward, and you are
out of the old life and into the new! Then some day, some day long
hence, jog home here if you will, when the cup has been drained and
the play has been played, and sit down by your quiet river with a
store of goodly memories for company. You can easily overtake me on
the road, for you are young, and I am ageing and go softly. I will
linger, and look back; and at last I will surely see you coming, eager
and light-hearted, with all the South in your face!"

The voice died away and ceased as an insect's tiny trumpet dwindles
swiftly into silence; and the Water Rat, paralysed and staring, saw at
last but a distant speck on the white surface of the road.

Mechanically he rose and proceeded to repack the luncheon-basket,
carefully and without haste. Mechanically he returned home, gathered
together a few small necessaries and special treasures he was fond of,
and put them in a satchel; acting with slow deliberation, moving about
the room like a sleep-walker; listening ever with parted lips. He
swung the satchel over his shoulder, carefully selected a stout stick
for his wayfaring, and with no haste, but with no hesitation at all,
he stepped across the threshold just as the Mole appeared at the door.

"Why, where are you off to, Ratty?" asked the Mole in great surprise,
grasping him by the arm.

"Going South, with the rest of them," murmured the Rat in a dreamy
monotone, never looking at him. "Seawards first and then on shipboard,
and so to the shores that are calling me!"

He pressed resolutely forward, still without haste, but with dogged
fixity of purpose; but the Mole, now thoroughly alarmed, placed
himself in front of him, and looking into his eyes saw that they
were glazed and set and turned a streaked and shifting grey--not his
friend's eyes, but the eyes of some other animal! Grappling with him
strongly he dragged him inside, threw him down, and held him.

The Rat struggled desperately for a few moments, and then his strength
seemed suddenly to leave him, and he lay still and exhausted, with
closed eyes, trembling. Presently the Mole assisted him to rise and
placed him in a chair, where he sat collapsed and shrunken into
himself, his body shaken by a violent shivering, passing in time into
an hysterical fit of dry sobbing. Mole made the door fast, threw the
satchel into a drawer and locked it, and sat down quietly on the table
by his friend, waiting for the strange seizure to pass. Gradually the
Rat sank into a troubled doze, broken by starts and confused
murmurings of things strange and wild and foreign to the unenlightened
Mole; and from that he passed into a deep slumber.

Very anxious in mind, the Mole left him for a time and busied himself
with household matters; and it was getting dark when he returned to
the parlour and found the Rat where he had left him, wide awake
indeed, but listless, silent, and dejected. He took one hasty glance
at his eyes; found them, to his great gratification, clear and dark
and brown again as before; and then sat down and tried to cheer him up
and help him to relate what had happened to him.

Poor Ratty did his best, by degrees, to explain things; but how could
he put into cold words what had mostly been suggestion? How recall,
for another's benefit, the haunting sea voices that had sung to him,
how reproduce at second-hand the magic of the Seafarer's hundred
reminiscences? Even to himself, now the spell was broken and the
glamour gone, he found it difficult to account for what had seemed,
some hours ago, the inevitable and only thing. It is not surprising,
then, that he failed to convey to the Mole any clear idea of what he
had been through that day.

To the Mole this much was plain: the fit, or attack, had passed away,
and had left him sane again, though shaken and cast down by the
reaction. But he seemed to have lost all interest for the time in the
things that went to make up his daily life, as well as in all pleasant
forecastings of the altered days and doings that the changing season
was surely bringing.

Casually, then, and with seeming indifference, the Mole turned his
talk to the harvest that was being gathered in, the towering wagons
and their straining teams, the growing ricks, and the large moon
rising over bare acres dotted with sheaves. He talked of the reddening
apples around, of the browning nuts, of jams and preserves and the
distilling of cordials; till by easy stages such as these he reached
midwinter, its hearty joys and its snug home life, and then he became
simply lyrical.

By degrees the Rat began to sit up and to join in. His dull eye
brightened, and he lost some of his listening air.

Presently the tactful Mole slipped away and returned with a pencil and
a few half-sheets of paper, which he placed on the table at his
friend's elbow.

"It's quite a long time since you did any poetry," he remarked. "You
might have a try at it this evening, instead of--well, brooding over
things so much. I've an idea that you'll feel a lot better when you've
got something jotted down--if it's only just the rhymes."

The Rat pushed the paper away from him wearily, but the discreet Mole
took occasion to leave the room, and when he peeped in again some time
later, the Rat was absorbed and deaf to the world; alternately
scribbling and sucking the top of his pencil. It is true that he
sucked a good deal more than he scribbled; but it was joy to the Mole
to know that the cure had at least begun.

