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    The Wind in The Willows
    The Wind in The Willows
    The Wind in The Willows
    Ebook273 pages5 hours

    The Wind in The Willows

    By Kenneth Grahame

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.

    ‘There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.’

    A timeless and celebrated children’s classic, Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows has delighted for nearly 100 years. In the idyllic English countryside, Mole, Badger, Rat and Toad encounter adventure at every turn – whether it’s gipsy caravans, Rat’s love for the river, or Toads passion for motorcars, the loveable friends and their escapades continue to delight children and adults alike.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateMay 31, 2012
    ISBN9780007480777
    Author

    Kenneth Grahame

    KENNETH GRAHAME (1859-1932) was a Scottish-born author best-known for The Wind in the Willows, a classic of children's literature. He also published collections of sketches, stories, and essays, including Pagan Papers (1893), The Golden Age (1895), and Dream Days (1898).

    Read more from Kenneth Grahame

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    Reviews for The Wind in The Willows

    4/5

    3,521 ratings142 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Not necessarily an avid children's book reader beyond my trusty Hardy Boys....but i recently saw a local community theater production of this, and in between the time i purchased the ticket and actually saw the play, this book showed up in a box of odds and ends someone gave me.....it seemed like fate was telling me to read it....So i did! And what a beautifully illustrated work this is. The fantastical world of these animals came to life for my stifled and stiff brain so much more so than had it not been just littered from end to end with gorgeous vivid drawings in both Black & White and Color
    • 3/5
      Surprisingly decent.
    • 4/5
      I remember my mom reading this to me when I was young. Brings back such great memories. I picked it up for 40 cents in a second hand store and what a treasure. Best money I have spent in a long time.
    • 4/5
      The introduction tells us this is "the first novel-length animal fantasy" and as such "foreshadowing" "Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh, Adam's Watership Down and White's Charlotte's Web. I've never read Winnie-the-Pooh, but I can't say I liked this one anywhere near as much as Watership Down or Charlotte's Web.. I think partly because those two other books the picture of the animals are consistent. The animals of Watership Down are ordinary rabbits, if rabbits had fables, myths and their own speech and consciousness. The animals of Charlotte's Web are animals who can speak to each other. The animals of The Wind in the Willows sometimes seem animal-shaped creatures who can be mistaken for humans, wear clothes and steal motorcars, and sometimes animals. And the stories seem more episodic compared to those other books. There is some lovely writing within, appealing tales of friendships (among males anyway, Grahame has seemingly little use for women) and certainly Toad of Toad Hall with his mania for motor-cars is unforgettable. Read for the first time as a adult, this doesn't have the appeal of say Alice in Wonderland, but I bet if I had first had it read to me at six-years-old or read it for myself at ten, I'd have been enchanted.
    • 4/5
      An important early science fiction allegory (obvious influence on Animal Farm) of closeted gay subculture in Edwardian Britain.
    • 1/5

      Five out of ten.

      Finding the secret of the wind is hard enough without Mole wandering off into the Wild Wood and getting caught in a snowstorm or Toad stealing motorcars and landing in jail. Between practical Water Rat and wise old Badger, the four of them manage, after many great adventures and much laughter, to settle down to a quiet roar with an understanding of the wind's song and the Wild Wood.

