d
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 h