The front door of the hollow tree faced eastwards, so Toad was called
at an early hour; partly by the bright sunlight streaming in on him,
partly by the exceeding coldness of his toes, which made him dream
that he was at home in bed in his own handsome room with the Tudor
window, on a cold winter's night, and his bed-clothes had got up,
grumbling and protesting they couldn't stand the cold any longer, and
had run downstairs to the kitchen fire to warm themselves; and he had
followed, on bare feet, along miles and miles of icy stone-paved
passages, arguing and beseeching them to be reasonable. He would
probably have been aroused much earlier, had he not slept for some
weeks on straw over stone flags, and almost forgotten the friendly
feeling of thick blankets pulled well up round the chin.

Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes first and his complaining toes next,
wondered for a moment where he was, looking round for familiar stone wall
and little barred window; then, with a leap of the heart, remembered
everything--his escape, his flight, his pursuit; remembered, first and
best thing of all, that he was free!

Free! The word and the thought alone were worth fifty blankets. He was
warm from end to end as he thought of the jolly world outside, waiting
eagerly for him to make his triumphal entrance, ready to serve him and
play up to him, anxious to help him and to keep him company, as it
always had been in days of old before misfortune fell upon him. He
shook himself and combed the dry leaves out of his hair with his
fingers; and, his toilet complete, marched forth into the comfortable
morning sun, cold but confident, hungry but hopeful, all nervous
terrors of yesterday dispelled by rest and sleep and frank and
heartening sunshine.

He had the world all to himself, that early summer morning. The dewy
woodland, as he threaded it, was solitary and still: the green fields
that succeeded the trees were his own to do as he liked with; the road
itself, when he reached it, in that loneliness that was everywhere,
seemed, like a stray dog, to be looking anxiously for company. Toad,
however, was looking for something that could talk, and tell him
clearly which way he ought to go. It is all very well, when you have a
light heart, and a clear conscience, and money in your pocket, and
nobody scouring the country for you to drag you off to prison again,
to follow where the road beckons and points, not caring whither. The
practical Toad cared very much indeed, and he could have kicked the
road for its helpless silence when every minute was of importance to
him.

The reserved rustic road was presently joined by a shy little brother in
the shape of a canal, which took its hand and ambled along by its side in
perfect confidence, but with the same tongue-tied, uncommunicative
attitude towards strangers. "Bother them!" said Toad to himself. "But,
anyhow, one thing's clear. They must both be coming _from_ somewhere,
and going _to_ somewhere. You can't get over that, Toad, my boy!" So
he marched on patiently by the water's edge.

Round a bend in the canal came plodding a solitary horse, stooping
forward as if in anxious thought. From rope traces attached to his
collar stretched a long line, taut, but dipping with his stride, the
further part of it dripping pearly drops. Toad let the horse pass, and
stood waiting for what the fates were sending him.

With a pleasant swirl of quiet water at its blunt bow the barge slid
up alongside of him, its gaily painted gunwale level with the
towing-path, its sole occupant a big stout woman wearing a linen
sun-bonnet, one brawny arm laid along the tiller.

"A nice morning, ma'am!" she remarked to Toad, as she drew up level
with him.

"I dare say it is, ma'am!" responded Toad politely, as he walked along
the tow-path abreast of her. "I dare say it is a nice morning to them
that's not in sore trouble, like what I am. Here's my married
daughter, she sends off to me post-haste to come to her at once; so
off I comes, not knowing what may be happening or going to happen, but
fearing the worst, as you will understand, ma'am, if you're a mother,
too. And I've left my business to look after itself--I'm in the
washing and laundering line, you must know, ma'am--and I've left my
young children to look after themselves, and a more mischievous and
troublesome set of young imps doesn't exist, ma'am; and I've lost all
my money, and lost my way, and as for what may be happening to my
married daughter, why, I don't like to think of it, ma'am!"

"Where might your married daughter be living, ma'am?" asked the
barge-woman.

"She lives near to the river, ma'am," replied Toad. "Close to a fine
house called Toad Hall, that's somewheres hereabouts in these parts.
Perhaps you may have heard of it."

"Toad Hall? Why, I'm going that way myself," replied the barge-woman.
"This canal joins the river some miles further on, a little above Toad
Hall; and then it's an easy walk. You come along in the barge with
me, and I'll give you a lift."

She steered the barge close to the bank, and Toad, with many humble
and grateful acknowledgments, stepped lightly on board and sat down
with great satisfaction. "Toad's luck again!" thought he. "I always
come out on top!"