    • 4/5
      Such a funny book! You are introduced to Mole who leaves his home to go out and travel. He meets Ratty and takes up life on the river. All to soon we are introduced to my favorite character Mr. Toad of Toad Hall. That silly little fellow does whatever he takes it into his head to do, from traveling in a canary-yellow gypsy wagon to stealing a motor car. After being arrested Toad comes home to find Weasels have taken over Toad Hall. Ratty, Badger, and Mole must fight to save his home.
    • 4/5
      This is a childrens book about four riverside animals the Water Rat, the Mole, the Badger and the Toad. It is an exciting and funny narrative about their adventures. The language is superb and it gives a good feel of the English countryside.
    • 5/5
      classi children's story well loved
    • 2/5
      A book that appears to have been part of everyone's childhood except mine. We had a lovely hardbound copy as long as I can remember, but I never read it until now. And it doesn't translate well to adults. Having been written a century ago, I expected it to be dated, but I didn't expect it to be quite so...odd. Each chapter is more or less a separate story about the same group of characters: poetic Rat, generous Mole, selfish Toad, gruff Badger, and friendly Otter. Toad has by far the most personality, what with his utter conceit and his obsession with motorcars, but he's less entertaining than tiresome. I don't have any issues with the idea of talking animals in general, but when they begin interacting with humans it can get a little strange. For example, the illustrations in this book show Toad at roughly half the height of an adult human - which he would have to be, given part of the storyline. Maybe I would like this book more had I grown up with it, but as it stands I just see it as a really bizarre little tale that I will most likely never read again.
    • 4/5
      This is a book with memorable images. I remember it much as I a remember a dream, at least one that stays in my mind. This memory is no doubt reinforced by the Disney film version of the story, but that does not detract from the impression the book made on a young boy. It is a book to which I plan to return and see if it still retains its power to impress and amaze me.
    • 2/5
      I don't like talking animal books, most especially when the animals interact with humans and are smaller than them one minute and the same size the next (as with Toad passing for a washerwoman). Then we have the issue of the main characters apparently having a great deal of wealth and not having to work or gather food, while the other animals do. As if this weren't bad enough- I hated Toad. Throughout the latter half of the book, I was hoping that he would die a horrible death. Overall it read fast, but was an awful story.
    • 4/5
      Interesting to revisit an old friend. The good bits are still good, but I really can't warm to toad. I kept getting distracted by wondering how they earned a living and what size they were meant to be - the disadvantage of growing up.
    • 4/5
      this was probably one of the first books I read on my own, my father used to read it to me often but I never liked his story telling voice so I used to read ahead while looking at the words since of course, the book was open. I've always had great eyesight. lots of carrots. my father also took me to the play version in London when I was probably 7-9. that was the best times for our relationship. before my brother was born, it was more about him and me. this book reminds me of him and me. me and him. Him and I. I am Him. there is a reason people say I look like him. i come from his sperm whether it was in a tube or not. I don't remember much about the actual story but I remember thinking the toad was a total lame bummer and wasn't feeling his vibe. fucking toads.
    • 3/5
      The enchanting story of animals that live in the Wild Wood.
    • 3/5
      Not one of my favourites, but still a good classic read.
    • 4/5
      Great fun to reacquaint myself with Rat, Mole, Badger and Toad after so many years. Something was missing from the magical experience........Yes, a young child hanging off every word. Looks like one to keep for any future grand children
    • 4/5
      A fun book, but I have not read it in years.
    • 5/5
      Wow, I never read this as a child, my only exposure was from Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland. What an amazing book. Just finished reading this book to my five-year-old son. We both loved it. A wonderful story, such expressive writing. Great characters. I'll be reading this again.
    • 4/5
      “The Wind in the Willows” is a children novel based on letters written by Kenneth Graham to his young son. The novels follows the adventures of the anthropomorphic animals Mole, Rat, Badger, Toad, and their friends. When the novel begins, Mole is at home doing spring cleaning, and he is quite bored with it. He leaves his cleaning, goes to the surface, plows through rabbits along the roads and grasses and finally to the river. It is at the river that Mole meets Rat, and the two form an immediate friendship. This friendship brings Rat’s friends Badger and Toad into the story. Each chapter then tells the tales of these 4 friends (together and separately). The reader is able to share in their adventures and misadventures-in gypsy caravans, stolen motor cars, the Wild Wood and “violent” ferrets. I read a review that described this book as cozy—and that is the way that I would describe it—cozy and warm—the type of book you really do want to curl up with and read on a cold day. The friendship between these four friends was charming—they try to support each other even when there are issues among them without judgement (particularly with the impulsive Toad). A great novel for the whole family. 4 out of 5 stars.
    • 3/5
      The moral of the story is that friends are important and you shouldn’t let small things tear you apart. One thing I disliked about this book was the very long run on sentences, ”First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes , and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur , and an aching back and weary arms.” When sentences are this long it makes it difficult for readers to follow. One thing I liked about this story this story was the detail and development of the characters; because of this the readers are about to envision details of all of the characters even though there aren’t any pictures, “Working buisily with his little paws…his snout came up to the warm sunlight….the sun struck on his soft fur…his heated brow.”
    • 5/5
      Recently read this to my 5 year old and the Language is Just Beautiful. Although they're always calling each other "asses", which in UK English, any parent has trouble reading aloud to their kid, but it's just lovely.
    • 5/5
      One of my favorites and enjoyed again as an adult. The most beautiful prose and lyrical descriptions are to be had in this book. The animals remind us of people we know! Descriptions of the joys of home and hearth bring much enjoyment to the reader. Adventures of these whimsical animals keep the reader wanting to go and find out the endings.
    • 4/5
      I read this as an adult. My father owned it on cassette tape and every now and then I'd try listening to it as I fell asleep but it was perfectly soporific, and I never lasted more than a few minutes into the narration. It was only after seeing a stage version in Christchurch -- which I loved -- that I was prompted to read the darn thing. It is pretty good. A number of illustrators have gone to town with it as well, and I've since bought an illustrated version for my own kid.
    • 3/5
      I did not get into this book at all. I’ve never really been into the books about anthropomorphized animals as it is. I never read this book as a child either, and it seems it would have been better if I had. I thought there were fast parts and then slow parts but no consistent pace. And I didn’t really like Toad all that much. Rat and Mole were more to my liking. There were certainly undertones to the book but I thought it was a little long for a children’s audience. It’s checked off my BBC List reads now and I can now say I’ve read it and may read it to my children in the future but that’s about all I really got out of it.
    • 3/5
      Though quirky, I didn't find this book to be exciting nor engaging.
    • 5/5
      Priceless!
    • 4/5
      Wonderful children's classic.
    • 4/5
      It is great to read an old classic!
    • 3/5
      Very glad to finally take the time to read this timeless children's classic! The adventures were just what I would expect from a young child's imagination. The language, however, was a bit dry and stiff and I felt the writing style kept me from engaging fully in the clever, fun little characters. Glad to have read, but a bit disappointed in the entertainment value.

