Toad Triumphant (19 page)

“En garde!”
said he, drawing his sword and taking up a position opposite Toad.

The sight of the sword sharp and glittering before his nose and the fierce determination of the unpleasant youth rather surprised Toad, who so far as he had thought about the business at all, had assumed that any rival he might have would instantly flee before his challenge.

Quite plainly this was not to be, just as it was plain that Toad had challenged a mere whippersnapper who might have been better dealt with by being led out of the room by the scruff of the collar.

“En garde!”
the youth cried again. “You insult
Maman
with your attention not-wanted, and for that I will kill you!”

Toad decided that the best approach was to bluff it out and, still feeling that etiquette demanded that he attempt to wield his rake like a duelling sword, he made a few passes in the air, cut a few bold swathes and advanced upon the boy crying, “Yield now and your honour will be saved!”

The three elderly eminences seemed as struck dumb by Toad’s antics as the Head Gardener had been, but the Madame very quickly recovered her composure.

“Monsieur Toad!” she cried, seeking to intervene in a duel which, knowing the participants as she did, she guessed would come to no good. “I am pleased to introduce you to my son the Count d’Albert-Chapelle.”

“Ha!” cried the youth, ignoring his mother completely (as he had done since a babe) and counter-attacking Toad with such speed, grace and ruthlessness that it was painfully clear which of the two contestants had had lessons in swordcraft in a Parisian gymnasium, and which had not.

“And my dear son,
mon petit chou,”
continued the Madame, “I am so very glad that you now ‘ave the opportunity to play with your English uncle. But now this silly game must STOP!”

 “Bah!” grunted Toad, irritated at being forced into retreat and feeling it would do his cause no good to suffer defeat at the hands of a mere youth. With an astonishing speed for one so rotund, and with an impressive sweep and cut of the rake he attempted to finish off the youth with one mighty blow, hoping to sort out the matter with his mother afterwards.

The boy leapt back with agility, deflected Toad’s new attack, and caused the rake to descend upon the feet, and more particularly the toes, of the High Judge, the Commissioner of Police and the Bishop all at once. This woke them from the slumber of surprise and shock into which they seemed to have fallen and with one voice they began shouting accusations and threats, while at the same time summoning the various servants, police constables, chaplains, clerks of the court and all the other hangers-on which great and important men have nearby wherever they go, awaiting their beck and call.

It would be impossible to describe in any detail the confusion of the following moments. But as Toad began to retreat before his skilled adversary once more, their battleground, the morning room, began to fill up with an increasingly large number of men, some in blue uniforms, some in black robes, and not a few wearing clerical outfits. All were eager to help, and to be seen to help. They needed only the clear command of the superior who had summoned them to know what they must do.

The Commissioner of Police was quite sure that the law was being broken, if only on the grounds of the peace being disturbed, and that arrests should be made by his officers there and then, and he cried, “Arrest him!”

Twelve constables then attempted to do so.

The High Judge was certain that a large number of crimes were being committed before his very eyes, including trespass (of his property and person), felony larceny and burglary (of his specimen plants and garden implements), assault and battery
and
probably grievous bodily harm
and
attempted murder (upon Madame’s son) and a variety of additional crimes he was pondering upon. So he cried, “Try him!”

Six clerks of court proceeded towards the preparation of the paperwork by asking the suspect his full name, address and date of birth.

The Senior Bishop saw a tormented soul upon the slippery slopes of spiritual decline who might still be drawn back into the family of the Church, given sufficient help and guidance. He therefore cried out, “Save him!”

And a Deacon Parishionary, a Dean-in-Ordinary, and an Acting Bishop Extraordinary, each brandishing various gospels, crosses and crosiers, rushed towards him who needed immediate spiritual help and sustenance.

O fickle fickle Fate, which makes such a mockery of Man’s best intentions, and leads the forces of the Law and Justice and the Church so far astray.

For though they all rushed forward to do their duty, it was towards the wrong toad. Mischievous and wicked Fate did not guide them towards Toad of Toad Hall, for he wielded merely a rake, and seemed, so far as they could judge, to be defending himself and a female personage against a trained and murderous swordsman.

It was upon the callow Count d’Albert-Chapelle they charged, to arrest, arraign and save his soul. It was he whose sword was torn from his grasp and sent skittering across the floor; he whose hat was trampled upon and whose silken garb was torn; and he who protested loudly in a foreign tongue, thereby compounding his obvious guilt (and need of saving) a hundredfold with each foreign word that was uttered.

