Toad Triumphant (16 page)

These were halcyon days that the Mole never wanted to end. At a particularly peaceful and contented moment he finally told the Rat something of his memorable conversation with Badger when he was convalescing.

His friend said little, preferring to listen in silence as was his wont, staring into the shadows and at the setting sun, nodding his head and now and then filling his pipe once more. This was the Rat’s way with such matters, and the Mole understood it well.

“Moly” said he at last, “you made mention of these items of clothing, a calendar and such like in Badger’s spare room. What of them? What did they represent?”

Just like Ratty thought the Mole to himself wryly to say nothing for so long and then to go right to the heart of the matter.

“I confess,” replied the Mole, “that I have often wondered whether I should speak of this, for there was a certain confidentiality about our talk, but — Badger said that I might do so when the time was right. I know not what lies ahead of us, Ratty, but as I have said from time to time, for me there has been about this expedition of ours a desire to get a little nearer to the mystery we have called Beyond.

“I know that in the past when we have ventured towards that mystery there has been a degree of risk and chance involved, and the sense of crossing over from one world to another — a journey from which, one day we shall not return. You have said before tonight that you sensed a certain danger about this journey and that we who make it, and our friends who helped us prepare for it and wished us well of our undertaking, must accept there might be risks involved.

“I will only say now that I sense that in the days immediately ahead those risks may be nearer —”I have had the same feeling, now that you mention it,” confessed the Rat, puffing harder at his pipe so that its glow illuminated his face and eyes and showed how kindly he was looking upon his friend.

“Well then,” said the Mole, “I would be regretful if I had not told you the gist of Badger’s story as he told it me, and I do not think that he would mind at all — rather the opposite, in fact, for knowledge of it makes us understand a little better that wise animal’s occasional moroseness, and also his compassion.

“I shall state the matter as simply as I can: those items you mention that I saw spoke not of Badger when he was young, as I first thought, but of the son he lost —”

“Badger had a son!” exclaimed the astonished Water Rat.

“We have no need to enquire into the details too much, but let me say that this is my understanding:

Badger’s father journeyed to the River Bank from western parts, across the wild and difficult country that lies there, and settled with his wife in the Wild Wood, whose dark dangers held no fears for him, and whose silent, awesome nature matched something in his own.

“In those days the weasels and the stoats were more fearsome than they are now and for many years Badger’s father, and then Badger himself, fought to pacify and civilize the place. He kept himself to himself, and few along the River Bank ever saw him, and many did not even know that he existed.

“Of his meeting with that female whom he came to love I know nothing, but they had a family all but one of whom, their son, perished in the Wild Wood, a noisome dank place surely not suited to the raising of a family The boy’s mother sought to persuade Badger to move on, asking him to travel up-river, just as we are doing, for she too had heard of Beyond and wanted to be nearer it in a more green and pleasant place, there to raise a second family.

“But Badger was stubborn and refused to move, saying that what was good enough for him should be good enough for his son. Be that as it may the boy’s mother never got her way and, tragically perished, as her other children had, in the dark depths of the Wild Wood, in circumstances — and Badger did not elaborate — that did no credit, none at all, to the reputation of the weasels and stoats.

“Badger has never forgiven himself for her death, or quite come to terms with the loss, and nor did his son. Eventually Badger’s son matured, and decided to realize his mother’s dream and journey up-river to find a better place, and put strife and sad memory behind him.

“Hard did the two badgers struggle over this, but in the end one left and one stayed. But the one who left was not heard of again, and though Badger mounted a search of a kind, he never found the truth of what had occurred.”

“Did he find any clues, Mole?”

The Mole was silent for a long time.

“One alone,” he said at last. “He learned that his son had reached a place called Lathbury, and he learned that he had been warned against continuing his journey. He learned that his son’s stubbornness and determination had got the better of his prudence, and he had travelled on alone, never to be heard of more.”

“The Lathbury Pike?” whispered the Rat.

“It may be so,” said the Mole.

“And all these years —”

“— and all these years poor Badger has kept those mementoes of his son in that spare room, and has lived alone with the regrets that come from losing the two he loved most of all and in such unhappy circumstances. ‘‘

“But he could have tried to follow him —”

“He tried and it was too late. And yet —”

“Well, Mole?”

“Yet he said to me when we spoke of this that there are some nights when he stands on the bank somewhere between your home and Otter’s, staring at the stars and rising moon, and he feels that the River seeks to tell him that somewhere beyond River Bank his son is still alive, and he too is standing on a river bank, wishing that the River could send a message of hope that one day before Badger’s last, that last argument would be undone, and a father and a son might be at peace with one another once again.”

“Then —”

“Yes, Ratty, I think Badger hopes that in some way we can say a last goodbye for him, by journeying where he felt unable to, so that he might have a second chance through us.”

Soon after this, and in a solemn frame of mind, for now they felt they were retracing the distant steps of one whom the Badger had once loved, the two companions found themselves in a wider, flatter area of open fields, and saw a small town ahead, and beyond it for the first time hills and distant mountains, and their hearts lifted, for here was evidence that the vision of Beyond they each had had in different ways was not so very far from the truth.

The furthest peaks they saw were too far off for an expedition such as theirs, but that rough forested ground they saw ahead might be within their reach, though taking their boats up might be difficult indeed.

“Forget the Pike,” said the Rat; ,,just look at the gradient. It’s going to be difficult, but we can only see how far we can get, eh Mole?”

“Come on,” cried the Mole, much excited to have reached civilization once again. “Let’s see if this is the Lathbury of which we’ve heard so much. Perhaps we can find that Tavern.”