    Book preview

    The Wind in The Willows - Kenneth Grahame

    THE WIND

    IN THE

    WILLOWS

    Kenneth Grahame

    CONTENTS

    Cover

    Title Page

    Chapter 1 The River Bank

    Chapter 2 The Open Road

    Chapter 3 The Wild Wood

    Chapter 4 Mr Badger

    Chapter 5 Dulce Domum

    Chapter 6 Mr Toad

    Chapter 7 The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

    Chapter 8 Toad’s Adventures

    Chapter 9 Wayfarers All

    Chapter 10 The Further Adventures of Toad

    Chapter 11 ‘Like Summer Tempests Came His Tears’

    Chapter 12 The Return of Ulysses

    Classic Literature: Words and Phrases Adapted from the Collins English Dictionary

    About the Author

    History of Collins

    Copyright

    About the Publisher

    CHAPTER 1

    The River Bank

    The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring-cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms. Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly little house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing. It was small wonder, then, that he suddenly flung down his brush on the floor, said ‘Bother!’ and ‘O blow!’ and also ‘Hang spring-cleaning!’ and bolted out of the house without even waiting to put on his coat. Something up above was calling him imperiously, and he made for the steep little tunnel which answered in his case to the gravelled carriage-drive owned by animals whose residences are nearer to the sun and air. So he scraped and scratched and scrabbled and scrooged, and then he scrooged again and scrabbled and scratched and scraped, working busily with his little paws and muttering to himself, ‘Up we go! Up we go!’ till at last, pop! his snout came out into the sunlight, and he found himself rolling in the warm grass of a great meadow.

    ‘This is fine!’ he said to himself. ‘This is better than whitewashing!’ The sunshine struck hot on his fur, soft breezes caressed his heated brow, and after the seclusion of the cellarage he had lived in so long the carol of happy birds fell on his dulled hearing almost like a shout. Jumping off all his four legs at once, in the joy of living and the delight of spring without its cleaning, he pursued his way across the meadow till he reached the hedge on the further side.

