The Heart of the Wild: Nature Studies from Near and Far

by S. L. Bensusan

This philosopher, whose search for a mate had been equally unavailing, declared that the contemplative life was best of all, remarked that the old badger run he tenanted was not far removed from an unoccupied earth and suggested that they should hunt together. The younger one accepted the suggestion, and started making a bed in the new earth without delay.

It was about this time that he was called upon to give battle. Without knowing it he had moved into a district that was favoured by one or two daring poachers. Stray pheasants from a neighbouring estate were tempted into open spaces by judicious display of raisins, hares and rabbits were plentiful, and the main road was less than a mile away. One poacher had a valuable lurcher that would start off into the wood at a given signal and never return without a rabbit. Coming down a glade at top speed in hot pursuit of a hare the lurcher saw the badger, and forgetful of his safer quarry turned to the attack. It was quite a short contest. To be sure, the dog secured a good grip, but he had forgotten or never known the extraordinary elasticity of the badger’s skin. He only realised it when the animal he had attacked so unceremoniously had fastened on his throat with a grip nothing could relax. In little more time than is required to set the statement down the lurcher lay dead and terribly mangled by the badger whose terror had given place to rage.

All in vain the poacher called and called, until the coming of the morning light warned him to make his way home and return, without the impedimenta of his calling, to go through the wood in the guise of a peaceful pedestrian. To one whose knowledge of woodcraft was so complete it was no hard task to find the spot where the lurcher lay, and a very brief examination of the shattered head indicated clearly enough the author of the deed. Only the badger’s merciless jaws could have bitten through the lurcher’s skull as though it had been a wooden match-box.

The poacher was a dull fellow, an idle loafer who knew the county gaol intimately, ill-treated his wife and gave long hours to the ale-house. And yet for all his unprepossessing ways he was not without some measure of affection, and it had been given to the dead lurcher. Never Arab loved his well-tried horse better than this wastrel loved his dog—it had possessed an intelligence that was almost human, and had been the one living thing that loved him without change of mood. In the silence of the wood the poacher cried like a little child, hid his friend under the ferns until he could return and bury him, and then turned on the badger’s track.

Men who have been long brought up in the woodland and learned all the tricks of the poacher’s trade are hard to baffle. As the poacher moved along all his gifts so long latent, stimulated by grief and rage, he became for the time one with the wood and its denizens. He heard the ceaseless under-song, and could analyse it as the skilled critic of music can analyse the component parts of a symphony; almost instinctively he knew the shy fearful birds that were peeping at him through many a screen of leaves, the grass snake and adder that were gliding away from him. In those hours of wrath and exaltation his eyes were opened; without haste on the one hand or delay on the other he found the badger’s earth, never losing for long the track of the five toes and the sharp nails.

Down in the darkness where his bed was strewn, Brock realised the coming of his enemy; the horror of man so long dormant in him was revived. He stood up noiselessly and heard the unseen feet move deliberately in search of the entrance to the earth. Against this man who, in clear-headed hours, could read Nature’s stories as though they were set in printed page before him, a badger must fight hard for life. It would be a contest of wits.

The footsteps passed; the hidden animal heard the slow and regular decline; the normal sounds of the woodland were resumed. By night, he thought, he would creep away and leave the place, he would go back to his old haunts below the river where there was safety. The afternoon turned towards sunset, and then Brock, who was in a passage close to the ground, heard the tramp, tramp that had startled him in the morning. The man was coming back, was moving from one part of the ground to the other, sounding the entrance and the bolt holes. Already he seemed to know them all. What was he doing?

Presently the dull thud of a spade was heard by the mouth of the run, and the purpose of the poacher was clear. He had blocked each entrance and was going to dig until he had found the destroyer of his companion. Had he stayed till the following day the quarry would have passed. He knew this well enough so he had brought gun and food, trenching-spade, lantern and tobacco, and was about to dig down foot by foot to the badger’s lair.

Quite undismayed now that the risk of invasion had yielded to certainty, the hunted animal prepared to defend himself. At the foot of the first slope he started to pile the loose earth using his hind-feet as readily as the others, and before the poacher was half-way down the barrier was strong enough to have kept a dog at bay. But the man was depending upon his own exertions, he had no dog, and when his spade encountered the defence it was speedily broken down.

By this time the badger had retreated past his bedroom into one of the deepest passages, the one that commanded a double route. He had already gone to two of the exits that were intended for emergency, but the human taint was strong at each, and he feared to let the issue of the contest depend upon a chance flight. Perhaps it was as well, for the strongly pegged netting that was ranged round each hole must have given him a pause that would have sufficed the poacher.