The River skirted the town in a wide meander, but such houses, gardens and roads as they could see seemed mostly uninhabited.

“It must be Sunday” said the Mole, putting the best complexion on things.

“Humph!” muttered the Rat, moving their weapons a little closer, for the more he looked at Lathbury the grubbier, the more unkempt, and the more run down it seemed. A place that time, and modernity, seemed to have quite passed by.

“Look! There’s someone there,” the Mole called out, pointing towards an old crumbling wall near the river bank.

But the person, darkly and closely dressed as if it was winter and not summer, simply stood and stared, and ignored their greetings. Then another peered at them round the corner of a house, and a third, pulling aside a curtain at a half-open cottage window, and not even answering their friendly wave.

They proceeded thus quite slowly and made the firm decision not to leave their boat and go exploring, for the locals seemed unfriendly if not yet quite hostile.

“Best to get through and beyond this place,” said the Rat, “and find somewhere to camp for the night which we can defend easily. We had better be careful not to get split up, for there’s safety in numbers when there’s hostility about.”

They had first sighted Lathbury in mid-afternoon, but so indirect was the meander, and so cautious was their passage that it was gone six o’clock before the River turned north away from what seemed the last house and they began to feel easy once again. Lathbury or this side of it, did not seem to be a place to visit on a day such as this.

Soon they spied an old stone bridge, to the Lathbury side of which stood an old dwelling, dirty and ruinous, yet apparently occupied, from the sooty smoke that wound upwards from its chimneys. On drawing closer to it they saw it had a jetty along the river bank, and a peeling sign which read “THE HAT AND BOOT” and another reading “TRADITIONAL ALES AND SPIRITS”. However, beneath these words was a less traditional greeting for weary travellers in need of board and lodging for the night:
“Boatmen and their dependants not welcome now or ever.”

Nor was the inn sign quite traditional either, for it eschewed the bright warm colours of the kind in which sign painters normally depict their subjects to welcome potential customers. Instead, in medieval fashion, nailed upon the board which read The Hat and Boot was an ancient hat, and a bedraggled boot.

“We shall call in here and see what we can learn about this Lathbury Pike,” said the Rat, which is what the Mole feared he might say. If it had been up to him, the Mole would have given the evil-looking place a wide berth and proceeded on his way.

“I shall take my cudgel,” said the Mole, “for I do not like the look of this hostelry one bit —”

“No need for that, Mole, we do not wish to cause offence, or provoke those who live here,” said the Rat, before adding sensibly “but we’ll moor the boats on the far side of the bridge out of harm’s way where we can easily keep an eye on them, and get back to them in a hurry if we must.”

The Tavern’s old door creaked open at their push to reveal a small dark vestibule off which three doors led. Upon the one straight ahead was a notice written in a rough hand which read, “STRIKTLY PRIVATE, SO STAY OUT”; a second, to their left, had another notice which read “NOT THIS WAY”; so they took the third.

It opened onto a large stone-flagged room, dark and chillsome, in which a good many figures were gathered together, some morosely lounging against a long bar, tankard in hand, others huddled together on benches at rough tables, drinking beer and eating a mess of bread and pottage, and talking in low voices.

At their entrance all conversation ceased — and a silence fell upon the company as they turned and stared at the two intruders. They saw that each member of this unfriendly company was a very rough-looking representative of one of two species of animal that the Rat and the Mole did not much like: weasels and stoats. The weasels being, in the main, the solitary loungers; and the stoats, for the most part, the huddled eaters. Some were big, some small, some fat and some thin: not one displayed anything other than unpleasant curiosity.

“Food’s off,” growled a voice behind the bar, and they turned to see a tall cadaverous gentleman who was evidently the landlord.

“‘Cept fer ‘taters,” screeched his wife’s voice from somewhere upstairs and within. “So sell ‘em yesterday’s.”

“Well —” began the Mole.

The landlord chose to take the Mole’s hesitation for a firm order and, peering up some stairs, shouted, “Twice double portions, ducks.”

Then he turned to them and put a restless hand upon a mahogany pump handle, not unlike a policeman’s truncheon, and said, “Nah, fer drinks. Wot yer want?”

“I was thinking,” said the Rat speaking as low as he could, for the silence of the Tavern had continued and all were listening to their every syllable, “of a traditional ale of the kind advertised outside.”

“Were yer now?” said the landlord, studying them with seeming distaste.

“What kind of ale would that be?” persisted the Rat.

“There’s three,” said the landlord, “and they’re all brewed on the premises. There’s Policeman’s Punch, if yer wanna few There’s Bishop’s Blasphemy if yer like that kind of thing. And the strongest we got is Judge and Jury but more ‘n a pint and yer’ll need help getting home.”

“Well then,” said the Rat, anxious to get the transaction over as quickly as possible, “we’ll have a pint each of Policeman’s Punch.”

They took their brimming tankards to a table where three stoats reluctantly made room for them, and in a few moments a plate of potatoes each was duly served. Interest in the strangers began to wane and conversation to resume.

“How much will that be?” asked the Mole, for the landlord was hovering.

“Depends if yer comin’ or goin’,” he replied.

“I am not sure I understand,” said the Rat.

“Seems plain enough to me,” said the landlord. “Comin’ is downaways and goin’ is upaways.”

“You mean down-river or up-river.”

“That’s what ‘e said,” said a stoat sitting near them.

“And there’s a difference in price, is there?” said the Mole, sensing some more duping on the way.

“If yer comin’, which means yer goin’ back into Lathbury Town, that’ll be tuppence three farthings each for the ‘taters, and a penny a pint for the beer, or give us ‘alf a crahn and call it quits.”