THE WHITE BADGER OF CAIRN KENIDZHEK—_Continued_
THE EARTHSTOPPER ANGRY
MOST of Andrew’s deep thinking was done in the wooden arm-chair by his
own fireside. There he is seated, the evening after his interview with
Sir Bevil by the cover, considering the plan of campaign against the
badger. The only sound in the room is the click of his grandchild’s
knitting-needles. Vennie lies curled up on the floor at his feet. The
light of the lamp falls on the Earthstopper’s face, and betrays its
absent expression. He is wandering in thought over the moors and hills
around Kenidzhek, and wondering which of the many earths he knows of, is
the white badger’s. By careful examination, he will find sooner or later
a few white bristles on the walls of one of them, which will give him
the necessary clue. Should this plan fail, he will propose watching the
earths, and will request the Squire to let him do so alone, lest the
secret should leak out. Harrowing will his vigils be in that weird
district; but his fear of ridicule is greater than his fear of ghosts,
and he would rather have his grey hairs blanched with fright than become
the laughing-stock of the countryside.
“I hope thee’st nawthin’ troublin’ ee, granfer?” said the girl, who had
been casting anxious glances from time to time at the old man.
“No, no, my dear, only I dropped across a badger laast night, and I’ve
bin thinkin’ how I might come by hes eearth: I’m to see the Squire about
et furst thing in the mornin’.”
“But badgers are plenty enuf, granfer, I daresay Vennie could find wan
in a few minits ef you were to turn her out on the moor.”
“Iss, iss, my dear, grey badgers es plenty enuf as you say, too plenty
for me, the varmints; but ’twas a white wan I seed.”
“A white wan, granfer?”
“Iss, a white wan; surely thee dosn’t misdoubt me, Ravena?”
“No, no, granfer dear, I make no doubt thee didst see wan, and I do wish
thee luck in catchen of un. You’ll dig it out, I s’pose?”
“Iss, iss, the Squire says theere’s only wan way of taakin’ a badger by
fair play, and thet’s by diggin’ un out.”
“Then you must find where et’s earth es, and that may take a bra’ passel
of time.”
“Ezackly so, the Squire may fret and fume, but theere, nawthin’ can be
done till we knaw wheere et es. Now, my dear, let us be off upstairs for
I’m tired.”
After kissing the child, he went to bed and slept soundly. He was early
astir, lit the fire, as he always did when at home, and, whilst the
kettle was boiling, fetched a pitcher of water from the spring, and some
sods from the little turf-rick, for the day’s use. After breakfast he
set out to lay his plans before the Squire. He had no doubt that they
would be accepted, for he could see no alternative, and in matters of
this kind the Squire had generally fallen in with his views. His
surprise then at the sight that met his eyes as he entered the yard of
the Castle may be imagined. The head keeper was seated in a wagonette in
charge of three terriers; opposite him was a farmhand with a collection
of picks and spades; whilst the coachman, holding the reins in one hand,
was putting a sack in the boot with the other. “Well, well,” he muttered
as he stood near the big gates like one frozen to the cobbles, “what in
the world es the maanin’ of thes?” Impulsive he knew the Squire to be;
but was there ever, thought he, such folly as all this preparation for
digging out a badger without first knowing where it was? Granting he had
seen a white badger, its holt might be almost anywhere within four miles
of the Giant’s Quoit where he had found the footprints, and inside that
radius he knew of at least two score of earths: and was it possible that
the Squire could have said anything about the badger? These thoughts
passed through the Earthstopper’s mind as he stood there resting on his
blackthorn like one “mazed,” whilst the men in the trap exchanged winks,
and wondered what ailed him. There was one thing he could do, and would
do, no matter what the consequences: that was to see the Squire, and
point out the absurdity of going on such an expedition.
“Anythin’ amiss wi’ ee, An’rew? arn’t ee going to jump up? et’s a
quarter to nine and we’ve bin ready since half-past eight.”
Without replying to the keeper, he inquired rather sharply, “Wheere’s
the Squire?”
“Ee’s gone along these two hours and eh left word as you was to follow
on.”
This made the blood mount to his cheek; and for a moment he thought of
going back home and having nothing to do with the business. But
mastering this impulse he walked up to the trap without a word—his lips
were too tightly compressed to say anything—and took his seat by the
side of the coachman. In a short time the wagonette was rattling along a
country lane leading to the St Just turnpike road.
