The River Bank

by Kij Johnson

  “Shh!” hissed the Rabbit. She was awake beside him, on her paws and knees in the straw, peeping down into the main area, where there was a light. The Toad bit back his scream and looked out cautiously, as well.

  Someone had brought in a dark lantern and opened it as far as it would go, which was not very far. The dim glow illuminated a wedge of the main floor, leaving everything else in darkness. They could see eight or ten animals: a handful of Stoats and a couple of jostling Weasels, passing around a square dark bottle and gusting with coarse laughter.

  “Toad, I think they are criminals!” whispered the Rabbit; she did not sound at all afraid. “But I think they are waiting for something or someone. The Mastermind, perhaps! This is much better than merely sleeping in a barn!”

  The Toad could not agree, and opened his mouth to say something to her; but alas and alack! The sneeze that had been threatening for so long became manifest, real, and imminent. The Toad scrunched his face and twisted his cheeks, but he could not stop it and it burst from him rather like a sudden shout of thunder from a fast-growing cloud on a hot afternoon. In the dead silence that followed, the Rabbit’s voice could be heard saying, “O dear.”

  In no time at all, two enterprising Stoats found their hiding place in the haymow and dragged Toad and the Rabbit from it (the Mouse had vanished entirely). They were pushed into the lantern’s beam, and the Toad fell prostrate onto the main floor. The Rabbit kept her feet and brushed bits of straw from her skirt as she looked into the gloom around them.

  “Why—it’s a Rabbit!” said a Weasel from the darkness. “And a Toad,” said a Stoat from another direction. “A-hiding in our little home!” said a third voice. “Shouldn’t you be home, kiddies?” And they all began to cackle in a way the Toad suddenly recognized from the hedgerows they had passed on their way here.

  But the Rabbit only shielded her eyes to look into the darkness. “Are you outlaws?” she asked in a voice of great interest. “Is this your hideout?”

  “That we are, lassie,” said one of the voices, but it did not sound quite so ferocious now. “A band of desprit crim’nals, we are.”

  “So are we criminals, as well!” she exclaimed, but corrected herself, a little sadly: “Well, he is, at any rate. I have only been an aider-and-abetter thus far, but still, it is very exciting.”

  “Izzat so?” A Weasel stepped forward into the beam of light. Toad raised his head a bit, but the Weasel’s expression showed nothing but curiosity. “What sorts a’ crime?”

  The Toad sat up and opened his mouth, but the Rabbit was before him. “Mostly theft, I believe—isn’t that true? Motor-cars and motor-cycles, and horses, and—”

  “—and fleeing from the police twice or three times, and prison-break,” contributed the Toad, getting to his feet. “And misuse of the public railways, and horse-stealing, and—and this and that. In fact,” he ended, and puffed out his chest, “there is very little I haven’t done!”

  During the Toad’s speech, the Stoats and Weasels (and a Barn Rat that had thrown in his lot with them) had come closer until they were all clustered in the lantern light in a tight circle, casting long shadows behind them. It was (the Rabbit thought) a little bit frightening, but they were more impressed than anything else, nudging one another and whispering, “D’ya ’ear that?”—“Escaped the coppers, he did, twice!”—“That’s a proper outlaw, that is!”; and when he was quite finished (which he did with a little flourish that might almost be a bow), the Barn Rat said, “Three cheers for our friend ’ere!” and handed him the square bottle.

  “I don’t think—” began the Rabbit. It was too late. The Toad took a drink and immediately burst out choking and coughing, for which he was slapped on the back and cheered; and then a Weasel handed her the bottle, saying, “’Ere you go, lass,” and she had to drink as well, and she found that, really, coughing and choking was the only possible response. It tasted—well, it tasted the way she imagined gasoline might, fiery and not at all like the elderflower wine her mother had given her sometimes as a cordial when she was sick—but she managed; and when she looked up with watering eyes, she saw the circle of Stoats and Weasels grinning and cheering her, as well. They seated her upon an upturned pail and started plying the Toad with questions about his exploits. The Toad, I am sorry to say, rather let himself go, and his stories strayed further and further from the unvarnished truth, until their only resemblance to what actually happened was that the Toad featured prominently in both; but the Stoats and Weasels only cheered and asked more questions, and kept the square bottle revolving around the circle.

