THE BADGER’S CAPTURE AND ESCAPE

Presently they hear a faint bark and that peculiar thumping noise which a badger makes when moving along its underground passages.

“He’s theere, sir,” says Andrew. By way of response the Squire winks his right eye as though to say “I can hear him.” A sharp struggle succeeds, and the yell of the dog echoes along the winding way. At last the Earthstopper catches what he has been listening for, the welcome yap, yap, yap . . . coming always from the same spot, which tells him that the terrier is face to face with the badger in an end of its earth.

Without a moment’s delay, Sir Bevil instructs the miners where to sink a shaft to intercept the badger and cut it off from its galleries. The surface is littered with boulders, but fortunately there is a clear space some four feet wide between two outcropping rocks, and there the men set to work. Whilst they ply pick and spade, Andrew listens anxiously to the sounds that reach him from below, his fear being that the badger may force its way to some remoter part of its earth and render their labour of no avail. Hour after hour, six men working in reliefs continue to sink the shaft through the soft ground between the two walls of granite. No child’s play is this. As the pit gets deeper and deeper, the effort required to throw the earth to the surface begins to tell on the miners, who are working away as energetically as if some of their mates were entombed below. And here let it be said that digging out a badger, always an arduous operation, is frequently impracticable. Some of the sets in use to-day, such as those at Toldavas, Bosistow and Boscawen-un, are of considerable depth and extent, and defy all efforts of the spade. Whether they are hundreds or thousands of years old must remain a matter of conjecture, but as the badger is one of the oldest of living mammals there is little room for doubt that it has had its earths in the Cornish hillsides from a very remote past. Andrew is wondering as he lies there whether the set below him is one which will baffle all their efforts. As long as the terrier can keep the badger where it is there is hope of bagging it. But Vixen has already been for three hours in that stifling den, and during that time has been throwing her tongue almost incessantly. Incited by her yaping and an occasional cry of pain, the miners—they can hear her now—work bravely, despite their aching arms and backs. Suddenly the sound ceases, and shortly after, the Earthstopper hears Vixen as she makes her way slowly along the passages to the surface. Panting and exhausted out she staggers at last, and the next instant Turk, who has long been straining at his chain, is sent in to continue her work. Fatal interval! Alive now to the insecurity the holt it had deemed impregnable, and unable to dig its way farther on account of the rocky nature of the ground, the harried creature has stolen quietly away—at least neither Earthstopper nor miners heard it—and by means of a side gallery reached another stronghold on the far side of the Cairn. The Earthstopper, ignorant of this strategic move, is wondering why it is that Turk, so long gone and generally so noisy, is not giving tongue. What he fears as he continues to listen is that the badger has buried itself during the few seconds it was left, in which case all hope of securing it is gone. . . . Ah! what was that? a very faint yap, a mere echo of a yap, reaches his ear. It seems to come—does come—from far away under the Cairn.

“Wonder if the men down below can hear anything, sir,” says Andrew to Sir Bevil.

“Not a sound,” is the Squire’s response after inquiry.

“The badger’s shifted, sir; I can hear Turk, and that’s about all.”

Then the Squire takes the Earthstopper’s place and listens. “It’s a long way off, Andrew, it comes from under the Witch’s Cauldron.”

“Iss, sir, that’s where I maake et.” The note of despondency in the Earthstopper’s voice as he said this, served only to stimulate the Squire. The hopelessness of the situation would have daunted most people, but Sir Bevil had no thought of giving in, much less of owning that he was beaten.

Jumping up from the mouth of the earth, he rushes to the edge of the work and letting himself down the face of the rock, joins the two miners at the bottom of the shaft.

“Men,” says the Squire, “the badger has shifted from his old quarters, and we must drive a level under the Cairn. Andrew!”

“Plaase, sir?”

“Give me the direction; is that about it?” says he, stretching his arm across the shaft.

“Iss, sir, as near as can be.”

“Now, my man, give me your pick and let me have a turn: it’s not the first time I’ve used one.” Taking off his coat, he uses the tool with a vigour that astonishes the miner.

