Kenneth Grahame: The Wind in the Willows

11. `LIKE SUMMER TEMPESTS CAME HIS TEARS' (continued)

`O, have they!' said Toad getting up and seizing a stick. `I'll jolly soon see about that!'

`It's no good, Toad!' called the Rat after him. `You'd better come back and sit down; you'll only get into trouble.'

But the Toad was off, and there was no holding him. He marched rapidly down the road, his stick over his shoulder, fuming and muttering to himself in his anger, till he got near his front gate, when suddenly there popped up from behind the palings a long yellow ferret with a gun.

`Who comes there?' said the ferret sharply.

`Stuff and nonsense!' said Toad, very angrily. `What do you mean by talking like that to me? Come out of that at once, or I'll----'

The ferret said never a word, but he brought his gun up to his shoulder. Toad prudently dropped flat in the road, and BANG! a bullet whistled over his head.

The startled Toad scrambled to his feet and scampered off down the road as hard as he could; and as he ran he heard the ferret laughing and other horrid thin little laughs taking it up and carrying on the sound.

He went back, very crestfallen, and told the Water Rat.

`What did I tell you?' said the Rat. `It's no good. They've got sentries posted, and they are all armed. You must just wait.'

Still, Toad was not inclined to give in all at once. So he got out the boat, and set off rowing up the river to where the garden front of Toad Hall came down to the waterside.

Arriving within sight of his old home, he rested on his oars and surveyed the land cautiously. All seemed very peaceful and deserted and quiet. He could see the whole front of Toad Hall, glowing in the evening sunshine, the pigeons settling by twos and threes along the straight line of the roof; the garden, a blaze of flowers; the creek that led up to the boat-house, the little wooden bridge that crossed it; all tranquil, uninhabited, apparently waiting for his return. He would try the boat-house first, he thought. Very warily he paddled up to the mouth of the creek, and was just passing under the bridge, when . . . CRASH!