"So you're in the washing business, ma'am?" said the barge-woman
politely, as they glided along. "And a very good business you've got
too, I dare say, if I'm not making too free in saying so."

"Finest business in the whole country," said Toad airily. "All the
gentry come to me--wouldn't go to any one else if they were paid, they
know me so well. You see, I understand my work thoroughly, and attend
to it all myself. Washing, ironing, clear-starching, making up gents'
fine shirts for evening wear--everything's done under my own eye!"

"But surely you don't _do_ all that work yourself, ma'am?" asked the
barge-woman respectfully.

"O, I have girls," said Toad lightly: "twenty girls or thereabouts,
always at work. But you know what _girls_ are, ma'am! Nasty little
hussies, that's what _I_ call 'em!"

"So do I, too," said the barge-woman with great heartiness. "But I
dare say you set yours to rights, the idle trollops! And are you
_very_ fond of washing?"

"I love it," said Toad. "I simply dote on it. Never so happy as when
I've got both arms in the wash-tub. But, then, it comes so easy to me!
No trouble at all! A real pleasure, I assure you, ma'am!"

"What a bit of luck, meeting you!" observed the barge-woman,
thoughtfully. "A regular piece of good fortune for both of us!"

"Why, what do you mean?" asked Toad, nervously.

"Well, look at me, now," replied the barge-woman. "_I_ like washing,
too, just the same as you do; and for that matter, whether I like it
or not I have got to do all my own, naturally, moving about as I do.
Now my husband, he's such a fellow for shirking his work and leaving
the barge to me, that never a moment do I get for seeing to my own
affairs. By rights he ought to be here now, either steering or
attending to the horse, though luckily the horse has sense enough to
attend to himself. Instead of which, he's gone off with the dog, to
see if they can't pick up a rabbit for dinner somewhere. Says he'll
catch me up at the next lock. Well, that's as may be--I don't trust
him, once he gets off with that dog, who's worse than he is. But
meantime, how am I to get on with my washing?"

"O, never mind about the washing," said Toad, not liking the subject.
"Try and fix your mind on that rabbit. A nice fat young rabbit, I'll
be bound. Got any onions?"

"I can't fix my mind on anything but my washing," said the barge-woman,
"and I wonder you can be talking of rabbits, with such a joyful prospect
before you. There's a heap of things of mine that you'll find in a corner
of the cabin. If you'll just take one or two of the most necessary
sort--I won't venture to describe them to a lady like you, but you'll
recognise them at a glance--and put them through the wash-tub as we go
along, why, it'll be a pleasure to you, as you rightly say, and a real
help to me. You'll find a tub handy, and soap, and a kettle on the stove,
and a bucket to haul up water from the canal with. Then I shall know
you're enjoying yourself, instead of sitting here idle, looking at the
scenery and yawning your head off."

"Here, you let me steer!" said Toad, now thoroughly frightened, "and
then you can get on with your washing your own way. I might spoil your
things, or not do 'em as you like. I'm more used to gentleman's things
myself. It's my special line."

"Let you steer?" replied the barge-woman, laughing. "It takes some
practice to steer a barge properly. Besides, it's dull work, and I
want you to be happy. No, you shall do the washing you are so fond of,
and I'll stick to the steering that I understand. Don't try and
deprive me of the pleasure of giving you a treat!"

Toad was fairly cornered. He looked for escape this way and that, saw
that he was too far from the bank for a flying leap, and sullenly
resigned himself to his fate. "If it comes to that," he thought in
desperation, "I suppose any fool can _wash_!"

He fetched tub, soap, and other necessaries from the cabin, selected a
few garments at random, tried to recollect what he had seen in casual
glances through laundry windows, and set to.

A long half-hour passed, and every minute of it saw Toad getting
crosser and crosser. Nothing that he could do to the things seemed to
please them or do them good. He tried coaxing, he tried slapping, he
tried punching; they smiled back at him out of the tub unconverted,
happy in their original sin. Once or twice he looked nervously over
his shoulder at the barge-woman, but she appeared to be gazing out in
front of her, absorbed in her steering. His back ached badly, and he
noticed with dismay that his paws were beginning to get all crinkly.
Now Toad was very proud of his paws. He muttered under his breath
words that should never pass the lips of either washerwomen or Toads;
and lost the soap, for the fiftieth time.

A burst of laughter made him straighten himself and look round. The
barge-woman was leaning back and laughing unrestrainedly, till the
tears ran down her cheeks.

