At the top of Knockdane there are three or four acres, which are so rock-encumbered, and so overgrown with heather and bracken, that an occasional broken-topped fir or oak sapling is the only tree which will grow there. Here and there a narrow path twists through the fern, and the industrious rabbit people, who live among the rocks, keep the grass on those spots close and green. Above this, the hill grows steeper till it meets a grey crag which drops sheer down from the fir wood, whose brow, shaggy with gorse and ling, overhangs the place. The Fur Folk all visit this wilderness. The rabbits and squirrels love it, because the grass and fir-cones there are good, and the blood-hunters follow them thither. There the badgers went one evening at sunset, and feasted on the great worms which were tempted out by the coolness of the night, and on the pignuts in the clearings. After their surfeit the cubs could scarcely waddle among the bracken, for their tight little bodies brushed the stems on either side. Under the crag they stopped to drink, where the water dripped from the height above; and as five badgers guzzling in the mud made much commotion and splashing, Mother Badger never heard the thud of approaching feet until they were almost on the top of her party. She grunted of danger, imminent and serious, and gathered her cubs together. Dinny Purcell had made a short-cut through Knockdane, on his way home from a meeting of the local branch of the Gaelic League at Whelan's 'public'; and, as the proceedings had terminated agreeably with some toasts to the success of the League, Dinny felt valiant enough to defy any number of ghosts. Mother Badger stood on the other side of the little marsh, and growled thunderously; but Dinny did not hear, and stumbling and cursing, knee-deep in mud, came on. The cubs glided into the fern, but the old badger stood her ground. She had never met her match where strength was concerned, therefore she did not trouble to use her teeth, but set her snout against the intruder's legs and shoved.
'Holy Mother—it's the divil,' hiccoughed Dinny Purcell, crossing himself; and he tried to run faster, but Mother Badger growled and thrust again.
'Give over,' muttered Dinny, fuddled with drink, and striking out timorously with his stick, he thwacked Mother Badger's shaggy coat, and thereby incited her to charge again. Dinny would gladly have taken to his heels, but as his feet were stuck fast in the mud it was impossible; and sobered by superstitious fears, he remembered his match-box, and fumbled for it. Mother Badger was normally placid and slow to wrath, but this man's presence so near to her cubs angered her. She caught the top of his boot—it was well for Dinny that her fangs missed his leg—and bit it. Just then he found his matches, and struck one. It was hot—bright—pungent, such as she had never winded before. She backed hastily, but as what a badger has seized that will he hold as long as there is breath in him, she ripped the boot from top to sole. Dinny yelled, and dropping the match, which fell sputtering into a puddle, he swung himself on to an adjacent rock and tucked up his legs. 'It's the divil, an' he runnin' like a pig,' he groaned.
But Mother Badger had no mind to fight for fighting's sake. Had she not feared for her cubs, she would have fled at once from a creature who could summon that hot, bright mystery at will. She withdrew cautiously in her tracks, and one by one her cubs followed her from rock or heather tuft where each lay. Once in the darkness, beyond the reek of whisky and the dreaded voice of man, they breathed more freely; and they bumped along in single file down to the beech and bramble woods which lie by the Hollow Field, and which from bud-time to leaf-fall are seldom visited by men.
But, from that day to this, Dinny Purcell swears that the devil met him that night in Knockdane, in token of which he shows his split boot-leather; and for every time of telling, the devil increases so much in size and ferocity.
Towards the end of May the cubs were weaned, and henceforth they hunted less with their parents, and more often alone, or in couples. In this litter of four there were two sows and two boars, of which one was the little badger who has hitherto been referred to as the 'eldest cub,' but because his legs and likewise his snout were short and stumpy, even for a badger, he was afterwards known in Knockdane as Stubbs. It is he with whom this history deals.
The young ones opened the other galleries of the old 'earth,' and slept in dormitories away from the nursery. But in June, when the nights were short, and the badgers sometimes went hunting before the sun was well set, and stayed out until the dawn had broken over the hills, now and then it happened that morning overtook one of the family far from home, and, blinded by the early sunshine, he was obliged to seek some hide-up for the day.
By August, Stubbs was almost full-grown, and his knowledge of field-craft was profound. He could detect a nest of young rabbits hidden any distance underground, and once he had located the place, no power on earth could hinder him from digging them out. He would work all night, dislodging stones and shovelling earth, if at the end there was a chance of a meal of rabbits. If, during his task, the unfortunate doe-rabbit came home, he paid no attention to her. She might stamp as much as she pleased at the stumpy tail protruding from her nursery—nothing would turn Stubbs aside from his purpose. He could also locate truffles six inches underground—the big knobby ones which grow under oak trees, and the little potato-like ones which smell so strong, and are found under laurels in Knockdane. Besides this, he could wind a man a quarter of a mile away, and he knew every 'shore' and rock and tree in Knockdane.
The badger's daily round is more monotonous than those of most of the Fur Folk. He is too large greatly to fear any other beast, and he is so wary that he seldom comes in collision with man. Year in, year out, from spring to autumn, autumn to spring, his comings and goings follow the set rules of his ancestors. Now and again, however, a badger is born to a more stirring career, and such a one was Stubbs.