  But even the Toad slowed down after a time, and one of the Weasels turned to the Rabbit, and said, “And what about you, lass?”

  “O! I have done nothing, nothing at all,” she said. Falling in with bank robbers had been the merest accident, not worth the time it would take to mention, and she did not think they would find the hot-air balloon theft in the least compelling.

  The Weasel patted her hand. “Never you mind,” he said kindly. “Lasses don’t get the same opportunities we gents do, they don’t.”

  “Why, that is what I think!” she said. “And it hardly seems fair.”

  “But maybe we can put you both in the way of a little something,” said the Weasel with a wink. “As soon as the Boss gets ’ere, we’ll ask ’im.”

  “O! So you’re here for a reason?” she asked, clasping her paws together in excitement. “Not just to—what do outlaws say—‘hang out’?”

  A friendly Stoat said, “Right you are, miss! ’Ang out it is, and why? On account of we got plans to make. And what plans are those? Why, we’re planning a great house-robbery, we are! We—”

  “What’s all this?” said a new voice from the darkness outside the lantern’s beam: a new voice, smoother and lower-pitched and altogether more frightening. Everyone fell silent instantly and leapt to their feet, looking up a little apprehensively.

  Everyone, that is, save the Toad, who had been sitting splay-legged upon the floor in the middle of the circle, thinking deeply. Unlike the Rabbit, he had taken a tot from the bottle each time it passed, and so he was in what is called an exhilarated state—and he took the sudden silence as an opportunity to say: “That’s it! Can’t go home again—wanted by Scotland Yard—cannot flee the country—it’s a life of crime for me, chaps! I’ve already shown a great appi—an appert—a grape aptitude. Robberies! Holdups! Ban—Banditry! I’ll join your gang, fellows!” And he gave the closest approximation to a self-congratulatory bow possible when one is sitting upon a barn floor in an intoxicated condition.

  “What’s—all—this?” said the smooth voice again, and then a Fox stepped into the light.

  A Fox! The Rabbit had seen Foxes before, of course, but never so close: in the Hills, the Rabbits and the Foxes moved in very different circles and did not meet, socially anyway. This Fox was a dapper fellow (in a low way), with a loud tartan waistcoat under his tweedy gameskeeper’s coat and not overly clean white gaiters: a slim fellow with ginger hair and bright eyes and an uncomfortable, knowing way about him. He looked down at the nervous circle of Stoats and Weasels and the Barn Rat, and at the Rabbit, and at the Toad, still a-splay and looking, to tell the truth, uncommonly silly.

  “Why, boys, we have guests!” he drawled in mock surprise.

  His gang had been gazing up at him apprehensively, but he did not seem angry, and they tumbled over one another responding. In the end, one of the Weasels (the one who had patted the Rabbit’s hand) piped up. “Aye, Boss, that we do, this ’ere Toad and this ’ere young Rabbit.” The Rabbit had come to her feet when the Fox showed up; she dropped a small curtsey. He was taller than she, and swept her a bow that she did not think was truly respectful.

  The Weasel—he seemed to be the Head Weasel and the Fox’s first lieutenant in crime—continued, “They was a-hiding ’ere when we showed up, but not spying, I don’t think. More like ’iding out—they says they’re crim’nals, same as us. Toad ’ere’s a great felo
n, eight kinds of robbery and jailbreak and who knows what-all; and as for the Rabbit, she’s worse’n all o’ us put together,” and he gave her a little wink that made her blush.

  The Fox lifted his brows in faint surprise. “Criminals? They? Impossible.”

  Stories tumbled out of the Stoats and Weasels as they tried to recount the stories they had just heard of the Toad’s many misdeeds, real, exaggerated, and entirely fictional. By now the Toad himself had struggled to his feet, and it was he who had the last boastful word when they had finished: “Dirty deebs—deeds—of every sort.”

  The Fox stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Hmm. Perhaps we can use you. And you, my dear young lady,” he said with another mocking bow at the Rabbit, though none of the stories had been of her.

  The Head Weasel said, “Right then. The Boss is ’ere, so let’s get to work, boys!”