"I've been watching you all the time," she gasped. "I thought you must
be a humbug all along, from the conceited way you talked. Pretty
washerwoman you are! Never washed so much as a dish-clout in your
life, I'll lay!"

Toad's temper, which had been simmering viciously for some time, now
fairly boiled over, and he lost all control of himself.

"You common, low, _fat_ barge-woman!" he shouted; "don't you dare to
talk to your betters like that! Washerwoman indeed! I would have you
to know that I am a Toad, a very well-known, respected, distinguished
Toad! I may be under a bit of a cloud at present, but I will _not_ be
laughed at by a barge-woman!"

The woman moved nearer to him and peered under his bonnet keenly and
closely. "Why, so you are!" she cried. "Well, I never! A horrid,
nasty, crawly Toad! And in my nice clean barge, too! Now that is a
thing that I will _not_ have."

She relinquished the tiller for a moment. One big, mottled arm shot
out and caught Toad by a fore-leg, while the other gripped him fast by
a hind-leg. Then the world turned suddenly upside down, the barge
seemed to flit lightly across the sky, the wind whistled in his ears,
and Toad found himself flying through the air, revolving rapidly as he
went.

The water, when he eventually reached it with a loud splash, proved
quite cold enough for his taste, though its chill was not sufficient
to quell his proud spirit, or slake the heat of his furious temper. He
rose to the surface spluttering, and when he had wiped the duck-weed
out of his eyes the first thing he saw was the fat barge-woman looking
back at him over the stern of the retreating barge and laughing; and
he vowed, as he coughed and choked, to be even with her.

He struck out for the shore, but the cotton gown greatly impeded his
efforts, and when at length he touched land he found it hard to climb
up the steep bank unassisted. He had to take a minute or two's rest to
recover his breath; then, gathering his wet skirts well over his arms,
he started to run after the barge as fast as his legs would carry him,
wild with indignation, thirsting for revenge.

The barge-woman was still laughing when he drew up level with her.
"Put yourself through your mangle, washerwoman," she called out,
"and iron your face and crimp it, and you'll pass for quite a
decent-looking Toad!"

Toad never paused to reply. Solid revenge was what he wanted, not
cheap, windy, verbal triumphs, though he had a thing or two in his
mind that he would have liked to say. He saw what he wanted ahead of
him. Running swiftly on he overtook the horse, unfastened the tow-rope
and cast off, jumped lightly on the horse's back, and urged it to a
gallop by kicking it vigorously in the sides. He steered for the open
country, abandoning the tow-path, and swinging his steed down a rutty
lane. Once he looked back, and saw that the barge had run aground on
the other side of the canal, and the barge-woman was gesticulating
wildly and shouting, "Stop, stop, stop!" "I've heard that song
before," said Toad, laughing, as he continued to spur his steed onward
in its wild career.

The barge-horse was not capable of any very sustained effort, and its
gallop soon subsided into a trot, and its trot into an easy walk; but
Toad was quite contented with this, knowing that he, at any rate, was
moving, and the barge was not. He had quite recovered his temper, now
that he had done something he thought really clever; and he was
satisfied to jog along quietly in the sun, steering his horse along
by-ways and bridle-paths, and trying to forget how very long it was
since he had had a square meal, till the canal had been left very far
behind him.

He had travelled some miles, his horse and he, and he was feeling
drowsy in the hot sunshine, when the horse stopped, lowered his head,
and began to nibble the grass; and Toad, waking up, just saved himself
from falling off by an effort. He looked about him and found he was
on a wide common, dotted with patches of gorse and bramble as far as
he could see. Near him stood a dingy gipsy caravan, and beside it a
man was sitting on a bucket turned upside down, very busy smoking and
staring into the wide world. A fire of sticks was burning near by, and
over the fire hung an iron pot, and out of that pot came forth
bubblings and gurglings, and a vague suggestive steaminess. Also
smells--warm, rich, and varied smells--that twined and twisted and
wreathed themselves at last into one complete, voluptuous, perfect
smell that seemed like the very soul of Nature taking form and
appearing to her children, a true Goddess, a mother of solace and
comfort. Toad now knew well that he had not been really hungry before.
What he had felt earlier in the day had been a mere trifling qualm.
This was the real thing at last, and no mistake; and it would have to
be dealt with speedily, too, or there would be trouble for somebody or
something. He looked the gipsy over carefully, wondering vaguely
whether it would be easier to fight him or cajole him. So there he
sat, and sniffed and sniffed, and looked at the gipsy; and the gipsy
sat and smoked, and looked at him.

Presently the gipsy took his pipe out of his mouth and remarked in a
careless way, "Want to sell that there horse of yours?"

