The Willows and Beyond (24 page)

The Badger nodded most approvingly, and though the idea was but vague, and hope of it ever being viable and being brought to a successful conclusion unlikely to be fulfilled, yet he had to admit he saw no other way.

A few days later all such hopes and dreams quite fled their minds. The inhabitants of the River Bank seemed scarcely to have drawn breath upon the dawn, and opened their curtains to see what prospect the day had in store for them, before the grim and terrible sound of traction engines was heard coming from the

Town Road

. Not long afterwards a good many were seen coming over the Iron Bridge, and very soon the sawing of wood was heard and the first tree was felled.

The Badger was too late to see this proceeding, so swiftly did the destroyers act, but he was there to see other trees fall, and within but a few days a great swath had been cut through what had taken decades and centuries, millennia perhaps, to grow and form, change and mutate, a swath that cut right into the heart of the ancient and awesome Wild Wood.

Thus far the Badger had seemed to cope well with the threat of change that had hung so heavily over them all, and perhaps those contingency plans that he, Mole and Toad had discussed had given him heart. But now, with the foresters daily cutting down more trees, and builders digging footings for the new homes, the strain began to take its toll.

As the destruction of the Wild Wood inexorably progressed, and day by day its sounds grew nearer to his own home, and the bigger trees that had dominated the skyline of the Wood disappeared, he grew morose and angry. No doubt Grandson bore the brunt of this, though he never said so in so many words — but his friends would find him from time to time standing by the River, angry and upset and complaining that the Badger’s mood was becoming too much for him.

The Mole saw that there might be more to it than that and so, remembering Badger’s kindnesses and good advice to him so often in the past, he decided to visit the Badger on a day when he knew Grandson was off with Nephew.

He knocked on the Badger’s door, and heard at last that animal’s approach, and the gruff, “Who’s there?” As he waited he couldn’t help thinking how torn and ragged the Wood had become. Its darkness had all but gone, and clear sky shone through the remaining trees, whence came the roar and whine of machines, and the rude shouts of workmen and foresters.

“It’s me! Mole!” he called in response to the Badger’s second wary shout.

The Badger’s door opened and out he came, spectacles upon his nose, still in his dressing-gown, his hair unkempt.

“Look what they’ve done, Mole! Look what they’ve done to the Wild Wood!”

The Badger did not bother to change his dressing-gown for something more appropriate, nor did he even shut his front door, as he had been wont to do — for this had always been a dangerous place to live and an animal was wise to leave his bolt-hole secure.

“There’s no one here now but me, Mole,” he said bleakly “All my neighbours have gone, and the weasels and stoats have fled to temporary accommodation till their new homes are built and they can come back. Here, let me take you on a walk you will never,
must
never, forget!”

For days afterwards the Mole could not rid his mind of the sadness and grief in the Badger’s eyes as they had walked together through that desolated landscape.

“The critics of the Wild Wood have said its trees are ancient and unproductive’ Badger had said, “and many are dangerous because branches keep falling down. Well, of course they do, Mole, that is the way with woods and forests. An oak branch tumbles, a birch tree falls, and in their place, where light comes down, new life grows. That fast-growing birch they have felled over there would have given protection to this tiny oak you see they have trodden on. That oak branch cracked and fell that others upon the same trunk might have a chance. It was always thus, Mole, from the beginning of time. We old ones must give way to the new. But not like this! Not
this!”

Old trees and young, all were cut down, uprooted and pushed aside that the men and machines might get to the next. All ruined now, the more pathetic for the semblance of life that showed itself in the green leaves of the fallen branches, though on the smaller of these the leaves were already drying and curling for lack of nourishment, as if autumn had come six months too soon.

Where proud trees had fallen many of the bigger branches had cracked and broken, whether from crushing under their own weight above them, or from the strains and stresses of the fall. This wood was white and shining still with sap, good wood now dying, great trees now fallen.

The Badger had no words to express the loss he felt for a place he had known all his life, and whose changes had ever been subtle and slow, whose life was every bit as important to him as his own.

“We along the River Bank have always revered the River before all else,” said the Badger, “but the River and the land it flows through, which includes the Wild Wood as well, are one, all one.”

There was nothing the Mole could say, nor could he imagine a worse agony for the Badger, whose front door now opened onto rack and ruin.

The Badger was right: that was a day the Mole would never forget, even if he tried to, as long as he lived.

Yet something was still to happen that was more cruel, something more undermining of Badger’s strength, and it was all the harder to accept or understand for being so unexpected.

Suddenly, the felling stopped, and the machines fell silent. No men came that day, nor the next, nor the next after that. It was as if a terrible storm had come upon the Wood, torn its very heart out, and then moved on, leaving behind destruction, and no explanation.

A week went by, and then another, and still the men did not reappear, nor the destruction resume. The Badger sent a letter to the Town to enquire what was happening, and then another when no reply came; and then a third, to which a brief and quite unsatisfactory answer was all that he received.

