The Wind in the Willows
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This is the Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham, read for you by Lindsay Anderson chapter three. The Wild Wood. The country lay bare and entirely leafless around him. And he thought that he had never seen so far and so intimately into the insides of things as on that winter day when nature was deep in her annual slumber and seemed to have kicked the clothes off copses dells quarries and all hidden places which had been mysterious mines for exploration in leafy summer now exposed themselves and their secrets pathetically and seemed to ask him to overlook their shabby poverty for a while till they could riot in rich masquerade as before and trick and entice him with the old deceptions. He pushed on towards the wild wood which lay before him low and threatening like a black reef in some still southern sea. There was nothing to alarm him. At first entry. Twigs crackled under his feet. Logs tripped him. Fungus on stumps resembled caricatures and startled him for the moment by their likeness to something familiar and far away. But that was all fun and exciting. It led him on and he penetrated to where the light was less and trees crouched nearer and nearer. And holes made ugly mouths at him. On either side, everything was very still. Now, the dusk advanced on him steadily, rapidly gathering in behind and before and the light seemed to be draining away like flood water. Then the faces began, it was over his shoulder and indistinctly that he first thought he saw a face, a little evil wed shaped face looking out at him from a hole when he turned and confronted it, the thing had vanished. He quickened his pace telling himself cheerfully not to begin imagining things or there would be simply no end to it. He passed another hole and another and another and then, yes. No. Yes, certainly. A, a little narrow face with hard eyes had flashed up for an instant from a hole and was gone. He hesitated, braced himself up for an effort and strode on then suddenly and as if it had been so all the time, every hole far and near and there were hundreds of them seemed to possess its face coming and going rapidly. All fixing on him, glances of malice and hatred, all hard eyed and evil and sharp. If he could only get away from the holes in the banks, he thought there would be no more faces. He swung off the path and plunged into the untrodden places of the wood. Then the whistling began very faint and shrill. It was and far behind him when first he heard it, but somehow it made him hurry forward, then still very faint and shrill. It sounded far ahead of him and made him hesitate and want to go back as he halted in indecision, it broke out on either side and seemed to be caught up and passed on throughout the whole length of the wood to its farthest limit. They were up and alert and ready, evidently whoever they were. And he, he was alone and unarmed and far from any help. And the night was closing in, then the pattering began. He thought it was only falling leaves at first. So slight and delicate was the sound of it. Then as it grew, it took a regular rhythm and he knew it for nothing else but the pat, pat, pat of little feet still a very long way off. Was it in front or behind? It seemed to be first one and then the other and then both it grew and multiplied till from every quarter. He, he listened anxiously leaning this way and that it seemed to be closing in on him as he stood still to hearken. A rabbit came running hard towards him through the trees. He waited, expecting it to slacken pace or to swerve from him into a different course. Instead, the animal almost brushed him as it dashed past his face set and hard. His eyes staring. Get out of this. You fool. Get out the Mole heard him mutter as he swung round a stump and disappeared down a friendly burrow. The pattering increased till it sounded like sudden hail on the dry leaf carpet spread around him. The whole wood seemed running now, running hard hunting, chasing, closing in around something or somebody in panic. He began to run too aimlessly. He knew not with her. He ran up against things, he fell over things and into things. He darted under things and Dowd drowned things at last. He took refuge in the deep dark hollow of an old beach tree which offered shelter, concealment, perhaps even safety. But who could tell anyhow, he was too tired to run any further and could only snuggle down into the dry leaves which had drifted into the hollow and hope he was safe for a time. And as he lay there panting and trembling and listened to the whistling and pattering outside, he knew it at last in all its fullness, that dread thing which other little dwellers in Field and Hedgerow had encountered here and known as their darkest moment, that thing which the rat had vainly tried to shield him from the terror of the wild wood.