“O!” he cried, skipping and sniggering before me; “to see it come so pat, and hear his tone change. Wasn’t it beautiful? And him not to know a bogey from a badger! O, Master Dicky, really!”
“A badger!” I echoed awfully. Then recovered myself and added with a rather agitated laugh; “Well, don’t pretend you weren’t startled yourself at first.”
“I?” he exclaimed. “Why, you old donkey, I brought you up here on purpose, on the chance of seeing it.”
“Bosh!” I snapped.
“Very well,” he said. “I’ll show you its tracks in the mud to-morrow, if you don’t believe me. I guessed it was somewhere in the hill, and now I know.”
“Did you?” I said resentfully. “Then I’d rather you played the fool with me by day.”
“Played!” said he; “what have I played? ’Twas you began with your ghosts and things. Besides, any fool knows that badgers only walk at night.”
He sniggered again; then, seeing that I was hurt, took my arm in his, and patted me down.
“It’s really rather a start, though,” said he—“I mean the thing being here at all; because they live in woods, you know. But I’ll tell you what I make of it; that it was driven down by those burnings” (it had been a very hot summer, with two fires, destroying some acres, up in the Court woods) “to get near the water. Anyhow, I spotted its tracks in the soft ground here some days ago, and made up my mind to run it to earth. We’ll come up to-morrow and have a look by daylight.”
We did as he proposed, and found, amongst the bramble and other vegetable and miscellaneous litter which choked the neighbourhood of the great tumbled mass of masonry, indubitable signs of a passage leading to the creature’s earth.