Toad was completely taken aback. He did not know that gipsies were
very fond of horse-dealing, and never missed an opportunity, and he
had not reflected that caravans were always on the move and took a
deal of drawing. It had not occurred to him to turn the horse into
cash, but the gipsy's suggestion seemed to smooth the way towards the
two things he wanted so badly--ready money, and a solid breakfast.

"What?" he said, "me sell this beautiful young horse of mine? O, no;
it's out of the question. Who's going to take the washing home to my
customers every week? Besides, I'm too fond of him, and he simply
dotes on me."

"Try and love a donkey," suggested the gipsy. "Some people do."

"You don't seem to see," continued Toad, "that this fine horse of mine
is a cut above you altogether. He's a blood horse, he is, partly; not
the part you see, of course--another part. And he's been a Prize
Hackney, too, in his time--that was the time before you knew him, but
you can still tell it on him at a glance, if you understand anything
about horses. No, it's not to be thought of for a moment. All the
same, how much might you be disposed to offer me for this beautiful
young horse of mine?"

The gipsy looked the horse over, and then he looked Toad over with
equal care, and looked at the horse again. "Shillin' a leg," he said
briefly, and turned away, continuing to smoke and try to stare the
wide world out of countenance.

"A shilling a leg?" cried Toad. "If you please, I must take a little
time to work that out, and see just what it comes to."

He climbed down off his horse, and left it to graze, and sat down by
the gipsy, and did sums on his fingers, and at last he said, "A
shilling a leg? Why, that comes to exactly four shillings, and no
more. O, no; I could not think of accepting four shillings for this
beautiful young horse of mine."

"Well," said the gipsy, "I'll tell you what I will do. I'll make it
five shillings, and that's three-and-sixpence more than the animal's
worth. And that's my last word."

Then Toad sat and pondered long and deeply. For he was hungry and
quite penniless, and still some way--he knew not how far--from home,
and enemies might still be looking for him. To one in such a
situation, five shillings may very well appear a large sum of money.
On the other hand, it did not seem very much to get for a horse. But
then, again, the horse hadn't cost him anything; so whatever he got
was all clear profit. At last he said firmly, "Look here, gipsy! I
tell you what we will do; and this is _my_ last word. You shall hand
me over six shillings and sixpence, cash down; and further, in
addition thereto, you shall give me as much breakfast as I can
possibly eat, at one sitting of course, out of that iron pot of yours
that keeps sending forth such delicious and exciting smells. In
return, I will make over to you my spirited young horse, with all the
beautiful harness and trappings that are on him, freely thrown in. If
that's not good enough for you, say so, and I'll be getting on. I know
a man near here who's wanted this horse of mine for years."

The gipsy grumbled frightfully, and declared if he did a few more
deals of that sort he'd be ruined. But in the end he lugged a dirty
canvas bag out of the depths of his trouser pocket, and counted out
six shillings and sixpence into Toad's paw. Then he disappeared into
the caravan for an instant, and returned with a large iron plate and a
knife, fork, and spoon. He tilted up the pot, and a glorious stream of
hot, rich stew gurgled into the plate. It was, indeed, the most
beautiful stew in the world, being made of partridges, and pheasants,
and chickens, and hares, and rabbits, and peahens, and guinea-fowls,
and one or two other things. Toad took the plate on his lap, almost
crying, and stuffed, and stuffed, and stuffed, and kept asking for
more, and the gipsy never grudged it him. He thought that he had
never eaten so good a breakfast in all his life.

When Toad had taken as much stew on board as he thought he could possibly
hold, he got up and said good-bye to the gipsy, and took an affectionate
farewell of the horse; and the gipsy, who knew the riverside well, gave
him directions which way to go, and he set forth on his travels again in
the best possible spirits. He was, indeed, a very different Toad from the
animal of an hour ago. The sun was shining brightly, his wet clothes were
quite dry again, he had money in his pocket once more, he was nearing
home and friends and safety, and, most and best of all, he had had a
substantial meal, hot and nourishing, and felt big, and strong, and
careless, and self-confident.

