Before the autumn sun had struggled through the mist, the badgers came home, grunting with comfort begotten of a raided bees' byke and truffles. But when Stubbs poked his snout into the burrow he drew it out again smartly, and his grunt said plainly and indignantly: 'Fox!' Then more cautiously they proceeded to investigate. Stubbs crept in first, and Grunter followed exactly two feet behind, in approved badger fashion. The passage wound downwards, and the air inside being hot and still, the scent was very strong. Suddenly the silence was broken by a low snarl—the snarl of a full-fed fox awakened from his sleep. Stubbs backed precipitately, for the sound was just under his paws, and in so doing collided with his mate. For a few seconds there was a scrimmage as they jammed shoulder to shoulder in the narrow passage. Then Stubbs struggled free, and they fled to discuss the situation from a safe distance. A fox is no match for a badger in open fight, but in this case the advantage of position decidedly lay with the intruder. As they deliberated, the ringing snarl sounded again. That settled it. Sleep is a necessity to a badger, and it was already long past bed-time. Stubbs was wet, full-fed, drowsy, and in no fighting trim. They retired to the draughty main tunnel, and slept there on the bare ground.
The next evening the fox went out hunting, and when the badgers woke and gingerly investigated the dormitory, they found it empty. They immediately took possession again, and sniffing fastidiously, dragged out the deep comfortable bedding which they had prepared against the winter; for Stubbs hates anything which a fox has tainted.
On his return Greybrush found the passage littered with moss and leaves, while porcine snoring resounded throughout the earth. The fox was too cunning to assail the badgers in their lair. He dug a hollow in the rabbit burrow and slept there, for he was not particular, and only desired some place to protect him from the weather; but he had no intention of making an 'earth' for himself if he could find one already made.
But it certainly was annoying for the badgers, for Greybrush's ideas of cleanliness did not coincide with theirs. To find a rabbit's head or other refuse lying about, distressed them terribly, and night after night Stubbs delayed his hunting that he might scavenge the gallery where the fox slept. It is also one of the laws of the badger code that the nest shall be spring-cleaned twice a year: in March before the cubs are born, and in September, in preparation for the winter's sleep. The last-named clearance had only just been effected, and the dormitory was in apple-pie order before the fox's intrusion. However, the badger is nothing if not persevering, and Stubbs and Grunter decided to make one last effort to oust the invader. They entered the other gallery one night, prepared to turn their unwelcome lodger out of doors; but the fox had opened up the ancient rabbit burrow to serve as his back door in case of emergency, and when the indignant badgers arrived, they found him 'not at home.' They congratulated themselves on having ousted him so easily, and began to refurnish their chamber. There happened to be a spell of warm dry weather just then, and the fox lay out in the woods without once returning to Larch Hill, so that they met with no hindrance. There is a clearing about two hundred yards from the mouth of the 'earth,' overgrown with dead grass. Here the badgers repaired for their harvesting. They tore up quantities of dry grass and moss, and twisted them into long wisps deftly enough. By the time Stubbs had made a selection of what he considered the finest and driest bedding, the clearing looked as though a herd of pigs had been rooting there. The path to the 'earth' was littered with balls of grass and moss. Several times Grunter started home with a heavy load, but by the time she had reached the burrow she had dropped all but one little wisp, which, however, she carried underground, and deposited with as much care as if she had housed the whole collection. At this rate the badgers' progress was naturally slow, and it was nearly a week before all was arranged to their satisfaction.
Alas! the first wet night found the evicted lodger back in his former quarters, and the badgers, seriously perturbed, prepared to give battle. They found the smaller gallery empty, but a snarl from the passage beyond told them where the intruder had ensconced himself, and they had perforce to retire baffled. This happened not once but many times. Stubbs never came to close grips with his enemy; the fox was too clever to be caught napping, and at the sound of shuffling pads in the gallery, he used to back hastily into the old rabbit burrow, which was too small for the badger's comfort.
So matters dragged on for more than a month, and then the hounds came to Knockdane, and precipitated the crisis.
One night the fox went out betimes, but it was damp and raw, and the badgers slept longer than usual, for their winter slothfulness was creeping over them. The weather also accounted for the fact that Paddy Magragh, the earthstopper, went his rounds before moonrise that he might return the sooner to his warm cabin. It was only eight o'clock when he came by the Larch Hill earth, and examined the marks outside. He saw Stubbs' broad spoor (Stubbs' spoor was a spoor to be wondered at—two and a half inches in width), and he chuckled, for he had heard of Borrigan's 'baitin'' and its sequel. Then he set to work with such right good-will that when Grunter wished to go out, an hour later, she found a firm barricade of earth and branches piled against the burrow's mouth. Grunter was very wary. The hated taint of man hung about the place, mingled with the smell of wet earth. What might not be lurking outside? She crept back to the entrance to the fox's quarters, and picked her way delicately to Greybrush's back door, which was so small that it had even escaped the keen eye of Paddy Magragh. Then she buttoned down her stumpy tail, and waddled off truffle-hunting.
The morning was grey and misty, with a cold nip in the air. Scent lay strong in covert—every rabbit which hopped across the path left a trail which lingered on the wet leaves. The tits aloft in the bare branches chatted together in little splinters of song, and the woodpigeons squabbled over clusters of unripe ivy berries. It was as though the day was reluctant to come; and at noon, save for a pale sun spot in the mist overhead, it was as still and damp as at daybreak.
The jays, scolding in the Fir Plantation at the top of the wood, saw Greybrush running hard from Carigaboola with seven couple of hounds behind him. His tongue was out and his brush was down, and he thought gratefully of the 'earth' on Larch Hill as he tore through the brambles, and stubbed his nose against tree-roots, as fast as his stiff legs would carry him. All the chaffinches cried: 'Spink—spink—see the fox! 'ware fox!' but as the hounds did not understand finch language it did not matter much. He dived in through his back door just as the foremost hound burst out of the covert. The latter marked the place, and bayed there, with his comrades round him, until the men rode up. The huntsman crashed through the bushes and looked at the hole, and then he ordered a terrier to be brought and put in, that it might bolt the fox. But Paddy Magragh came down the path, and although he knew that he ought to have found and stopped this hole, yet his love of the hunt was greater than his pride in his woodcraft, and he said: 'Bedam, Captain, if ye put a terrier down there ye'll niver see the tail of him again. This burra' goes into the "earth" below, and there's badgers in it. Shure, they'd ate him.'