Fortunately, the ground admits of his working round the edge of the rock nearer the Cairn, in a direction almost at right angles to its already exposed face, and before long he has dug his way out of sight, and is shouting for a candle to enable him to see what he is about. A forlorn proceeding it might well seem to the old miner shovelling away the soil as the Squire fetches it down, for they are nearly a hundred feet from the badger, and at any moment may come on rocky ground and have to give up. The Squire knows this, but sticks to the apparently impossible task with his never-say-die tenacity. And when things seem hopeless, fortune befriends him. For to his surprise, after driving several feet, and narrowly escaping injury from a rock that fell behind him and dented the miner’s shovel, the pick penetrates the wall of mixed earth and stone at the end of the level. Putting his ear to the aperture, he makes out distinctly the yapping of the terrier on the far side of what, judging from the hollow sound, appears to be a cave. The discovery stimulates him to further exertions, and in a short time pick and spade clear away the partition that separates the workers from a cavernous chamber. The flame of the candle held at arm’s length burns as steadily as in a room. Its light falls on huge columns of granite under the Cairn, and makes the mica sparkle. This is not the place to describe the grim remains that were subsequently found in this weird sepulchre. An article from the pen of that learned antiquary, the village doctor, in the records of the Cornubian Society, gives a detailed description of the bones of animals now extinct, discovered there, and of the skeletons of two men with their tattered plaids still about them.

“A queer place this,” says the Squire, forgetting the badger for a moment; “a place for bats, owls, and buccaboos.”

“Yes, a wisht ould plaace, sure ’nuf, ’tis a soart o’ fogau, sir,” says Andrew, who has crept along the tunnel, and is peering over the Squire’s shoulder. “How deep es et, sir? I caan’t see the bottom.”

“Only a few feet, judging from the sound of the stones as they rattled down.”

Then the Earthstopper lets himself down the wall of the cave, and holds the candle whilst the Squire descends. The flame, held at arm’s length, was nearly on a level with the floor of the tunnel. Guided by the sounds of the conflict, they thread their way between the rude pillars of granite, and at length reach the badger’s stronghold on the far side.

“They are no distance in, Andrew,” says the Squire, speaking of the terrier and the badger, who are going at it tooth and nail.

“No, sir, touchin’, do ee hear un gruntin’, wonder ef I can see un.” Whereupon he lies flat on the loose soil, and holding the candle in front of him, looks into the hole.

“Can you see the badger?”

“No, sir, the dog’s in the way, and the dust es enough to blind ee; but he’s ourn, sir, we shall get un; white or grey, we shall get un. Have ee got the tongs, case they’re wanted?”

“Yes, I’m holding them.”

At this moment the man who had been shovelling comes up with another miner, with candles stuck in their hats, Shellal and the coachman, from the mouth of the tunnel, see the twinkling lights come and go as the miners make their way across the cave, and a spark or two struck by hobnailed boots, and they start at Andrew’s scream of encouragement to the dog, and the echoes it awakes.

“Es that your teeth chatterin’, Shellal?”

“Iss, you wonder, do ee? bra’ wisht auld place edna? don’t et strike thee that way? mowldy smill about un.”

“Arn’t you goin’ hover to ’em?”

“What? Shellal go over there? No, no, my son, not for the best dunkey this side New Brudge. Theer diggin’ again: hear ’em do ee? Bra’ fuss about an auld badger, semmin’ to me.”

Yes, they are digging again. The Earthstopper has taken a pick, and with his shirt-sleeves tucked up, is working away with a will, whilst one of the miners shovels the soil back, and keeps the hole open to enable the dog to breathe. The badger retreats as the sappers advance, and unfortunately the earth extends farther in than the Earthstopper imagined; but that is a trifling matter, as every stroke of the pick is bringing him nearer to the prize. It is only a question of time. The Squire leans against a huge rock, just behind the workers, holding the tongs in one hand, and pulling his moustache with the other. Every sound in the savage fray can now be heard, and at times the excitement is intense. Once the badger charges the dog to the mouth of the hole, and would have shown itself, but that the indomitable Turk pushes home the counter attack, and drives his foe right back to the corner of its earth. For half an hour longer the fight lasts, and at the end of it the dog comes out exhausted. For once the bull terrier has had as much fighting as it cared for but, though its under jaw is scored with wounds, its panting shows that its exhaustion is due rather to the stifling, dust-laden atmosphere in which the unequal struggle has been carried on.

But where is the other terrier? why is not Nell at hand to engage the badger and prevent him from digging his way farther in? Unpardonable over-sight! There can be no excuse. Squire and Earthstopper must have known that “fighting Turk,” as he was called, could not last very long against the badger in that cramped, suffocating hole. “Look sharp and fetch Nell,” says Sir Bevil. “She should have been here”—and would have been, had he but given the word. The keeper has no difficulty in getting Turk to follow him across the mirky cave,............