As he tramped along gaily, he thought of his adventures and escapes,
and how when things seemed at their worst he had always managed to
find a way out; and his pride and conceit began to swell within him.
"Ho, ho!" he said to himself, as he marched along with his chin in the
air, "what a clever Toad I am! There is surely no animal equal to me
for cleverness in the whole world! My enemies shut me up in prison,
encircled by sentries, watched night and day by warders; I walk out
through them all, by sheer ability coupled with courage. They pursue
me with engines, and policemen, and revolvers; I snap my fingers at
them, and vanish, laughing, into space. I am, unfortunately, thrown
into a canal by a woman fat of body and very evil-minded. What of it?
I swim ashore, I seize her horse, I ride off in triumph, and I sell
the horse for a whole pocketful of money and an excellent breakfast!
Ho, ho! I am The Toad, the handsome, the popular, the successful
Toad!" He got so puffed up with conceit that he made up a song as he
walked in praise of himself, and sang it at the top of his voice,
though there was no one to hear it but him. It was, perhaps, the most
conceited song that any animal ever composed.

        "The world has held great Heroes,
           As history-books have showed;
         But never a name to go down to fame
           Compared with that of Toad!

        "The clever men at Oxford
           Know all that there is to be knowed.
         But they none of them know one half as much
           As intelligent Mr. Toad!

        "The animals sat in the Ark and cried,
           Their tears in torrents flowed.
         Who was it said, 'There's land ahead?'
           Encouraging Mr. Toad!

        "The army all saluted
           As they marched along the road.
         Was it the King? Or Kitchener?
           No. It was Mr. Toad.

        "The Queen and her Ladies-in-waiting
           Sat at the window and sewed.
         She cried, 'Look! who's that _handsome_ man?'
           They answered, 'Mr. Toad.'"

There was a great deal more of the same sort, but too dreadfully
conceited to be written down. These are some of the milder verses.

He sang as he walked, and he walked as he sang, and got more inflated
every minute. But his pride was shortly to have a severe fall.

After some miles of country lanes he reached the high road, and as he
turned into it and glanced along its white length, he saw approaching
him a speck that turned into a dot and then into a blob, and then into
something very familiar; and a double note of warning, only too well
known, fell on his delighted ear.

"This is something like!" said the excited Toad. "This is real life
again, this is once more the great world from which I have been missed
so long! I will hail them, my brothers of the wheel, and pitch them a
yarn, of the sort that has been so successful hitherto; and they will
give me a lift, of course, and then I will talk to them some more;
and, perhaps, with luck, it may even end in my driving up to Toad Hall
in a motor-car! That will be one in the eye for Badger!"

He stepped confidently out into the road to hail the motor-car, which
came along at an easy pace, slowing down as it neared the lane; when
suddenly he became very pale, his heart turned to water, his knees
shook and yielded under him, and he doubled up and collapsed with a
sickening pain in his interior. And well he might, the unhappy animal;
for the approaching car was the very one he had stolen out of the yard
of the Red Lion Hotel on that fatal day when all his troubles began!
And the people in it were the very same people he had sat and watched
at luncheon in the coffee-room!

He sank down in a shabby, miserable heap in the road, murmuring to
himself in his despair, "It's all up! It's all over now! Chains and
policemen again! Prison again! Dry bread and water again! O, what a
fool I have been! What did I want to go strutting about the country
for, singing conceited songs, and hailing people in broad day on the
high road, instead of hiding till nightfall and slipping home quietly
by back ways! O hapless Toad! O ill-fated animal!"

The terrible motor-car drew slowly nearer and nearer, till at last he
heard it stop just short of him. Two gentlemen got out and walked
round the trembling heap of crumpled misery lying in the road, and one
of them said, "O dear! this is very sad! Here is a poor old thing--a
washerwoman apparently--who has fainted in the road! Perhaps she is
overcome by the heat, poor creature; or possibly she has not had any
food to-day. Let us lift her into the car and take her to the nearest
village, where doubtless she has friends."

They tenderly lifted Toad into the motor-car and propped him up with
soft cushions, and proceeded on their way.

When Toad heard them talk in so kind and sympathetic a way, and knew
that he was not recognised, his courage began to revive, and he
cautiously opened first one eye and then the other.

"Look!" said one of the gentlemen, "she is better already. The fresh
air is doing her good. How do you feel now, ma'am?"

"Thank you kindly, sir," said Toad in a feeble voice, "I'm feeling a
great deal better!" "That's right," said the gentleman. "Now keep
quite still, and, above all, don't try to talk."

"I won't," said Toad. "I was only thinking, if I might sit on the
front seat there, beside the driver, where I could get the fresh air
full in my face, I should soon be all right again."

"What a very sensible woman!" said the gentleman. "Of course you
shall." So they carefully helped Toad into the front seat beside the
driver, and on they went again.

Toad was almost himself again by now. He sat up, looked about him, and
tried to beat down the tremors, the yearnings, the old cravings that
rose up and beset him and took possession of him entirely.

