The Wind in the Willows
In the side of what had seemed to be a snow-bank stood a solid-looking
little door, painted a dark green. An iron bell-pull hung by the side,
and below it, on a small brass plate, neatly engraved in square capital
letters, they could read by the aid of moonlight
MR. BADGER.
The Mole fell backwards on the snow from sheer surprise and delight.
“Rat!” he cried in penitence, “you’re a wonder! A real wonder, that’s
what you are. I see it all now! You argued it out, step by step, in
that wise head of yours, from the very moment that I fell and cut my
shin, and you looked at the cut, and at once your majestic mind said to
itself, ‘Door-scraper!’ And then you turned to and found the very
door-scraper that done it! Did you stop there? No. Some people would
have been quite satisfied; but not you. Your intellect went on working.
‘Let me only just find a door-mat,’ says you to yourself, ‘and my
theory is proved!’ And of course you found your door-mat. You’re so
clever, I believe you could find anything you liked. ‘Now,’ says you,
‘that door exists, as plain as if I saw it. There’s nothing else
remains to be done but to find it!’ Well, I’ve read about that sort of
thing in books, but I’ve never come across it before in real life. You
ought to go where you’ll be properly appreciated. You’re simply wasted
here, among us fellows. If I only had your head, Ratty——”
“But as you haven’t,” interrupted the Rat, rather unkindly, “I suppose
you’re going to sit on the snow all night and _talk?_ Get up at once
and hang on to that bell-pull you see there, and ring hard, as hard as
you can, while I hammer!”
While the Rat attacked the door with his stick, the Mole sprang up at
the bell-pull, clutched it and swung there, both feet well off the
ground, and from quite a long way off they could faintly hear a
deep-toned bell respond.
IV.
MR. BADGER
THEY waited patiently for what seemed a very long time, stamping in the
snow to keep their feet warm. At last they heard the sound of slow
shuffling footsteps approaching the door from the inside. It seemed, as
the Mole remarked to the Rat, like some one walking in carpet slippers
that were too large for him and down at heel; which was intelligent of
Mole, because that was exactly what it was.
There was the noise of a bolt shot back, and the door opened a few
inches, enough to show a long snout and a pair of sleepy blinking eyes.
“Now, the _very_ next time this happens,” said a gruff and suspicious
voice, “I shall be exceedingly angry. Who is it _this_ time, disturbing
people on such a night? Speak up!”
“Oh, Badger,” cried the Rat, “let us in, please. It’s me, Rat, and my
friend Mole, and we’ve lost our way in the snow.”
“What, Ratty, my dear little man!” exclaimed the Badger, in quite a
different voice. “Come along in, both of you, at once. Why, you must be
perished. Well I never! Lost in the snow! And in the Wild Wood, too,
and at this time of night! But come in with you.”
The two animals tumbled over each other in their eagerness to get
inside, and heard the door shut behind them with great joy and relief.
The Badger, who wore a long dressing-gown, and whose slippers were
indeed very down at heel, carried a flat candlestick in his paw and had
probably been on his way to bed when their summons sounded. He looked
kindly down on them and patted both their heads. “This is not the sort
of night for small animals to be out,” he said paternally. “I’m afraid
you’ve been up to some of your pranks again, Ratty. But come along;
come into the kitchen. There’s a first-rate fire there, and supper and
everything.”
He shuffled on in front of them, carrying the light, and they followed
him, nudging each other in an anticipating sort of way, down a long,
gloomy, and, to tell the truth, decidedly shabby passage, into a sort
of a central hall; out of which they could dimly see other long
tunnel-like passages branching, passages mysterious and without
apparent end. But there were doors in the hall as well—stout oaken
comfortable-looking doors. One of these the Badger flung open, and at
once they found themselves in all the glow and warmth of a large
fire-lit kitchen.
The floor was well-worn red brick, and on the wide hearth burnt a fire
of logs, between two attractive chimney-corners tucked away in the
wall, well out of any suspicion of draught. A couple of high-backed
settles, facing each other on either side of the fire, gave further
sitting accommodations for the sociably disposed. In the middle of the
room stood a long table of plain boards placed on trestles, with
benches down each side. At one end of it, where an arm-chair stood
pushed back, were spread the remains of the Badger’s plain but ample
supper. Rows of spotless plates winked from the shelves of the dresser
at the far end of the room, and from the rafters overhead hung hams,
bundles of dried herbs, nets of onions, and baskets of eggs. It seemed
a place where heroes could fitly feast after victory, where weary
harvesters could line up in scores along the table and keep their
Harvest Home with mirth and song, or where two or three friends of
simple tastes could sit about as they pleased and eat and smoke and
talk in comfort and contentment. The ruddy brick floor smiled up at the
smoky ceiling; the oaken settles, shiny with long wear, exchanged
cheerful glances with each other; plates on the dresser grinned at pots
on the shelf, and the merry firelight flickered and played over
everything without distinction.
