“Dust ee want un livin’ or dead, sir?” shouts the excited Andrew in his broadest vernacular, running to keep abreast of the creature.
“Alive, alive, my man,” replies the Squire rather testily, as the quarry crosses a belt of ground Shellal had recently burnt, and its hair, that all but sweeps the ground, shows as white as snow against the charred surface. With the tongs underground—the Squire had dropped them as he scrambled up the wall of the cave—and no man volunteering to go and fetch them for fear of losing the fun, here is a nice business for Andrew. He must secure the badger with his bare hands: an order easily given but difficult to execute. The dogs too, good as they are at sticking a badger up in its earth, game as they are at meeting its terrible rushes underground, are powerless to hold such a monster as that brushing on there through the bushes and treating their savage attentions with disdain. Through close furze and brambly thicket it presses forward as if through gossamer, stopping but to make the terriers yell with pain.
Ned now arrives breathless with the sack, and not a minute too soon, for Andrew, despite his excitement, sees that the beast is heading for an old drain in the valley, in which it would find safe refuge. “Stand handy, Ned,” says he to the keeper, in a voice so ominously calm and firm as to make even the coachman feel that the crisis has arrived and that the next few minutes will be worth living to a spectator. A barren space, it might be twenty yards wide, lies in the badger’s path; and there Andrew awaits. He is only just in time. A movement of the furze, and its sharp muzzle protrudes, then the eyes are seen—they were not pink—then the massive body. Vixen and Nell, bleeding from their wounds, make feints at it, one on each side. Listen to the snapping of the jaws as the badger bites right and left at them. Clear of the bush, not a tussock screens the plucky, friendless creature. Across the bare patch lies a close brake at the foot of which is the unstopped drain. The cover gained, he is safe. The badger knows it, and is resolved to reach its shelter. Andrew is equally determined to dispute the passage. The Earthstopper is not hampered for space; the semicircle of spectators give him plenty of elbow-room. With every fibre strung but under control, he closes in on the badger, with nimble, springy movement learnt in the wrestling ring. He looks the incarnation of wariness. He knows his enemy, he knows the risk he is running. Ill-timed onset may mean the loss of finger or hand.
With a cry that thrills man and dog but does not daunt the quarry he calls on Vixen and Nell to seize the badger, and stooping the instant its attention seems occupied by the terriers, he tries to seize its tail. Quick as lightning the supple creature, shaking off the dogs, turns on him, just missing his hand as suddenly withdrawn. Fired by failure and desperate from the nearness of the brake now scarce two yards away, Andrew renews the attempt, and this time getting a firm grip of the tail lifts the heavy beast clear of the ground, totters and staggers under the weight, but by an effort recovers his balance and holds his prize at arm’s length. Then raising it above the mouth of the canvas bag which Sir Bevil and the keeper are holding open with trembling fingers, he twirls the writhing, snapping brute round and round, and plunges it into the sack. It was the work of a few seconds, but the exertion brought the sweat to the Earthstopper’s face.
“Bravo, Andrew,” shouts the Squire, who with the others had been looking on breathlessly, “very neatly done: twice I was afraid he’d got you.” After tying the mouth of the sack, the keeper slung the badger on his back and made for the wagonette. The rest of the party, with the exception of Sir Bevil, Trevaskis and Shellal, returned to the Cairn to collect their belongings. Though it was dusk, they succeeded in recovering everything except the tongs, which were afterwards found by the exploring party. Lights were already twinkling in the windows of the farmhouse as they descended the hill; and before they entered the yard, Ned had lit the lamps of the carriage, where they found him standing guard over the badger, locked up in the boot.
“A good day’s sport, Andrew,” said the Squire as he put on his coat which the Earthstopper had brought him.
“A grand finish, sir; but a very poor start.”
The next minute Shellal brought out the horse which he had been saddling by the light of the stable lantern and held it for the Squire to mount. After a cheery “good night, sir,” from the miners, whom he had liberally rewarded, Sir Bevil hurried home along the dark lanes as light-hearted as a schoolboy, tossing a crown-piece through the open door of the toll-house as he galloped past.
He was anxious to select a safe kennel for his precious and formidable capture. He chose a strongly-built stye, once the abode of a savage boar, and had it well littered with straw. One of the troughs in the enclosure was half-filled with milk; into a smaller one Sir Bevil himself poured a jar of honey. An hour later the badger was turned loose in this luxurious snuggery, securely fastened in, and left to himself. Early next morning Sir Bevil went to see how the captive had fared. The milk and honey had not been touched, but in the space between the troughs was a pile of bricks, mortar, and soil. The heap lay at the mouth of a U-shaped tunnel that passed under the foundations and came out on the other side of the wall.
“The devil! he’s gone!”