"It is fate!" he said to himself. "Why strive? why struggle?" and he
turned to the driver at his side.

"Please, Sir," he said, "I wish you would kindly let me try and drive
the car for a little. I've been watching you carefully, and it looks
so easy and so interesting, and I should like to be able to tell my
friends that once I had driven a motor-car!"

The driver laughed at the proposal, so heartily that the gentleman
inquired what the matter was. When he heard, he said, to Toad's
delight, "Bravo, ma'am! I like your spirit. Let her have a try, and
look after her. She won't do any harm."

Toad eagerly scrambled into the seat vacated by the driver, took the
steering-wheel in his hands, listened with affected humility to the
instructions given him, and set the car in motion, but very slowly and
carefully at first, for he was determined to be prudent.

The gentlemen behind clapped their hands and applauded, and Toad heard
them saying, "How well she does it! Fancy a washerwoman driving a car
as well as that, the first time!"

Toad went a little faster; then faster still, and faster.

He heard the gentlemen call out warningly, "Be careful, washerwoman!"
And this annoyed him, and he began to lose his head.

The driver tried to interfere, but he pinned him down in his seat with
one elbow, and put on full speed. The rush of air in his face, the hum
of the engines, and the light jump of the car beneath him intoxicated
his weak brain. "Washerwoman, indeed!" he shouted recklessly. "Ho! ho!
I am the Toad, the motor-car snatcher, the prison-breaker, the Toad
who always escapes! Sit still, and you shall know what driving really
is, for you are in the hands of the famous, the skilful, the entirely
fearless Toad!"

With a cry of horror the whole party rose and flung themselves on him.
"Seize him!" they cried, "seize the Toad, the wicked animal who stole
our motor-car! Bind him, chain him, drag him to the nearest police
station! Down with the desperate and dangerous Toad!"

Alas! they should have thought, they ought to have been more prudent,
they should have remembered to stop the motor-car somehow before
playing any pranks of that sort. With a half-turn of the wheel the
Toad sent the car crashing through the low hedge that ran along the
roadside. One mighty bound, a violent shock, and the wheels of the car
were churning up the thick mud of a horse-pond.

Toad found himself flying through the air with the strong upward rush
and delicate curve of a swallow. He liked the motion, and was just
beginning to wonder whether it would go on until he developed wings
and turned into a Toad-bird, when he landed on his back with a thump,
in the soft, rich grass of a meadow. Sitting up, he could just see the
motor-car in the pond, nearly submerged; the gentlemen and the driver,
encumbered by their long coats, were floundering helplessly in the
water.

He picked himself up rapidly, and set off running across country as
hard as he could, scrambling through hedges, jumping ditches, pounding
across fields, till he was breathless and weary, and had to settle
down into an easy walk. When he had recovered his breath somewhat, and
was able to think calmly, he began to giggle, and from giggling he
took to laughing, and he laughed till he had to sit down under a
hedge. "Ho! ho!" he cried, in ecstasies of self-admiration. "Toad
again! Toad, as usual, comes out on the top! Who was it got them to
give him a lift? Who managed to get on the front seat for the sake of
fresh air? Who persuaded them into letting him see if he could drive?
Who landed them all in a horse-pond? Who escaped, flying gaily and
unscathed through the air, leaving the narrow-minded, grudging, timid
excursionists in the mud where they should rightly be? Why, Toad, of
course; clever Toad, great Toad, _good_ Toad!"

Then he burst into song again, and chanted with uplifted voice--

        "The motor-car went Poop-poop-poop,
           As it raced along the road.
         Who was it steered it into a pond?
           Ingenious Mr. Toad!

O, how clever I am! How clever, how clever, how very clev--"

A slight noise at a distance behind him made him turn his head and
look. O horror! O misery! O despair!

About two fields off, a chauffeur in his leather gaiters and two large
rural policemen were visible, running towards him as hard as they
could go!

Poor Toad sprang to his feet and pelted away again, his heart in his
mouth. "O, my!" he gasped, as he panted along, "what an _ass_ I am!
What a _conceited_ and heedless ass! Swaggering again! Shouting and
singing songs again! Sitting still and gassing again! O my! O my! O
my!"

He glanced back, and saw to his dismay that they were gaining on him.
On he ran desperately, but kept looking back, and saw that they still
gained steadily. He did his best, but he was a fat animal, and his
legs were short, and still they gained. He could hear them close
behind him now. Ceasing to heed where he was going, he struggled on
blindly and wildly, looking back over his shoulder at the now
triumphant enemy, when suddenly the earth failed under his feet, he
grasped at the air, and, splash! he found himself head over ears in
deep water, rapid water, water that bore him along with a force he
could not contend with; and he knew that in his blind panic he had run
straight into the river!