    ‘Hold up!’ said an elderly rabbit at the gap. ‘Sixpence for the privilege of passing by the private road!’ He was bowled over in an instant by the impatient and contemptuous Mole, who trotted along the side of the hedge chaffing the other rabbits as they peeped hurriedly from their holes to see what the row was about. ‘Onion-sauce! Onion-sauce!’ he remarked jeeringly, and was gone before they could think of a thoroughly satisfactory reply. Then they all started grumbling at each other. ‘How stupid you are! Why didn’t you tell him –’ ‘Well, why didn’t you say –’ ‘You might have reminded him –’ and so on in the usual way; but, of course, it was then much too late, as is always the case.

    It all seemed too good to be true. Hither and thither through the meadows he rambled busily, along the hedgerows, across the copses, finding everywhere birds building, flowers budding, leaves thrusting – everything happy, and progressive, and occupied. And instead of having an uneasy conscience pricking him and whispering ‘Whitewash!’ he somehow could only feel how jolly it was to be the only idle dog among all these busy citizens. After all, the best part of a holiday is perhaps not so much to be resting yourself, as to see all the other fellows busy working.

    He thought his happiness was complete when, as he meandered aimlessly along, suddenly he stood by the edge of a full-fed river. Never in his life had he seen a river before – this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh playmates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver – glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spellbound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.

    As he sat on the grass and looked across the river, a dark hole in the bank opposite, just above the water’s edge, caught his eye, and dreamily he fell to considering what a nice snug dwelling-place it would make for an animal with few wants and fond of a bijou riverside residence, above flood-level and remote from noise and dust. As he gazed, something bright and small seemed to twinkle down in the heart of it, vanished, then twinkled once more like a tiny star. But it could hardly be a star in such an unlikely situation; and it was too glittering and small for a glow-worm. Then, as he looked, it winked at him, and so declared itself to be an eye; and a small face began gradually to grow up round it, like a frame round a picture.

    A brown little face, with whiskers.

    A grave round face, with the same twinkle in its eye that had first attracted his notice.

    Small neat ears and thick silky hair.

    It was the Water Rat!

    Then the two animals stood and regarded each other cautiously.

    ‘Hullo, Mole!’ said the Water Rat.

    ‘Hullo, Rat!’ said the Mole.

    ‘Would you like to come over?’ inquired the Rat presently.

    ‘O, it’s all very well to talk,’ said the Mole, rather pettishly, he being new to a river and riverside life and its ways.

    The Rat said nothing, but stopped and unfastened a rope and hauled on it; then lightly stepped into a little boat which the Mole had not observed. It was painted blue outside and white within, and was just the size for two animals; and the Mole’s whole heart went out to it at once, even though he did not yet fully understand its uses.

    The Rat sculled smartly across and made fast. Then he held up his fore-paw as the Mole stepped gingerly down. ‘Lean on that!’ he said. ‘Now then, step lively!’ and the Mole to his surprise and rapture found himself actually seated in the stern of a real boat.

    ‘This has been a wonderful day!’ said he, as the Rat shoved off and took to the sculls again. ‘Do you know, I’ve never been in a boat before in all my life.’

    ‘What?’ cried the Rat, open-mouthed. ‘Never been in a – you never – well, I – what have you been doing, then?’

    ‘Is it so nice as all that?’ asked the Mole shyly, though he was quite prepared to believe it as he leant back in his seat and surveyed the cushions, the oars, the rowlocks, and all the fascinating fittings, and felt the boat sway lightly under him.

    ‘Nice? It’s the only thing,’ said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant forward for his stroke. ‘Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing,’ he went on dreamily: ‘messing – about – in – boats; messing –’

    ‘Look ahead, Rat!’ cried the Mole suddenly.

    It was too late. The boat struck the bank full tilt. The dreamer, the joyous oarsman, lay on his back at the bottom of the boat, his heels in the air.

