Read Online The Willows in Winter by William Horwood, Patrick Benson - Free Book Online

he
discovered that the wretched pilot-mechanic (as he now seemed to Toad)
resolutely and adamantly refused to allow him to fly the machine himself till
he had had more lessons.
    “I order you to!” Toad said finally, after a
variety of pleas and threats.
    “It would be more than my life is worth, Mr Toad, and yours as well, to let you,” was the reply.
    “But — but — the whole point of having
it is that I, Toad of Toad Hall, should fly it and be seen to be flying it,”
spluttered the exasperated Toad.
    “I appreciate that,” said the pilot, who had
dealt before with other customers like Toad who had more money than sense, and
knew just the right combination of firmness and flattery that was required, “I understand that, Your Honour, but —”
    Toad softened just a little, for he enjoyed
very much being called “Your Honour”, though his brow began to furrow almost
immediately when he reflected that “Your Honour” was generally used for Judges,
and they were a species whose path he had crossed before, and wished never to
cross again.
    “But can’t you make an exception’ purred Toad,
“seeing as I have very considerable experience with high-velocity motor-cars
and —The pilot slowly shook his head, and leant close to Toad, like a fellow
conspirator. “Look at it this way, Your Worship, if—”
    Toad softened still more as the wise and
sensible pilot-mechanic, a sterling sort of fellow when it came down to it,
spoke those words “Your Worship” such as, Toad thought, might be applied to a
Lord Mayor or a Bishop, or some such personage of the kind with whom Toad could
very easily imagine himself mixing.
    “If — ? ” whispered Toad
almost gently.
    “If, as you rightly say, My Lord, if—”
    Toad’s head swam. Toad’s chest swelled. Toad’s
heart missed a beat as an extraordinary sensation came across him at those
potent and wonderful words, “My Lord”. No sooner were they uttered than Toad
fancied that they were true and that he was, he really was, Lord Toad of Toad
Hall, but — but he shivered the sensation away from himself.
    Then he sighed, and he sank back into the more
sustainable dream that even if those magic words were not quite true, they were
almost so. A Lord he certainly was in spirit, just as he felt he had always
been. A Lord in all but name, and one day —
    “— if,” continued the pilot—mechanic, “I were
to let you fly this machine without further instruction, and supposing, just
supposing, there was a regrettable occurrence, which is to say an accident,
then it would not reflect well on you at all. Accidents involving flying
machines tend to attract rather widespread, not to say national, interest. All
the more so if the personage who is the pilot is well known across the length
and the breadth, as you undoubtedly are. There would be —”Toad’s mind swam
again, and his hopes and spirits soared. Not so much at the notion of “length
and breadth” (precisely what length and which breadth the pilot wisely
refrained from saying) as from all the possibilities implicit in attracting the
“national interest”. Here then, before him, within his reach, though not yet
quite within his control, was a way of making rather more of an impression than
a merely local one on inconsequential animals such as the Badger, and the Water
Rat, and the Mole.
    Here, in this shining and beautiful machine,
whose sophisticated subtlety and splendid majesty was in such perfect harmony
with the notion of Lord Toad of Toad Hall, Toad saw his future before him.
    Not that he imagined for one moment that the
national fame that was surely his due would come as a result of an accident.
Rather, he said to himself, if such ordinary mortals as this — this young pilot
— to whom accidents no doubt did happen, could talk of fame arising in that
way, how much more lasting would fame be if it came about because he, Toad, had
achieved something purposeful in his flying machine, like — and in a