He reached the farther side without mishap, rustled the moisture off his fur, then started climbing. The bank rose steeply over him, but here and there a naked root gave hand-hold, and, shoulder-hoisted over these, he scrambled to the level. On this he travelled easily, using his paddle-hands as sweeps, and scuttling with his feet. From the brookside half-way across the field, and almost to the dried-up middle-ditch, bent grass-stems marked his trail. He checked close by the alder-stump, nosed at the ground, and started digging.
Perhaps he scented supper.
The alder-stump is populous still. Its core, now sapless, lifeless touchwood, is riddled through and through. Here moths-to-be, and flies-to-be, and beetles-to-be have spent their youth and fattened. Virtue still lingers in the roots, and, hidden by the forks and bends of them, quiet lives consume, or bide their time. Now and again a human hand "collects" them, now and again a mole, the skilfullest pupa hunter in the world.
Yet Bartimæus was not really hungry—he dug more from ill-humour, wrenching the grass-tufts sideways with his teeth, and slashing fiercely with his hands, until he forced an entrance for his shoulders.
Then his whole action changed.
He stabbed his nose into the soil, and, twisting from the shoulders, screwed it home. Then he drew back his head, turned over sideways, and, with one shoulder and one hand thrust out, gained purchase where his nose had been, and scratched at the soft earth. As one side tired he turned about, and thrust its fellow forward. Sometimes he lay upon his back, and heaved and squirmed and shuffled. Sometimes he screwed his way, his whole frame twisted spirally, half prostrate, half supine.
He drove a six-inch downward slant, then, for one yard, a level course, then upwards half a foot again. His pink nose broke the surface crust, snuffed, and dropped back. The first stage was accomplished, but only the first stage. His tube was choked and littered end to end. He backed nine inches through the loose, reversed, ducked down his head, and charged. Part of the rubble caked as he drove past, and part was swept before him to the outlet. It spurted through and sprayed upon the grass. Six charges raised a mole hill, and left a half-yard tunnel clear. His hands compressed the sides of it to smoothness.
He made a cave and four runs leading from it. Three plunged deep down, and hillocks marked their course. The fourth was near the surface. Its flimsy roof, pressed upwards from below, and dotted end to end with spits of soil, cast a betraying shadow.
It was good feeding-ground. In it were worms innumerable, slow-minded worms which held their ground too long, and footless leathern-coated grubs, grubs of beetles and flies, and eggs innumerable, grasshoppers' eggs, earwigs' eggs, and eggs of smaller fry, some massed in sticky clutches, some dispersed.