THE TOAD AS TRAVELLER 85 



place for him, and also difficult to travel in, seeing 

 that it had a rough surface full of loosened stones, 

 and was very dusty. His progress was very 

 slow ; he did not hop, but crawled laboriously 

 for about five inches, then sat up and rested 

 four or five minutes, then crawled and rested 

 again. When I first caught sight of him he was 

 about forty yards from the water, and looking 

 at him through my binocular when he sat up 

 and rested I could see the pulsing movements 

 of his throat as though he panted with fatigue, 

 and the yellow eyes on the summit of his head 

 gazing at that delicious coolness where he wished 

 to be. If toads can see things forty yards away 

 the stream was visible to him, as he was on 

 that part of the road which sloped down to the 

 stream. 



Lucky for you, old toad, thought I, that it is 

 not market day at Basingstoke or somewhere with 

 farmers and small general dealers flying about the 

 country in their traps, or you would be flattened 

 by a hoof or a wheel long before the end of your 

 pilgrimage. 



By and by another creature appeared and 

 caused me to forget the toad. A young water- 

 vole came up stream, swimming briskly from the 

 swampy meadow on the other side of the road. 

 As he approached I tapped the wood with my 

 stick to make him turn back, but this only made 

 him swim faster towards me, and determined to 

 have my own way I jumped down and tried to 



