so you must jump and hide in the wood, before they get through
the tunnel and see you. Then I will go full speed ahead again, and
they can chase me if they like, for as long as they like, and as far
as they like. Now mind and be ready to jump when I tell you!"

They piled on more coals, and the train shot into the tunnel, and the
engine rushed and roared and rattled, till at last they shot out at
the other end into fresh air and the peaceful moonlight, and saw the
wood lying dark and helpful upon either side of the line. The driver
shut off steam and put on brakes, the Toad got down on the step, and
as the train slowed down to almost a walking pace he heard the driver
call out, "Now, jump!"

Toad jumped, rolled down a short embankment, picked himself up unhurt,
scrambled into the wood and hid.

Peeping out, he saw his train get up speed again and disappear at a
great pace. Then out of the tunnel burst the pursuing engine, roaring
and whistling, her motley crew waving their various weapons and
shouting, "Stop! stop! stop!" When they were past, the Toad had a
hearty laugh--for the first time since he was thrown into prison.

But he soon stopped laughing when he came to consider that it was now
very late and dark and cold, and he was in an unknown wood, with no
money and no chance of supper, and still far from friends and home;
and the dead silence of everything, after the roar and rattle of the
train, was something of a shock. He dared not leave the shelter of the
trees, so he struck into the wood, with the idea of leaving the
railway as far as possible behind him.

After so many weeks within walls, he found the wood strange and
unfriendly and inclined, he thought, to make fun of him. Night-jars,
sounding their mechanical rattle, made him think that the wood was
full of searching warders, closing in on him. An owl, swooping
noiselessly towards him, brushed his shoulder with its wing, making
him jump with the horrid certainty that it was a hand; then flitted
off, moth-like, laughing its low ho! ho! ho! which Toad thought in
very poor taste. Once he met a fox, who stopped, looked him up and
down in a sarcastic sort of way, and said, "Hullo, washerwoman! Half a
pair of socks and a pillow-case short this week! Mind it doesn't occur
again!" and swaggered off, sniggering. Toad looked about for a stone
to throw at him, but could not succeed in finding one, which vexed him
more than anything. At last, cold, hungry, and tire