The Wind in the Willows – 90th anniversary gift edition. Kenneth Grahame

      

      First published in Great Britain in 1908 by Methuen & Co Ltd

       Reissued in 2000 by Egmont Books

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

      This edition published 2021 by Egmont Books

      Text copyright © The University Chest, Oxford, under the Beme Convention

       Line illustrations copyright © The Shepard Trust

      The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted

      Ebook ISBN 978 0 7555 0079 6

       www.egmontbooks.co.uk

      A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

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      1  I The River Bank

      2  II The Open Road

      3  III The Wild Wood

      4  IV Mr Badger

      5  V Dulce Domum

      6  VI Mr Toad

      7  VII The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

      8  VIII Toad’s Adventures

      9  IX Wayfarers All

      10  X The Further Adventures of Toad

      11  XI ‘Like Summer Tempests Came His Tears’

      12  XII The Return of Ulysses

      13  Back series promotional page

      14  About the Author

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

I The River Bank

II The Open Road

III The Wild Wood

       IV Mr Badger

       V Dulce Domum

       VI Mr Toad

       VII The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

       VIII Toad’s Adventures

       IX Wayfarers All

       X The Further Adventures of Toad

       XI ‘Like Summer Tempests Came His Tears’

       XII The Return of Ulysses

       Back series promotional page

       About the Author

      

I

       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. So1he 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