Toad of Toad Hall/Act 3, Scene 3
Scene 3
THE CANAL BANK
Scene. Early morning. A quiet spot by the canal bank. The towpath cuts along by the edge of a wood, in which, just here, is a little clearing. At the entrance, half in, half out of a big hollow tree, lies a heap of old clothing, discarded, it would seem, by some washerwoman. It moves. Evidently there is a washerwoman inside it. A voice comes from the interior. No, it is our friend TOAD.
TOAD (sleepily)
I'll wear the light brown suit, and tell the car to be round at eleven o'clock. No, leave the blinds down. (He sleeps again.)
(Two baby rabbits come by with their MAMA, on their way to school.)
FIRST BABY RABBIT (Harold to the family)
What's 'at? (He gazes at TOAD.)
MAMA RABBIT
Now, now, come along, Harold, you'll be late for school.
What's Harold doing?
HAROLD (rooted to the hollow tree)
What is it?
MAMA RABBIT
Never mind now. Just some poor old washerwoman taking a rest. Come along, there's a good boy.
HAROLD
May I play with it?
MAMA RABBIT
Not now, dear.
LUCY
What's Harold saying?
HAROLD
Do washerwomans know tables?
MAMA RABBIT
I expect they do.
LUCY (proudly)
I know my twice times. Twice two are four, twice three are six.
HAROLD
What are washerwomans for?
Now, now, come along. (She takes his hand.) Now, Lucy. (She takes LUCY'S hand.) Now let's all run and see how quickly we can go. (They scamper off.)
HAROLD (as they go)
Why do washerwomans . . . (But we hear no more.)
TOAD (half waking again)
And tell cook I'll have three eggs this morning, and be sure to give them each four minutes. (He moves and wriggles, and then slowly sits up.) There, she's pulled the blinds up, and I told her— Hallo! (He looks round him in amazement.) Wherever— (He stands up, looks at his clothes, looks round him again, and draws a deep breath of happiness.) Aha! (He chuckles.) Toad again! Escaped from prison. Eluded his captors. Evaded his pursuers. The subtle and resourceful Toad! (He sits down in the sun, and idly removes a few dead leaves from his person.)
(A FOX comes by, stops, and looks him up and down in a sarcastic sort of way.)
FOX
Hallo, washerwoman! Half a pair of socks and a pillowcase short this week. Mind it doesn't occur again. (He goes off sniggering.)
TOAD
Silly joke! Where's the humor of it? (He stands up and spreads himself.) If he had known. If he had only known who it was. Not a common washerwoman, but the great, the good, the entirely glorious Toad! (He walks round and round in a circle, chanting his song.)
As history books have showed;
But never a name to go down to fame
Compared with that of Toad.
Their tears in torrents flowed;
Who was it said "There's land ahead,"
Encouraging Mr. Toad!
Sat in the window and sewed;
She cried "Look, who's that handsome man?"
They answered, "Mr. Toad."
(In an ecstasy) Oh, how clever I am! How clever, how very clever. (He breaks off suddenly, as voices are heard crying "Toad! Toad! There he is! This way!") Oh, misery! Oh, despair! (Terrified, he rushes into the hollow tree, and burrows under the leaves.)
(The JUDGE, the POLICEMAN, the USHER and the GAOLER come in.)
POLICEMAN
This way, your lordship. I heard him singing. All about himself. Just about here it sounded like. (He begins to look round.)
Not that revolting song he sang when I had the pleasure
of sentencing him to twenty years in a dungeon?
POLICEMAN
That's the song, your lordship. Only he had a new verse to it. Three verses he sang altogether.
JUDGE
As conceited as the old ones?
POLICEMAN
Worse.
JUDGE
Dear, dear. (To USHER) What's the penalty for singing conceited songs about yourself? Can I give him another five years?
POLICEMAN
We've got to catch him first.
USHER
Two years a verse is the usual.
JUDGE
Good. Then that's six years. And say ten for having had the ingratitude to escape from a perfectly clean, (To GAOLER) ventilated, you said?
GAOLER
Well-ventilated.
Well-ventilated prison. That's another sixteen years. Excellent!
POLICEMAN
We've got to catch him first. But he's about here somewhere, that I do say.
GAOLER
Just look in that hollow tree.
JUDGE
He wouldn't be there, would he? Such a silly place to hide in.
POLICEMAN
Well, you never know. (He goes to it. TOAD, quaking in his fear, displaces the leaves.) There's something there.
JUDGE
Something undoubtedly. (They all gather round.)
USHER
A bird of some sort, most like.
TOAD (brilliantly)
Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!
POLICEMAN
Yes, you're right. Only a bird.
Only a bird. What a pity.
USHER
I knew it was only a bird. We're wasting time here.
JUDGE
True. Lead on, policeman.
POLICEMAN
Well, he's not far off. This way. (They all go off.)
(The leaves move again, and then TOAD'S head peeps cautiously out.)
TOAD (panting with fear)
Oh my! What an ass I am. What a conceited and heedless ass. Swaggering again. Shouting and singing songs again. Sitting about and gassing again. Oh my! (He stands up and looks round cautiously, then explores the clearing. The pursuit has died away.) Ah! That was good! Just a little resource, a little cleverness! "Only a bird." Ha, ha, ha! That will amuse the dear old Badger. I can hear his hearty laugh. "We're wasting time here." How the dear fellow, Mole, will enjoy that! "I knew it was only a bird." The good Rat will chuckle when I tell him.
(He is standing with his back to the towpath. A horse, dragging a towrope, comes along the path, stops, and puts his head ingratiatingly over TOAD'S shoulder. TOAD'S jaw drops. His knees tremble.)