    ‘– about in boats – or with boats,’ the Rat went on composedly, picking himself up with a pleasant laugh. ‘In or out of ’em, it doesn’t matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that’s the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don’t; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you’re always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you’ve done it there’s always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you’d much better not. Look here! If you’ve really nothing else on hand this morning, supposing we drop down the river together, and have a long day of it?’

    The Mole waggled his toes from sheer happiness, spread his chest with a sigh of full contentment, and leaned back blissfully into the soft cushions. ‘What a day I’m having!’ he said. ‘Let us start at once!’

    ‘Hold hard a minute, then!’ said the Rat. He looped the painter through a ring in his landing-stage, climbed up into his hole above, and after a short interval reappeared staggering under a fat, wicker luncheon-basket.

    ‘Shove that under your feet,’ he observed to the Mole, as he passed it down into the boat. Then he untied the painter and took the sculls again.

    ‘What’s inside it?’ asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosity.

    ‘There’s cold chicken inside it,’ replied the Rat briefly; ‘coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrench rollscresssandwidgespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesoda water –’

    ‘O stop, stop,’ cried the Mole in ecstasies: ‘This is too much!’

    ‘Do you really think so?’ inquired the Rat seriously. ‘It’s only what I always take on these little excursions; and the other animals are always telling me that I’m a mean beast and cut it very fine!’

    The Mole never heard a word he was saying. Absorbed in the new life he was entering upon, intoxicated with the sparkle, the ripple, the scents and the sounds and the sunlight, he trailed a paw in the water and dreamed long waking dreams. The Water Rat, like the good little fellow he was, sculled steadily on and forbore to disturb him.

    ‘I like your clothes awfully, old chap,’ he remarked after some half an hour or so had passed. ‘I’m going to get a black velvet smoking-suit myself some day, as soon as I can afford it.’

    ‘I beg your pardon,’ said the Mole, pulling himself together with an effort. ‘You must think me very rude; but all this is so new to me. So – this – is – a – River!’

    ‘The River,’ corrected the Rat.

    ‘And you really live by the river? What a jolly life!’

    ‘By it and with it and on it and in it,’ said the Rat. ‘It’s brother and sister to me, and aunts, and company, and food and drink, and (naturally) washing. It’s my world, and I don’t want any other. What it hasn’t got is not worth having, and what it doesn’t know is not worth knowing. Lord! the times we’ve had together! Whether in winter or summer, spring or autumn, it’s always got its fun and its excitements. When the floods are on in February, and my cellars and basement are brimming with drink that’s no good to me, and the brown water runs by my best bedroom window; or again when it all drops away and shows patches of mud that smell like plum-cake, and the rushes and weed clog the channels, and I can potter about dry-shod over most of the bed of it and find fresh food to eat, and things careless people have dropped out of boats!’

    ‘But isn’t it a bit dull at times?’ the Mole ventured to ask. ‘Just you and the river, and no one else to pass a word with?’

    ‘No one else to – well, I mustn’t be hard on you,’ said the Rat with forbearance. ‘You’re new to it, and of course you don’t know. The bank is so crowded nowadays that many people are moving away altogether. O no, it isn’t what it used to be, at all. Otters, kingfishers, dabchicks, moorhens, all of them about all day long and always wanting you to do something – as if a fellow had no business of his own to attend to!’

    ‘What lies over there?’ asked the Mole, waving a paw towards a background of woodland that darkly framed the water-meadows on one side of the river.

    ‘That? O, that’s just the Wild Wood,’ said the Rat shortly. ‘We don’t go there very much, we river-bankers.’

    ‘Aren’t they – aren’t they very nice people in there?’ said the Mole a trifle nervously.

    ‘W-e-ll,’ replied the Rat, ‘let me see. The squirrels are all right. And the rabbits – some of ’em, but rabbits are a mixed lot. And then there’s Badger, of course. He lives right in the heart of it; wouldn’t live anywhere else, either, if you paid him to do it. Dear old Badger! Nobody interferes with him. They’d better not,’ he added significantly.

    ‘Why, who should interfere with him?’ asked the Mole.