The kindly Badger thrust them down on a settle to toast themselves at
the fire, and bade them remove their wet coats and boots. Then he
fetched them dressing-gowns and slippers, and himself bathed the Mole’s
shin with warm water and mended the cut with sticking-plaster till the
whole thing was just as good as new, if not better. In the embracing
light and warmth, warm and dry at last, with weary legs propped up in
front of them, and a suggestive clink of plates being arranged on the
table behind, it seemed to the storm-driven animals, now in safe
anchorage, that the cold and trackless Wild Wood just left outside was
miles and miles away, and all that they had suffered in it a
half-forgotten dream.
When at last they were thoroughly toasted, the Badger summoned them to
the table, where he had been busy laying a repast. They had felt pretty
hungry before, but when they actually saw at last the supper that was
spread for them, really it seemed only a question of what they should
attack first where all was so attractive, and whether the other things
would obligingly wait for them till they had time to give them
attention. Conversation was impossible for a long time; and when it was
slowly resumed, it was that regrettable sort of conversation that
results from talking with your mouth full. The Badger did not mind that
sort of thing at all, nor did he take any notice of elbows on the
table, or everybody speaking at once. As he did not go into Society
himself, he had got an idea that these things belonged to the things
that didn’t really matter. (We know of course that he was wrong, and
took too narrow a view; because they do matter very much, though it
would take too long to explain why.) He sat in his arm-chair at the
head of the table, and nodded gravely at intervals as the animals told
their story; and he did not seem surprised or shocked at anything, and
he never said, “I told you so,” or, “Just what I always said,” or
remarked that they ought to have done so-and-so, or ought not to have
done something else. The Mole began to feel very friendly towards him.
When supper was really finished at last, and each animal felt that his
skin was now as tight as was decently safe, and that by this time he
didn’t care a hang for anybody or anything, they gathered round the
glowing embers of the great wood fire, and thought how jolly it was to
be sitting up _so_ late, and _so_ independent, and _so_ full; and after
they had chatted for a time about things in general, the Badger said
heartily, “Now then! tell us the news from your part of the world.
How’s old Toad going on?”
“Oh, from bad to worse,” said the Rat gravely, while the Mole, cocked
up on a settle and basking in the firelight, his heels higher than his
head, tried to look properly mournful. “Another smash-up only last
week, and a bad one. You see, he will insist on driving himself, and
he’s hopelessly incapable. If he’d only employ a decent, steady,
well-trained animal, pay him good wages, and leave everything to him,
he’d get on all right. But no; he’s convinced he’s a heaven-born
driver, and nobody can teach him anything; and all the rest follows.”
“How many has he had?” inquired the Badger gloomily.
“Smashes, or machines?” asked the Rat. “Oh, well, after all, it’s the
same thing—with Toad. This is the seventh. As for the others—you know
that coach-house of his? Well, it’s piled up—literally piled up to the
roof—with fragments of motor-cars, none of them bigger than your hat!
That accounts for the other six—so far as they can be accounted for.”
“He’s been in hospital three times,” put in the Mole; “and as for the
fines he’s had to pay, it’s simply awful to think of.”
“Yes, and that’s part of the trouble,” continued the Rat. “Toad’s rich,
we all know; but he’s not a millionaire. And he’s a hopelessly bad
driver, and quite regardless of law and order. Killed or ruined—it’s
got to be one of the two things, sooner or later. Badger! we’re his
friends—oughtn’t we to do something?”
The Badger went through a bit of hard thinking. “Now look here!” he
said at last, rather severely; “of course you know I can’t do anything
_now?_”
His two friends assented, quite understanding his point. No animal,
according to the rules of animal-etiquette, is ever expected to do
anything strenuous, or heroic, or even moderately active during the
off-season of winter. All are sleepy—some actually asleep. All are
weather-bound, more or less; and all are resting from arduous days and
nights, during which every muscle in them has been severely tested, and
every energy kept at full stretch.
“Very well then!” continued the Badger. “_But_, when once the year has
really turned, and the nights are shorter, and halfway through them one
rouses and feels fidgety and wanting to be up and doing by sunrise, if
not before—_you_ know!——”
Both animals nodded gravely. _They_ knew!
“Well, _then_,” went on the Badger, “we—that is, you and me and our
friend the Mole here—we’ll take Toad seriously in hand. We’ll stand no
nonsense whatever. We’ll bring him back to reason, by force if need be.
We’ll _make_ him be a sensible Toad. We’ll—you’re asleep, Rat!”
“Not me!” said the Rat, waking up with a jerk.
“He’s been asleep two or three times since supper,” said the Mole,
laughing. He himself was feeling quite wakeful and even lively, though
he didn’t know why. The reason was, of course, that he being naturally
an underground animal by birth and breeding, the situation of Badger’s
house exactly suited him and made him feel at home; while the Rat, who
slept every night in a bedroom the windows of which opened on a breezy
river, naturally felt the atmosphere still and oppressive.
“Well, it’s time we were all in bed,” said the Badger, getting up and
fetching flat candlesticks. “Come along, you two, and I’ll show you
your quarters. And take your time tomorrow morning—breakfast at any
hour you please!”
He conducted the two animals to a long room that seemed half bedchamber
and half loft. The Badger’s winter stores, which indeed were visible
everywhere, took up half the room—piles of apples, turnips, and
potatoes, baskets full of nuts, and jars of honey; but the two little
white beds on the remainder of the floor looked soft and inviting, and