The Willows in Winter by William Horwood, Patrick Benson Page B

become Good.
    He might still have been good, and have ever
continued to be so, had he not been sitting idly on his lawn one balmy day the
previous autumn, expanding on his favourite theme, which was himself, to the
Nephew.
    Mole had sent to him for some education in the
better things of life, when, suddenly, far off in the eastern sky but
approaching with appealing speed, he had heard the drone of a machine.
    “‘What’s that?” he had said aloud, his voice
tremulous with anticipation, his eyes widening even as he felt his pulse
quicken.
    “Can it be what I think it is?” he muttered,
screwing up his eyes against the pale sky.
    “Is it coming over here?” he whispered, pacing
back and forth and staring at the speck that grew bigger and louder by the
moment.
    It was and it did: a red and yellow flying
machine which flew straight over the very lawn on which, but moments before, he
had been frittering his dull and fettered life away. It came, it flew, it
conquered; and it left in its noisy wake those firm resolutions to be good with
which he had wrestled so successfully for so long, all broken and disregarded.
    “I must! I shall! I need! I long!” he had
cried, dancing about and waving his hands in exultation after the infernal
machine which had come from nowhere to titillate and tease him and leave him
knowing that he would be forever dissatisfied till he had one of his very own.
    “You must what?” asked Mole’s Nephew, not
understanding at all the change that had come over the great Mr Toad, nor being
old or wise enough — as the Mole himself would have been — to see its dreadful
significance.
    “What?!” said Toad. “You
still here? I had forgotten you were —” and realising immediately the
danger he was in, he feigned something like a fainting fit, and muttered, “What
must I do? I must not! I shall not! I need not! No, no, you young and
impressionable mole, seek not what you cannot have. Be content with the simple
blessings that life brings. I long for nothing, nothing at all, but peace and
quiet, and — and such good things —”
    Toad had then subsided into his chair and
pretended the very opposite of what he felt and intended, for he knew it would
do him no good if Mole’s Nephew guessed what was in his mind. He relieved
himself of the youngster as soon as he could — claiming to feel ill, which was
something near the truth, for he was ill with desire and yearning.
    From that day Toad had begun to plot to acquire
his own flying machine: first summoning those who knew about such things to
Toad Hall and then sneaking away saying he must visit an ageing relative when,
in fact, he went to the most exciting event of his life: an air show which
concluded with an air race. He returned addicted, and began to plot more
feverishly still, for he knew it would be no good simply to acquire a machine
and start flying it. No, he must plan!
    Plan he had, brilliantly, as he perceived it.
His aged relative, now in terminal though lengthy decline, afforded him plenty
of excuse to visit that aerodrome whereon the machine he had set his heart upon
awaited him. There he had his first ecstatic flights as a passenger, and then,
O bliss!, his first lessons, till finally, though not yet competent to fly,
Toad acquired the wondrous machine, and arranged for it to be delivered to Toad
Hall in the depth of winter, when he knew that the animals along the river
would be in their miserable hovels and humble homes, and not interested in
prying into his exciting business.
    The machine had arrived in parts, to be
assembled by a pilot-mechanic behind specially erected and camouflaged hessian baffles and shields in the greatest secrecy Here the engine had been fired, Toad’s pleasure in its
glorious noise marred only slightly by the possibility that the Badger and the
others would hear it. But they seemed not to have done, and his plans
progressed unimpeded by their interference.
    He came upon his first real set-back when