All right. I'll come quietly. (He looks nervously round, sees the horse, and gives a sob of relief.) You quite startled me! I thought it was—I said I'd come quietly, just to put him off his guard. That was all. Just to— Hallo! (He sees the rope.) A barge. Aha! I will hail the owner and pitch him a yarn and he will give me a lift by a route which is not troubled by fat policemen. Perhaps (He heaves a sigh.) I may even get some breakfast.
The horse has stopped and is cropping the grass. Evidently he is meant to stop here, for a comfortable-looking barge-woman comes in, carrying a bag of corn.)
BARGE-WOMAN
A nice morning, ma'am.
TOAD
The same to you, ma'am.
BARGE-WOMAN (holding up bag)
Give the horse a bit of breakfast.
TOAD (with meaning)
The horse?
BARGE-WOMAN
Had mine. (She ties the bag on to the horse's head.)
TOAD
And a good hearty breakfast I'm sure it was, ma'am.
Well, I won't deny I like my vittals.
TOAD
You're right, ma'am, you're right. (Casually) And finished
it all up, I daresay. Fried ham and eggs and all of it.
BARGE-WOMAN (with a laugh)
Pretty well, ma'am, pretty well.
TOAD
Ah. (He is gloomily silent.)
BARGE-WOMAN (having finished with the horse)
You seem in trouble, ma'am.
TOAD
Trouble! Here's my married daughter she sends off to me to come at once. So off I comes, not knowing what may be happening, but fearing the worst, as you'll understand if you happen to be a mother too, ma'am. And I've left my business to look after itself. I'm in the washing and laundering line, as you can see, ma'am; and I've left my breakfast, I was that upset, and I've lost all my money and lost my way and lost my breakfast, as you might say, too. And as for my married daughter—well, you know what it is, ma'am, being a married woman yourself, I daresay.
BARGE-WOMAN
Dear, dear. Where might your married daughter be living?
Toad Hall, ma'am. The finest house in these parts, as no doubt you've heard tell. Tudor and Jacobean, my daughter tells me, with ornamental boathouse. That is, she lives just close to it.
BARGE-WOMAN
Toad Hall? Why, I'm going that way myself. You come along in the barge with me and I'll give you a lift.
TOAD
I'm sure you're very kind, ma'am.
BARGE-WOMAN
Don't mention it. So you're in the washing business. And a fine business you've got too, I daresay, if I'm not making too free in saying so.
TOAD
Finest business in the whole country! All the gentry come to me. Washing, ironing, clear starching, making up gents' fine shirts for evening wear—all done under my own eye.
BARGE-WOMAN
But surely you don't do it all yourself, ma'am?
TOAD
Oh, I have girls, twenty or thirty of them always at work. But you know what girls are, ma'am. Idle trollops, that's what I call them.
They are that. And are you very fond of washing?
TOAD
I love it. I simply dote on it. Never so happy as when I've got both arms in the washtub.
BARGE-WOMAN
What a bit of luck meeting you!
TOAD (nervously)
Why, what do you mean?
BARGE-WOMAN
Well, look at me. I like washing too, same as you. But there's my husband, who ought by rights to be here now, steering or looking after the horse. He has gone off with the dog to see if he can't pick up a rabbit for dinner somewhere. Says he'll catch us up at the next lock. Meantime, how am I to get on with my washing?
TOAD
Oh, never mind about the washing. Try and fix your mind on that rabbit. Got any onions?
BARGE-WOMAN
It's no good, I keep thinking of that washing. And if it's a pleasure to you to do it, as you say, being that fond of it, why then—
TOAD (hastily)
No, no, I mustn't deprive you, not after you've been looking forward to it for weeks, as I expect you have. I'll steer, and then you can get on with your washing in your own way. The fact is, I am more used to gentlemen's things myself; shirt-fronts and cuffs, dressy things, if you know what I mean. It's my special line.
BARGE-WOMAN
I daresay the other would come just as easy to you once you began. Besides, it takes some practice to steer a barge properly when you've never done it before.
TOAD
Never done it before? Why, ma'am, it's my one recreation, after wash hours. First thing I do, as soon as I can get away, is to go down to the canal for a bit of barge-steering. It's got hold of me, my friends say, almost like a disease. Fact is, it's always been in the family. My father owned twenty or thirty barges, big ones, never less than three horses pulling them. Great big enormous ones.
BARGE-WOMAN (with suspicion)
I don't believe you're a washerwoman at all.
TOAD (indignantly)
Of course I'm a washerwoman! Should I be likely to say I was a washerwoman, if I wasn't? It isn't a thing you want to go about saying, if you aren't. Why should I be wearing a washerwoman's clothes if I'm not a washerwoman?
BARGE-WOMAN (firmly)
Well, if you ask me, ma'am, I should say it's all a piece of deceit. I don't go for to say what you're doing it for, but what I do say is that I won't have deceit on my barge. And that's for you, ma'am. (She goes to untie the bag from the horse's head.)
TOAD (with dignity)
Oh, indeed, ma'am.
BARGE-WOMAN
And I say this, ma'am, that if you have a daughter, which I daresay you haven't, I'm sorry for her, having a mother which practices deceit. (She comes away with the bag.) And I'll wish you good morning, ma'am. (She goes out, nose in air.)
TOAD (shouting after her)
You common, low, fat, barge-woman, don't you dare to talk to your betters like that. Washerwoman, indeed! I would have you know that I am the Toad, the Terror of the Countryside, the Scourge of Barge-women! Keep your stupid little barge! I prefer—riding! (He unfastens the towrope, jumps on the horse's back and gallops off.) The Toad! The Toad!
BARGE-WOMAN (rushing after him)
Help! Help! The notorious Toad! Help!
(The POLICEMAN and the others join in the pursuit.)
ALL
The Toad! The Toad!