While Toad of Toad Hall, astonished, found himself sitting upon the floor by the side of his cousin, some way from the
mêlée,
unmolested and unnoticed.

A variety of thoughts went through his mind, the chief one being that if he were to escape with his life, now was the moment to do it; to which was added the idea that he might as well escape with the one he loved and leave the insolent son to his fate.

Far, far behind these thoughts was a vague disquiet at seeing his rival so brutally suppressed, handcuffed and arraigned, and asked by various prelates whether or not he had any last words, and if he had would he be good enough to speak them in the mother tongue, which is to say English.

Toad was about to rise, offer himself once more to the Madame, allay any doubts she might have about leaving her son behind and suggest they flee His Lordship’s House
immédiatement.

But the lady spoke first.

“Mon dieu!”
cried she. “Cousin, save ‘im from these devils! ‘E is my son! ‘E has never been good, never do what I say but ‘e ‘as not been so bad as this!”

Toad rose and stared across the room at where the youth struggled still and those words she spoke “he has not been as bad as this” struck a chord deep within his heart, very deep indeed. And now that her son’s sword had been taken from him, and his hat removed, and his clothes half torn off he was but a sorry and pathetic sight, and Toad saw that the look of spoilt petulance had gone, gone completely as had the smugness he had displayed but minutes before when he had been about to humiliate Toad with his superior swordplay.

Instead he saw a very frightened young toad, and one who could not quite understand how a bit of fun, harmless as it had seemed, had brought upon him the wrath of so many men in uniforms whose sole intention was to take all the fun away and replace it with the misery of deprivation and incarceration.

“He has not been as bad as this,” she had said, and Toad could not but think how often, how very often, such a thing might have been said about himself and his own harmless deeds; and how, when Fate was not upon his side, his friends along the River Bank often were, and came quickly to his aid.

Toad stared aghast at the defeated and now helpless, hopeless, friendless youth, and saw himself when young, and remembered how rare it was that help came when it was needed, and how infrequently the true cause of Justice and of Law was served in so punishing him.

“Cousin —” Madame began again, but she had no need to plead.

Toad rose as if in a dream, and a chord louder than love rang in his heart, and one that drove off fear.

Taking up the sword that had fallen on the floor, and feeling perhaps that what the outnumbered French youth needed was the sound of his own language, he cried the inspiring words of the new-found selfless revolutionary,
“Liberte’! Egalite’! Fraternité!”,
and charged to rescue his former foe.

If words failed earlier to describe the arrival of the constables, clerks and clerics, they utterly do so now to give any adequate account of the confusion of the retreat of these henchmen before Toad’s might and ire.

It was enough to see the look in his eyes, and to see the purposeful strength with which he wielded the sword, to be still; it was enough to hear his raging commands to yield, to let the lad go, his handcuffs quickly undone.

“Madame!” cried Toad, her son now propped half fainting in his left arm and the sword raised still in his right hand. “You shall not suffer punishment, for you have done no wrong. Therefore it is safe to leave you behind for the moment. But we, that is your son here the Count and I, Toad of Toad Hall, who both hold you in love and esteem, are fugitives from justice now Love has caused us to break the paltry laws of the state; may love support us through the long years of flight that must lie ahead!”

Such was Toad’s final speech before he turned back to the French doors into the hothouse, pulling the youth bodily after him, and pushed the Head Gardener (retired) back once more into the flower bed from which he had been struggling so hard to emerge.

Then, with a laugh both light and cavalier, Toad thrust the sword through the handles of the doors to prevent them being opened, and was gone, leaving behind him a room of silent, wondering men.

And a single woman too. One who with Toad’s rescue of her errant son, and with Toad’s heroic speech, had seen at last the one for whom she would willingly move the very earth; and upon whom she would now bestow the passion and the favour of her heart.

· IX ·

The Lathbury Pike

Once the Mole and the Rat had left behind the Hat and Boot Tavern to continue their journey the banks of the River grew steeper and the vegetation about them thicker and more tangled. Where there had been placid pools before there were rapids now, and it seemed prudent to leave behind the smaller boat, securely tied and hidden in the undergrowth, to be reclaimed on their return.