He rose to the surface and tried to grasp the reeds and the rushes
that grew along the water's edge close under the bank, but the stream
was so strong that it tore them out of his hands. "O my!" gasped poor
Toad, "if ever I steal a motor-car again! If ever I sing another
conceited song"--then down he went, and came up breathless and
spluttering. Presently he saw that he was approaching a big dark hole
in the bank, just above his head, and as the stream bore him past he
reached up with a paw and caught hold of the edge and held on. Then
slowly and with difficulty he drew himself up out of the water, till
at last he was able to rest his elbows on the edge of the hole. There
he remained for some minutes, puffing and panting, for he was quite
exhausted.

As he sighed and blew and stared before him into the dark hole, some
bright small thing shone and twinkled in its depths, moving towards
him. As it approached, a face grew up gradually around it, and it was
a familiar face!

Brown and small, with whiskers.

Grave and round, with neat ears and silky hair.

It was the Water Rat!

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: "Wayfarers All" Late in the summer, Rat becomes restless. He can feel the seasons changing and the birds preparing for their impending move South. Feeling betrayed because everyone leaves after summer ends, he wanders the area until he encounters some mice building their homes for the winter. The mice ask him to lend a hand; he declines, instead asking them to walk or row with him for a while. They in turn decline his offer in order to focus on their work. Next, Rat encounters a group of swallows who are planning their trip South. Upset, Rat asks them to stay, and one swallow explains that he once tried. Staying during winter was fun at first, but the weather got too cold, and he ran out of insects to eat. The other birds discuss the joys of warm weather during winter, and Rat angrily asks why they bother returning to the river at all. Another swallow explains that returning is a natural calling, much like leaving is. Rat leaves the swallows to their planning, but feels restless to know that so many animals are preparing. Down the road, he sees a foreign-looking animal approaching. Rat introduces himself and invites the animal to his home. There, he learns that this creature is Sea Rat, who had tried living on a small farm but was now returning to sea after the call got too strong. He explains that he is from Constantinople, but had left there long before in order to explore the world. He loves sailing more than anything else, and invites Rat to join him. However, Rat hangs back, watching Sea Rat leave. A few minutes later, he gets up in a daze, and starts gathering his things. At that moment, Mole returns to the house. Concerned at Rat's strange mood and his packing, Mole physically stops Rat from leaving. Realizing he cannot get past Mole, Rat begins to cry. Mole puts him to bed, where he sobs for a while before growing quiet. Then, Mole talks about pleasant things - the weather and the harvest - and Rat slowly pulls himself from his depression. Capitalizing on Rat's changed mood, Mole gives him some paper and pen, so he can write poetry and hopefully feel better. Chapter 10 - "The Further Adventures of Toad" Back in the woods, Toad is still working his way back to Toad Hall. Eventually, he finds a horse walking along a riverbank, pulling a barge downriver through a harness. The bargewoman greets Toad, who then cons her into giving him a road to Toad Hall. In exchange, he promises to wash her clothing while they float. Thinking the job must be easy, he scrubs the fabric for a half-hour, to no avail. Finally, the woman cannot hold her laughter, and calls him out. She never believed he was actually a washerwoman. Humiliated and angry, he accosts the bargewoman until she throws him into the river. In retaliation, he cuts the horse from the barge and rides it down the road as the barge sinks into the water. Eventually, Toad comes across a traveling peddler, cooking food. Toad strikes a bargain with the peddler, trading the horse for food and some cash. Though he initially works hard to swindle the man, he eventually gives up the attempt from hunger. After eating, he hits the road again. Soon, he hears a motorcar approaching, and then realizes it is the same car that he had stolen before. He falls down into a heap, terrified that the drivers will recognize him. However, they take pity on him, thinking him a washerwoman, and give him a ride. In the car, Toad soon cannot help himself, and asks if he might drive, pretending it would be his first time. They consent. At first, Toad's drives safely, but his returning confidence soon leads him back to reckless speeding. Eventually, he removes his washerwoman clothes and reveals himself. When the car crashes , he runs away. He notices police officers on his tail, and in a panic falls into the river. He is the midst of drowning when he is fortuitously saved by Rat, who pulls him from the water. Chapter 9 is the only time that we see Rat falter in his perspective on life. For most of the novel, he is firmly at home on the river, enjoying the carefree life of boating and picnics. However, with the changing seasons, he grows restless by comparing himself to other animals.