come along with me, for we are beginning the story of the dragon.
A few pages ago, I mentioned that Hyacinth—Bosworth’s successor as the manager of The Brockery and the new (and first female!) holder of the Badger Badge of Authority—had gone off to Briar Bank to invite Bailey Badger and his roommate, Thackeray, to a surprise birthday party for Uncle Bosworth, to be held later in the week. (He is not really her uncle, but that is neither here nor there, for she loves him just as much as if he were.) This was the first major celebration she had organized, if you don’t count Christmas, which is always Parsley’s special event, and Hyacinth especially wanted it to be a success. She was personally inviting everyone, and—since the party was to be a surprise—made certain to ask them not to mention it in Uncle Bosworth’s hearing.
But she didn’t actually have to go as far as Briar Bank, because before she got there, she ran into Bailey and Thackeray fishing in Moss Eccles Tarn. This beautiful little five-acre man-made lake lies about a mile above the village of Near Sawrey, and when you visit the area, you really must put it on your list of places to see. Miss Potter dearly loved to fish and kept a rowboat there, available for others to borrow when she wasn’t using it. (You may be interested in knowing that what was left of her boat was discovered in 1976. It has been restored and is now on display at the Windermere Station Museum.)
This afternoon, the badger and the guinea pig had borrowed Miss Potter’s boat, rowed it out into the lake, and were fishing from it. This was something they did frequently, even during cold weather (unless the surface was frozen), for they were both very fond of fish, and the tarn was very full of brown trout. When Hyacinth hailed them from the bank, they quickly rowed in to the shore. Bailey did the rowing, since he is much bigger and stronger than Thackeray and has no trouble at all managing Miss Potter’s oars. And since the fish were biting that evening, they insisted that Hyacinth climb into the boat with them and take up the extra rod and reel.
“Look here!” Bailey said proudly, and held up a string of three fat, wriggling brown trout. “Come out with us, Hyacinth, and see how many you can catch. I’m sure Parsley would be glad to cook them for you.”
As you may remember, Bailey is Bosworth’s second cousin, twice removed. He lives on the western side of Briar Bank, in a large sett with many empty tunnels and chambers, dating back to the earliest settlements in the Land Between the Lakes—all the way back to the days of the Vikings, in fact. For most of his life, Bailey preferred to live alone in this labyrinthine place, so that he could spend as much uninterrupted time as possible reading and reflecting in the quite remarkable library he had inherited from his badger forebears. This library contains an enormous number of volumes on nearly every subject you might want to explore—except, perhaps, for modern mysteries (such as Sherlock Holmes) and romances, which the badgers have always thought of as frivolous. The Briar Bank badgers have a reputation as being a rather dour lot.
And Bailey lived up to this family reputation. He was a satirical, unsociable creature who chose to live in a spartan manner. He paid little attention to food, unlike most other badgers, who have very good appetites and are always on the lookout for something tasty from the garden. In fact, when Bosworth visited his cousin, he avoided arriving at teatime, for Bailey’s larder was always embarrassingly bare. A hungry guest might be offered a slice of dry bread, a bit of cheese, a swallow of sour dandelion wine, and if he was lucky, a stale digestive biscuit.
This was not a very appetizing prospect, as I’m sure you’ll agree. It was no wonder that Bailey almost never entertained company. And when he did, he was often surly and almost always managed to fall asleep before his guests
A few pages ago, I mentioned that Hyacinth—Bosworth’s successor as the manager of The Brockery and the new (and first female!) holder of the Badger Badge of Authority—had gone off to Briar Bank to invite Bailey Badger and his roommate, Thackeray, to a surprise birthday party for Uncle Bosworth, to be held later in the week. (He is not really her uncle, but that is neither here nor there, for she loves him just as much as if he were.) This was the first major celebration she had organized, if you don’t count Christmas, which is always Parsley’s special event, and Hyacinth especially wanted it to be a success. She was personally inviting everyone, and—since the party was to be a surprise—made certain to ask them not to mention it in Uncle Bosworth’s hearing.
But she didn’t actually have to go as far as Briar Bank, because before she got there, she ran into Bailey and Thackeray fishing in Moss Eccles Tarn. This beautiful little five-acre man-made lake lies about a mile above the village of Near Sawrey, and when you visit the area, you really must put it on your list of places to see. Miss Potter dearly loved to fish and kept a rowboat there, available for others to borrow when she wasn’t using it. (You may be interested in knowing that what was left of her boat was discovered in 1976. It has been restored and is now on display at the Windermere Station Museum.)
This afternoon, the badger and the guinea pig had borrowed Miss Potter’s boat, rowed it out into the lake, and were fishing from it. This was something they did frequently, even during cold weather (unless the surface was frozen), for they were both very fond of fish, and the tarn was very full of brown trout. When Hyacinth hailed them from the bank, they quickly rowed in to the shore. Bailey did the rowing, since he is much bigger and stronger than Thackeray and has no trouble at all managing Miss Potter’s oars. And since the fish were biting that evening, they insisted that Hyacinth climb into the boat with them and take up the extra rod and reel.
“Look here!” Bailey said proudly, and held up a string of three fat, wriggling brown trout. “Come out with us, Hyacinth, and see how many you can catch. I’m sure Parsley would be glad to cook them for you.”
As you may remember, Bailey is Bosworth’s second cousin, twice removed. He lives on the western side of Briar Bank, in a large sett with many empty tunnels and chambers, dating back to the earliest settlements in the Land Between the Lakes—all the way back to the days of the Vikings, in fact. For most of his life, Bailey preferred to live alone in this labyrinthine place, so that he could spend as much uninterrupted time as possible reading and reflecting in the quite remarkable library he had inherited from his badger forebears. This library contains an enormous number of volumes on nearly every subject you might want to explore—except, perhaps, for modern mysteries (such as Sherlock Holmes) and romances, which the badgers have always thought of as frivolous. The Briar Bank badgers have a reputation as being a rather dour lot.
And Bailey lived up to this family reputation. He was a satirical, unsociable creature who chose to live in a spartan manner. He paid little attention to food, unlike most other badgers, who have very good appetites and are always on the lookout for something tasty from the garden. In fact, when Bosworth visited his cousin, he avoided arriving at teatime, for Bailey’s larder was always embarrassingly bare. A hungry guest might be offered a slice of dry bread, a bit of cheese, a swallow of sour dandelion wine, and if he was lucky, a stale digestive biscuit.
This was not a very appetizing prospect, as I’m sure you’ll agree. It was no wonder that Bailey almost never entertained company. And when he did, he was often surly and almost always managed to fall asleep before his guests
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