“Wheere are ee drivin’ to, coachman?” said Andrew, by way of a feeler
when he had found his tongue.
“My horders is to drive to William Trevaskis’ farm as lies under the
’Ooting Cairn.”
“What’s up to taake the Squire out so eearly?”
“Hi don’t know that I can tell ee, but be careful ’ow you speaks to ’im;
ee’s that hexcited, you’d think he’d lost the blackbird with a white
topknot.”
Andrew, who from the moment he had entered the stable-yard had been
under the impression that everyone at the Castle must have heard about
the white badger, would have been hopeful now that such was not the
case, were it not for an otherwise unaccountable grin that puckered the
coachman’s cheek and the singularly jaunty way in which he handled the
whip. However, he kept his misgivings to himself, and whilst seemingly
engaged in following the fresh tracks of a horse that had galloped along
the side of the road that morning, was ransacking his brain to remember
whether he had ever seen a badger’s earth on Cairn Kenidzhek. The fact
is, he knew much less of the Hooting Cairn than of any hill to the
westward of Crobben, nor could he call to mind a fox run to ground
there. Had it been Mulfra, the Galver, Sancreed Beacon, Bartinney, or
Chapel Cairn Brea, he could have walked straight to every holt on their
rocky slopes. After nearly an hour’s drive the pile of weird-looking
rocks shows plainly against the sky; a few minutes later the face of the
hill comes in view and at its base Trevaskis’ house on the edge of a
cultivated patch reclaimed many years ago from the moorland that
stretches away to the northern cliffs. The sun catches Shellal’s tiny
attic window, the leats where his springes are set, the pool beyond the
broad belt of yellow reeds, and lights the white-crested waves of the
sea.
When near enough, Andrew makes out the farmer in his shirt sleeves and
then—can he believe his own eyes?—three, four, five miners against the
turf-rick; Trevaskis is holding a tubbal in one hand and—yes, a
furze-chopper in the other; picks and shovels are piled in front of the
miners; Shellal is holding two buckets, no doubt containing water for
the terriers; and, by all that’s good, it is a pair of badger-tongs that
the Squire has just brought out of the house, his fingers fidgeting with
the guard. In short, a more completely equipped party for an assault on
a badger’s fortress and, judging by the laughter, a more merry one, it
would be difficult to imagine. But the high spirits of Squire, farmer,
and miner are not shared by the Earthstopper. The elaborate
preparations, no less than the hilarity, seemed to mock him. He foresaw
that the day’s proceedings would bring life-long ridicule on himself.
The whole countryside would get to hear of Andrew leading the Squire a
fool’s chase after a white badger, forsooth! and wherever he went people
would jeer at his powers of observation or treat him with silent pity,
according to their dispositions. Now after doing his duty to the best of
his ability for seven-and-thirty years, and being “plagued to death”
well-nigh every other week during the hunting season by badgers
scratching out his stoppings and letting the foxes in—an annoyance that
perhaps no other Earthstopper in the whole of England has to put up
with—for the faithful henchman on whom success depended to be dragged
willy-nilly into this business was enough not only to rouse his ire but
to shake his fealty to his master. If Andrew was ever vexed in his life,
he was vexed now, “vexed as fire.” Near the Squire he would not go,
unless sent for, not he; to a peremptory summons he would turn a deaf
ear. Still, enraged though he was, he would not shirk his duty, hopeless
as his task might be. He would search till nightfall, though a dozen
giggling louts dogged his heels. He knew that the badger’s holt might
possibly be on Cairn Kenidzhek, but it was about one chance in a
hundred. He jumped down from the trap before it reached the gate where
the Squire was awaiting it, and seizing the opportunity whilst Sir Bevil
was talking to the keeper, jumped the wall and going up to Trevaskis,
asked him if he knew of a badger’s earth on the hill.
“Niver had no bisiness,” he replied in a very loud voice, “to climb un
not even high by day. I laaves the furze-cuttin’ to Shellaal. The
nighest eearth beknown to me es in the croft under the Goomp.” Muttering
maledictions on the “git chucklehead,” Andrew shied off long before the
harangue was finished and, without consulting Shellal, who stood there
open-mouthed and still gripping the two buckets, crossed the lane and
began with his long strides the ascent of the crag-topped hill. It was
the best thing he could have done. Only by tremendous exertions could he
hope to work off his rage, and how he did exert himself!
