Kenneth Grahame: The Wind in the Willows

1. THE RIVER BANK (continued)

`But isn't it a bit dull at times?' the Mole ventured to ask. `Just you and the river, and no one else to pass a word with?'

`No one else to--well, I mustn't be hard on you,' said the Rat with forbearance. `You're new to it, and of course you don't know. The bank is so crowded nowadays that many people are moving away altogether: O no, it isn't what it used to be, at all. Otters, kingfishers, dabchicks, moorhens, all of them about all day long and always wanting you to DO something--as if a fellow had no business of his own to attend to!'

`What lies over THERE' asked the Mole, waving a paw towards a background of woodland that darkly framed the water-meadows on one side of the river.

`That? O, that's just the Wild Wood,' said the Rat shortly. `We don't go there very much, we river-bankers.'

`Aren't they--aren't they very NICE people in there?' said the Mole, a trifle nervously.

`W-e-ll,' replied the Rat, `let me see. The squirrels are all right. AND the rabbits--some of 'em, but rabbits are a mixed lot. And then there's Badger, of course. He lives right in the heart of it; wouldn't live anywhere else, either, if you paid him to do it. Dear old Badger! Nobody interferes with HIM. They'd better not,' he added significantly.

`Why, who SHOULD interfere with him?' asked the Mole.

`Well, of course--there--are others,' explained the Rat in a hesitating sort of way.

`Weasels--and stoats--and foxes--and so on. They're all right in a way--I'm very good friends with them--pass the time of day when we meet, and all that--but they break out sometimes, there's no denying it, and then--well, you can't really trust them, and that's the fact.'