    ‘Well, of course – there – are others,’ explained the Rat in a hesitating sort of way. ‘Weasels – and stoats – and foxes – and so on. They’re all right in a way – I’m very good friends with them – pass the time of day when we meet, and all that – but they break out sometimes, there’s no denying it, and then – well, you can’t really trust them, and that’s the fact.’

    The Mole knew well that it is quite against animal-etiquette to dwell on possible trouble ahead, or even to allude to it; so he dropped the subject.

    ‘And beyond the Wild Wood again?’ he asked: ‘Where it’s all blue and dim, and one sees what may be hills or perhaps they mayn’t, and something like the smoke of towns, or is it only cloud-drift?’

    ‘Beyond the Wild Wood comes the Wide World,’ said the Rat. ‘And that’s something that doesn’t matter, either to you or me. I’ve never been there, and I’m never going, nor you either, if you’ve got any sense at all. Don’t ever refer to it again, please. Now then! Here’s our backwater at last, where we’re going to lunch.’

    Leaving the main stream, they now passed into what seemed at first sight like a little landlocked lake. Green turf sloped down to either edge, brown snaky tree-roots gleamed below the surface of the quiet water, while ahead of them the silvery shoulder and foamy tumble of a weir, arm-in-arm with a restless dripping mill-wheel, that held up in its turn a grey-gabled mill-house, filled the air with a soothing murmur of sound, dull and smothery, yet with little clear voices speaking up cheerfully out of it at intervals. It was so very beautiful that the Mole could only hold up both fore-paws and gasp, ‘O my! O my! O my!’

    The Rat brought the boat alongside the bank, made her fast, helped the still awkward Mole safely ashore, and swung out the luncheon-basket. The Mole begged as a favour to be allowed to unpack it all by himself; and the Rat was very pleased to indulge him, and to sprawl at full length on the grass and rest, while his excited friend shook out the table-cloth and spread it, took out all the mysterious packets one by one and arranged their contents in due order, still gasping, ‘O my! O my!’ at each fresh revelation. When all was ready, the Rat said, ‘Now, pitch in, old fellow!’ and the Mole was indeed very glad to obey, for he had started his spring-cleaning at a very early hour that morning, as people will do, and had not paused for bite or sup; and he had been through a very great deal since that distant time which now seemed so many days ago.

    ‘What are you looking at?’ said the Rat presently, when the edge of their hunger was somewhat dulled, and the Mole’s eyes were able to wander off the tablecloth a little.

    ‘I am looking,’ said the Mole, ‘at a streak of bubbles that I see travelling along the surface of the water. That is a thing that strikes me as funny.’

    ‘Bubbles? Oho!’ said the Rat, and chirruped cheerily in an inviting sort of way.

    A broad glistening muzzle showed itself above the edge of the bank, and the Otter hauled himself out and shook the water from his coat.

    ‘Greedy beggars!’ he observed, making for the provender. ‘Why didn’t you invite me, Ratty?’

    ‘This was an impromptu affair,’ explained the Rat. ‘By the way – my friend, Mr Mole.’

    ‘Proud, I’m sure,’ said the Otter, and the two animals were friends forthwith.

    ‘Such a rumpus everywhere!’ continued the Otter. ‘All the world seems out on the river today. I came up this backwater to try and get a moment’s peace, and then stumble upon you fellows! At least – I beg pardon – I don’t exactly mean that, you know.’

    There was a rustle behind them, proceeding from a hedge wherein last year’s leaves still clung thick, and a stripy head, with high shoulders behind it, peered forth on them.

    ‘Come on, old Badger!’ shouted the Rat.

    The Badger trotted forward a pace or two; then grunted, ‘H’m! Company,’ and turned his back and disappeared from view.

    ‘That’s just the sort of fellow he is!’ observed the disappointed Rat. ‘Simply hates Society! Now we shan’t see any more of him today. Well, tell us who’s out on the river?’

    ‘Toad’s out, for one,’ replied the Otter. ‘In his brand-new wager-boat; new togs, new everything!’

    The two animals looked at each other and laughed.