Seldom had he put his hard sinews and strong muscles to such a strain as
he did that morning, when searching the rugged slope in quest of the
badger’s earth.
Now, he was lost to sight in some tangled gulley where he tore through
stunted blackthorn and brambles to reach its inmost recess; now, on
hands and knees, he explored furze-screened places between small groups
of boulders that dotted the higher slopes like outworks to the rocky
citadel on their crest; now he scanned for beaten track the starved
herbage that margined the Cairn; now the crevices between the rocks for
trodden lichen that might betray the badger’s way to his fastness. All
to no purpose! There remained the other side of the hill to explore; and
thither he went. Some half-way down the slope there is a belt of ground
so barren as to suggest a mineral lode just below the surface. Along it
the Earthstopper proceeded at a rapid pace, his eyes scrutinising the
edge of the sparse cover that skirted it. All at once he stopped in his
stride as he lit on the run of some animal leading towards the Cairn.
Some distance up it was joined, beneath a thorn bush, by a more clearly
defined track, and a little way beyond the junction, where the single
track passed between two boulders and was arched over with dead bracken
and withered bents, so unmistakable was the “creep” that the
Earthstopper knew that he was on the trail of a badger. His craft was
scarcely needed now, but he followed the trodden path jealously as if
once lost it could with difficulty be recovered. Farther up the slope it
passed under a clump of furze that there ran up to the foot of the
Cairn. The bushes were thick and luxuriant, with here and there a yellow
bloom, being protected from the westerly wind by the Cairn, and spared
by Trevaskis since Shellal had struck against working on that side of
the rocks without further rise of wages. On all fours the Earthstopper
crept under them, wormed his way quickly forward over the dry spines,
parting the furze above his head now and again to let the light in, and
convince himself that he was following the track.
Some distance in he came upon a heap of soil at the mouth of a badger’s
earth. He restrains the delight he feels, for fear it may be abandoned.
At once he examines the mouth of the set. The floor is well beaten and
too hard to record footprints, no moss grows there, no spider’s web
curtains the entrance.
Lying flat on the ground with his head well inside the hole, he sniffs
the air of the tunnel, but can detect no taint of any inmate. “Hanrew,
Hanrew, wheere are ee?” It is the voice of Shellal, whose weather-beaten
and scared face shows round a big boulder, whence he can see the eastern
face of the hill. The Earthstopper hears him, but is too engrossed in
his work to reply, and too far in the earth to make anyone hear him,
except possibly the badger, if he is at home. “Hanrew, Hanrew,” Shellal
calls at the top of his voice; and getting no answer but the echo of the
rocks, he hurries back, fully convinced that nothing more will ever be
seen of the Earthstopper. Andrew then gets some matches out of his
pocket and, striking one, holds it against the left wall of the earth.
His face, which is all aglow, brightens as he inspects it. Lighting
another match he removes something from the smooth surface and backs out
along the track he came by, no longer angry and desperate, but excited
and exultant. Sir Bevil and the rest of the party now arrived at that
side of the Cairn are looking round and wondering what has become of
Andrew, when they hear a rustling in the furze and at length see his
hobnailed boots project from the thick bushes.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE BADGER. [_Face page 110._]
* * * * *
The stems of the furze have swept off his cap; so bareheaded, but
triumphant, he goes straight to Sir Bevil, holding up between the
forefinger and the thumb of his right hand the precious evidence. The
men crowd round Squire and Earthstopper with amazement written on their
faces as they behold the white bristle—for such it is—and ready for
whatever exertion may be needed to secure the trophy. The Squire,
suppressing the excitement he feels, orders the bushes that screen the
earth to be cleared away. When Trevaskis and Shellal have done this,
Andrew gets permission to send in one of the terriers to make sure that
the badger is at home. On being released by the keeper from the chain
that holds her, Vixen runs to where Andrew is lying at the mouth of the
set, and, after being patted and encouraged, enters the hole and
disappears from view. With his head in the tunnel and with one hand
raised to silence the chatter of the farmer and coachman, who are
standing a few yards away, the old man listens to the bitch as she makes
her way along the galleries of the subterranean fastness. After some
seconds, neither he nor Sir Bevil, who is lying at full length with his
left ear to the ground—he was slightly deaf in the right—can detect
any sound of her movements.