  “O, aye!” said all the Stoats and Weasels and the Barn Rat, and everyone sat again. This time the Fox sat with them. There was no sign of the square bottle.

  It was robbery, as the Stoat had said just before the Fox came: a stately home in the area whose owner was not in residence at the moment—“Just the thing for us,” said the Barn Rat with a cackle—packed full of paintings and fancy vases and ormolu clocks and silverware and fine hangings and objets de vértu. There was rumored to be a really excellent cellar, and some exotic orchids in the greenhouse well worth a look-see; and as for the master’s bedroom, it was reputed to be something pretty special: “There’s supposed to be a canopy ’eld up by griffins, and at the center, up top, a winged Toad, a-carrying a globe,” explained the Stoat.

  “That’s my house!” said the Toad indignantly.

  Fifteen minutes later, the Toad and the Rabbit were locked up in the barn’s tack room, with no way out. The Rabbit had struggled a little but they had only, in the nicest possible way, taken away her pocketknife (but they left her reticule), and escorted her to the tack room. Everyone was very polite, and the Head Weasel who had winked at her looked very sorry about the whole thing, and said, “Never you fear, lass, we’ll get you ’ome!” though the Fox, overhearing this, had only laughed in what the Rabbit felt was a very nasty way.

  The Toad had not seemed to notice that he was being dragged to a cell: he was too busy shouting, “You—bounders! You—cads, you blackguards! Rob my house? The nerve of it!” until they had pushed him through the door and locked it behind him, whereon he had repeatedly hurled himself full length at it, pounding and screaming until he flopped back onto the floor, winded.

  “O, why did you say anything?” the Rabbit said. “Toad, I don’t mean to be critical, but that was foolish to just pipe up like that!”

  He sat up. “Didn’t you hear them? They were going to rob my house! The hangings! The silverware! My collection of medals! Burglars!”

  “But, Toad, you could have stopped them!” said the Rabbit. “We could have broken into the house with them—they should have taken us right to it!—and then you could have locked them all into the cellar—”

  “But my wines!” interjected the Toad with a moan.

  “—and then we might have summoned the Badger and everyone, and had them red-handed! Why, you might even have gotten a pardon for capturing them!”

  The Toad looked up at her with dawning realization. “You’re right! You—are—right! Rabbit, that would have solved everything! O, I am a foolish Toad!” And a first tear rolled down his cheek.

  “No!” the Rabbit said sternly. “You cannot cry just now, dear Toad. I must listen, and I can’t hear anything if you are caterwauling.”

  “Caterwauling?” gasped the Toad. “I?” But she only made a shhing gesture and knelt by the door with one long ear pressed to the tack-room keyhole.

  Out in the main room, the Stoats and Weasels, the Barn Rat, and the Fox had returned to their counsels. The house-breaking plan had been a pip, but this—the rich Mr Toad, fallen into their hands; it was by way of a honey-fall, everyone agreed—had potential of an entirely different order. China and silver tea sets were all very well in their way, but they had to be carted away and then they had to be fenced, and no one ever gave fair value for stolen goods, and the portioning out was always a nuisance, not to mention there was always the possibility that the police and Scotland Yard might (for a novelty) find them.

  In contrast: ransom! Toad of Toad Hall was rich, of course. That meant bags and bags of little gold guineas: easy to divide, easy to carry about with one, easy (once it was broken into smaller coins) to buy rum and tobacco and nice meals at inns with. One could even take one’s earnings and emigrate to America, where playing fast and loose with the law did not seem to be so much of a problem as it was here.

  “Or,” said the Fox, and they all fell silent. Behind the Rabbit, the Toad was still muttering to himself, and the Rabbit made another frantic gesture.

  “Or,” said the Fox again, and his voice was smooth, “we could turn this Toad and the Rabbit into the authorities.”

  The Rabbit’s gasp was lost in the much louder sensation among the gang members: “What—Scotland Yard!” “That’ll be the day, guv’nor!” “Ye’r joking, right?”