    ‘Once, it was nothing but sailing,’ said the Rat. ‘Then he tired of that and took to punting. Nothing would please him but to punt all day and every day, and a nice mess he made of it. Last year it was house-boating, and we all had to go and stay with him in his house-boat, and pretend we liked it. He was going to spend the rest of his life in a house-boat. It’s all the same, whatever he takes up; he gets tired of it, and starts on something fresh.’

    ‘Such a good fellow, too,’ remarked the Otter reflectively. ‘But no stability – especially in a boat!’

    From where they sat they could get a glimpse of the main stream across the island that separated them; and just then a wager-boat flashed into view, the rower – a short, stout figure – splashing badly and rolling a good deal, but working his hardest. The Rat stood up and hailed him, but Toad – for it was he – shook his head and settled sternly to his work.

    ‘He’ll be out of the boat in a minute if he rolls like that,’ said the Rat, sitting down again.

    ‘Of course he will,’ chuckled the Otter. ‘Did I ever tell you that good story about Toad and the lock-keeper? It happened this way. Toad …’

    An errant May-fly swerved unsteadily athwart the current in the intoxicated fashion affected by young bloods of May-flies seeing life. A swirl of water and a ‘cloop!’ and the May-fly was visible no more.

    Neither was the Otter.

    The Mole looked down. The voice was still in his ears, but the turf whereon he had sprawled was clearly vacant. Not an Otter to be seen, as far as the distant horizon.

    But again there was a streak of bubbles on the surface of the river.

    The Rat hummed a tune, and the Mole recollected that animal-etiquette forbade any sort of comment on the sudden disappearance of one’s friends at any moment, for any reason or no reason whatever.

    ‘Well, well,’ said the Rat, ‘I suppose we ought to be moving. I wonder which of us had better pack the luncheon-basket?’ He did not speak as if he was frightfully eager for the treat.

    ‘O, please let me,’ said the Mole. So, of course, the Rat let him.

    Packing the basket was not quite such pleasant work as unpacking the basket. It never is. But the Mole was bent on enjoying everything, and although just when he had got the basket packed and strapped up tightly he saw a plate staring up at him from the grass, and when the job had been done again the Rat pointed out a fork which anybody ought to have seen, and last of all, behold! the mustard-pot, which he had been sitting on without knowing it – still, somehow, the thing got finished at last, without much loss of temper.

    The afternoon sun was getting low as the Rat sculled gently homewards in a dreamy mood, murmuring poetry-things over to himself, and not paying much attention to Mole. But the Mole was very full of lunch, and self-satisfaction, and pride, and already quite at home in a boat (so he thought) and was getting a bit restless besides: and presently he said, ‘Ratty! Please, I want to row, now!’

    The Rat shook his head with a smile. ‘Not yet, my young friend,’ he said – ‘wait till you’ve had a few lessons. It’s not so easy as it looks.’

    The Mole was quiet for a minute or two. But he began to feel more and more jealous of Rat, sculling so strongly and so easily along, and his pride began to whisper that he could do it every bit as well. He jumped up and seized the sculls, so suddenly, that the Rat, who was gazing out over the water and saying more poetry-things to himself, was taken by surprise and fell backwards off his seat with his legs in the air for the second time, while the triumphant Mole took his place and grabbed the sculls with entire confidence.

    ‘Stop it, you silly ass!’ cried the Rat, from the bottom of the boat. ‘You can’t do it! You’ll have us over!’

    The Mole flung his sculls back with a flourish, and made a great dig at the water. He missed the surface altogether, his legs flew up above his head, and he found himself lying on the top of the prostrate Rat. Greatly alarmed, he made a grab at the side of the boat, and the next moment – Sploosh!

    Over went the boat, and he found himself struggling in the river.

    O my, how cold the water was, and O, how very wet it felt. How it sang in his ears as he went down, down, down! How bright and welcome the sun looked as he rose to the surface coughing and spluttering! How black was his despair when he felt himself sinking again! Then a firm paw gripped him by the back of his neck. It was the Rat, and he was evidently laughing – the Mole could feel him laughing, right down his arm and through his paw, and

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