ad; past
guardrooms full of grinning soldiery off duty, past sentries who
coughed in a horrid, sarcastic way, because that is as much as a
sentry on his post dare do to show his contempt and abhorrence of
crime; up time-worn winding stairs, past men-at-arms in casquet and
corselet of steel, darting threatening looks through their vizards;
across courtyards, where mastiffs strained at their leash and pawed
the air to get at him; past ancient warders, their halberds leant
against the wall, dozing over a pasty and a flagon of brown ale; on
and on, past the rack-chamber and the thumbscrew-room, past the
turning that led to the private scaffold, till they reached the door
of the grimmest dungeon that lay in the heart of the innermost keep.
There at last they paused, where an ancient gaoler sat fingering a
bunch of mighty keys.

[Illustration: _Toad was a helpless prisoner in the remotest dungeon_]

"Oddsbodikins!" said the sergeant of police, taking off his helmet and
wiping his forehead. "Rouse thee, old loon, and take over from us this
vile Toad, a criminal of deepest guilt and matchless artfulness and
resource. Watch and ward him with all thy skill; and mark thee well,
greybeard, should aught untoward befall, thy old head shall answer for
his--and a murrain on both of them!"

The gaoler nodded grimly, laying his withered hand on the shoulder of
the miserable Toad. The rusty key creaked in the lock, the great door
clanged behind them; and Toad was a helpless prisoner in the remotest
dungeon of the best-guarded keep of the stoutest castle in all the
length and breadth of Merry England.

VII

THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN

The Willow-Wren was twittering his thin little song, hidden himself in
the dark selvedge of the river bank. Though it was past ten o'clock at
night, the sky still clung to and retained some lingering skirts of
light from the departed day; and the sullen heats of the torrid
afternoon broke up and rolled away at the dispersing touch of the cool
fingers of the short midsummer night. Mole lay stretched on the bank,
still panting from the stress of the fierce day that had been
cloudless from dawn to late sunset, and waited for his friend to
return. He had been on the river with some companions, leaving the
Water Rat free to keep an engagement of long standing with Otter; and
he had come back to find the house dark and deserted, and no sign of
Rat, who was doubtless keeping it up late with his o