  The Fox said silkily, “Hear me out. I have been reading the newspapers.” The Weasels and Stoats fell silent in respect. Reading! Their own boss, reading! “This Toad did not lie: he is a great felon, and he is on the run from Town, where he is wanted by the police and Scotland Yard. My plan is this: we extract a ransom from the Toad’s friends (for I suppose he must have some), and then we turn him over to the authorities anyway, in exchange for a blanket pardon for our own crimes.”

  There was an awed silence. Eventually one of the Stoats said reverently, “Boss, you’re the tops, that’s all. I take off my ’at to you”—which he did.

  “I dunno,” said the Head Weasel doubtfully. “It don’t seem right. ’Is friends’ll spend all their money to get this ’ere Toad back, and then they don’t get ’im after all! It seems dishonest, like. And what about this ’ere Rabbit? She seems all caught in everything accidental-like, and she’s a nice young thing.”

  “Of course we shall free her and let her find her way safely home.” The Rabbit, overhearing this, shivered, for there was something not quite reassuring about his tone. The Fox continued, “It will be the Toad’s money that frees him, not his friends’. If the Toad goes into prison (as he will when we have handed him over), his goods would all be seized and given to the Crown, anyway.”

  “So we might as well ’ave ’em,” said one of the Stoats practically. “That makes sense, that does.” There was a general assent: gold and a pardon; it was practically Christmas morning.

  “Good,” said the Fox, and stood up. “I’ll go now, and write letters to the Toad’s friends and to Scotland Yard, putting things in train. We’ll be rich, boys, you’ll see.”

  Chapter Nine

  Mole and Beryl

  Back at the River Bank, things did not change. Nothing was heard of the Toad and the Rabbit. There was a short flurry of articles when the wrecked Dustley was turned into the authorities by a farmer and his mother, but the newspapers gave no sign that they had been captured since, and there were no letters from the Hills reporting their arrival. It was assumed that they were still at large somewhere, doing something, no one knew what, and gradually everyone returned to their lives, from the idlest and most gossipy of Mice to the severe Badger, who returned to his rambling underground grotto in the Wild Wood. It was summer, high summer, and the fields stood tall with ripening grain. The orchard trees sagged under the weight of new fruit, and the gardens were lush with cucumbers and kales and lettuces that seemed to grow under one’s eyes. There was work to do, for with high summer came a rising awareness of deep winter to come, and everyone was busy.

  “Bother old Toad,” the Water Rat said to the Mole one fine afternoon. His lovely boat had been growing a bit dingy, so he had pulled it onto the dock early that morning and examined it, and in the end, even though it was not the season,
he decided to scrape and repaint it. Tasks that seem like a good idea first thing on a cool morning always seem much less so in the middle of a hot afternoon, when one feels one has already put in quite a lot of work and yet the task is not done and is not likely to be done for many more hours. It was this that was making him feel testy. He was bent over the hull, laying brushloads of thick paint along its planks. Quite a bit had ended up on his fur as well, so that his glossy greyness was speckled with white. The Mole had offered to help and been turned down on the theory that there was no point their both getting hot and dirty; but he had remained, to run such errands as the Water Rat needed done, to pour out glasses of water or ginger beer as directed by the Rat, and generally to offer entertainment and moral support.

  “Toad?” exclaimed the Mole now. “Has he been heard from at last?”

  “Not him,” snorted the Water Rat. “The newspapers all say he could be anywhere and so he could, and that dratted Rabbit with him. Anyway, I am off. As soon as I am done with this”—he gestured with his paintbrush, splashing white onto the dock and into the River, a thick thread that dissolved into a white smear spreading downstream—“I must be off to visit my cousins.”

  “Ratty, you can’t, not with everything so unsettled!” cried the Mole. “Toad gone—Badger gone—Otter still at the seaside!”

  “I can,” said the Water Rat. “I have already delayed far too long—an unavoidable visit to some cousins down south. But, Moley, there’s nothing we can do here, anyway. And you’ll still be around to hold down the fort. Keep the Stoats out of Toad Hall and so forth.”

  “I suppose,” said the Mole, but his tone was despondent. “Ratty, you will be quick, won’t you?”

  “As quick as I can,” the Water Rat said. “But—family. If it comes to it, you can always ask old Badger for help. He won’t like being taken away from the Wild Wood, not at this time of year and with the Weasels getting uppity again, but he’ll understand.”