July came, and amidst the uprooted trunks of trees, hewn saplings and torn earth that had been the Wild Wood, new life began to grow The leaves of brambles, their root stock still intact, began to unfurl, and show themselves to a world they thought they had lost forever. Rose-bay willow-herb began to rise, and even to flower pink-red, where formerly they never flowered at all; while foxgloves, normally sickly in those parts, were now able to begin to rise from the ruins all about.

The Mole walked with the Badger one hot summer’s day amongst this strange mixture of lost life and new hope, and he saw that the Badger had aged badly. He stooped now, and seemed to hear far less well, for which affliction he had taken to carrying an ear trumpet, though this did not stop him mumbling to himself.

“Badger? Badger!” he was forced to shout.

“Eh, Mole? Eh?”

“Have you heard anything more from the Town about what they propose to do?”

“They’ve stopped, that’s plain, and the Wood’s — the Wild Wood’s — beginning to — beginning again —“

He turned almost full circle, looking about as he struggled to make himself say “beginning to recover again” but could not. The Wood could not recover in his lifetime. For him the true Wild Wood was gone forever, however much the brambles, the fire-weed and the foxgloves might hurry to catch up on growth they had never expected to make.

That sadly memorable walk, despite the new life so much in evidence, made the Mole even more despondent than the first, for he saw now that the Badger had begun to give up, and to withdraw.

“Badger?”

But the Badger turned and picked his slow and unsteady way back towards his home, not hearing the Mole’s voice, or perhaps not wishing to.

A few days after this, with August almost upon them, they heard some scandalous and shocking news from Master Toad, who had recently left school and taken up a well-remunerated position in the Town’s financial district: the gentleman who had been paying the foresters and builders had gone bankrupt and his creditors were to take him to court. The work had stopped because there was no more money and none could say if, or when, it might be resumed.

“But it won’t be the High Judge, or the Senior Bishop, or the Commissioner of Police who suffer, it seems,” growled the Badger, putting down his newspaper, “for they are in the clear, as their kind usually are. They will simply find another contractor to finish off the work.”

His fears were soon fulfilled, for a week or two later the traction-engines were back, the work began anew, and all that little re-growth in the Wood laid to waste once more.

It was in this hour of new despair, when Grandson reported a further decline in the Badger’s health, that the Mole ventured to the Badger’s home once more in a state of high excitement.

“You’re to come to Toad Hall at once, Badger,
at once.
Today Toad received the highest offer he thinks he is likely to receive for Toad Hall and all his estate!”

“I trust he accepted it,” grunted the Badger, thinking this was not news to get excited over.

“That’s just it, he
didn’t,
or rather not yet, for at the same time Master Toad has discovered that there is a property for sale that might suit Toad’s scheme of moving away. So, he’s gone rushing off in his launch, with the Otter at the helm, and says he may not be in time but —“But what, Mole?” said the Badger.

“It was your son Brock who alerted him, and Master Toad who confirmed it by telegraphic communication.

You remember that land I saw from his home when I first met Grandson, that great domain —“The place you called Beyond —“

“It will always be Beyond to
me,”
murmured the Mole, with a distant gleam in his eye.

“— that far-off wild place which you thought that one day Nephew and Grandson, and others of the younger generation might seek to explore?”

“Exactly,” said the Mole coming back to earth. “Well, it seems that it is known as Lathbury Forest and that a part of it might be for sale. Toad has gone off to buy it, and if he does, well —“

“How much is for sale?” said the Badger.

“Just a bit, I expect,” said the Mole, “yet enough for our humble needs.”

“When is Toad due back?”

“Today, tomorrow, you cannot quite tell with Toad.”

“Not today, I think, a night at the Hat and Boot will be too tempting for that animal. But tomorrow, Mole, despite my present weakness, and even if it is the last thing I do, we will call upon Mr Toad and, if we need to, knock some sense into his head. Our original plan was one thing, but it sounds like folly to give up Toad Hall and all its ground for a scrap of fell and forest land that will be no use to man or beast.”

The Badger was as good as his word, and the two were ready and waiting in Toad’s conservatory when he returned jauntily next day in time for lunch.

“Up and about again, eh Badger? And you, Mole?”

He paused, and a hunted look came over him.

“I fear you have come to admonish me?” said he, for he had seen the Badger, and others, look this way at him before.

“Why, what have you done?” said the Badger.

“Done? Not much,” said Toad, pulling a worn and folded piece of parchment from his pocket. “Well, something of which I daresay you will disapprove. It will mean I will have to vacate Toad Hall within the month, and you will have to leave the Wild Wood, that I guaranteed. But Mole will still have Mole End and we can all stay with him!”

The Mole looked uneasy, but Toad only laughed.

“Have you sold Toad Hall?” said the Badger.

“I haven’t sold it exactly,” said Toad, “because the agent of the Church Commissioners, who made the best offer on Toad Hall, finally agreed to a swap.

“A
swap?”
said the Badger. “For what?”

“Er, well,” said Toad hesitantly, “I didn’t actually
see
what it was for because there was a lot of mist about —“You exchanged your inheritance for a parcel of land sight unseen!” exclaimed Badger.

“That’s the lingo, Badger, that’s what the Very Senior Bishop said: ‘parcel of land’ and ‘sight unseen’. Just so.”

“The Bishop?”