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                      WILD LIFE AT THE LAND’S END

[Illustration: Andrew Stevens]

                               WILD LIFE
                           AT THE LAND’S END

                     OBSERVATIONS OF THE HABITS AND
                    HAUNTS OF THE FOX, BADGER, OTTER
                  SEAL, HARE, AND OF THEIR PURSUERS IN
                                CORNWALL

                          BY J. C. TREGARTHEN

                                 LONDON
                     JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
                                  1904

                                PREFACE

THE sports described have led me to some of the wildest and weirdest
spots of West Cornwall. There are few tracts in England more rugged than
the northern part of the peninsula that lies between the Land’s End and
St Ives. It is possible to travel across the moors from Crobben Hill to
Chapel Cairn Brea without setting foot on cultivated ground. It is a
boulder-strewn waste, void of trees, where the grey of the granite
mingles in spring and autumn with the gold of the gorse that, with
heather and bracken, clothes the undulating surface.

To the lover of nature the wild aspect of these breezy uplands is not
without its charms; but the glory of the promontory is the ocean in
which it is set. The great rampart of cliffs that holds back the
Atlantic is broken here and there by beaches of white sand or minute
shells, or by coves into which fall the trout-streams that rise in the
granite hills above. Along the tangled valleys they water, many an
interesting picture arrests the eye; but whether it be a holy well, an
old mill, a grove, a rustic bridge or fishing-hamlet, all is in tender
miniature, like the streams themselves or the modest hills where they
bubble to the light.

In these valleys bird-life is rich. On a spit of sand you may chance on
the footprints of an otter, whose harbour by day is some rocky holt
along the cliffs; where the blackthorns are densest you may come across
a badger’s earth, and see the paths he has trodden in going to and fro.
This creature is very plentiful—as plentiful indeed as the hare is
scarce. Generally he shares the same earth with the fox. On the north
coast the seal shows no sign of decrease; thanks to its tireless
vigilance, and the inaccessible caves it frequents.

These surviving mammals add to the attractions of a coast and
countryside over which broods the silence of a mysterious past. The
fascination which these creatures have for me dates from boyhood, when I
once caught a glimpse of a badger stealing over a cairn in the grey of
early dawn; and the Earthstopper, wandering with dog and lantern over
the moors, presents a picture that has often appealed to me.

If the descriptions, however crude, serve to awaken old associations in
some readers, or to excite the interest of those who have never visited
the sunny “land of the three shores”; above all, if the sketch of the
Earthstopper helps to preserve the memory of a master of his craft, my
hopes will be fully realised.

    ROSMORRAN, SIDCUP.

                                CONTENTS

           CHAP.                                          PAGE

              I. THE EARTHSTOPPER UNDER THE STARS            1

             II. THE FOX-HUNT                               14

            III. FOX-HUNTING, AS IT WAS IN THE DAYS OF
                   QUEEN BESS, quoted from _Carew’s
                   Survey of Cornwall_, 1565                34

             IV. THE OTTER—TRACKING THE WILY VARMINT        36

              V. THE OTTER, _continued_—THE
                   EARTHSTOPPER’S VIGIL                     48

             VI. THE OTTER, _continued_—THE OTTER AT THE
                   LAKE                                     64

            VII. THE OTTER, _continued_—THE HUNT            71

           VIII. THE WHITE BADGER OF CAIRN KENIDZHEK—THE
                   EARTHSTOPPER IN DOUBT                    85

             IX. THE WHITE BADGER OF CAIRN KENIDZHEK,
                   _continued_—THE EARTHSTOPPER ANGRY      100

              X. THE WHITE BADGER OF CAIRN KENIDZHEK,
                   _continued_—THE BADGER’S CAPTURE AND
                   ESCAPE                                  112

             XI. THE HARE—LIFE STORY OF THE JACK OF
                   BARTINNEY                               130

            XII. THE HARE, _continued_—DIGORY STROUT AND
                   FARMER PENDRE                           145

           XIII. THE HARE, _continued_—THE COURSE          152

            XIV. A MIDNIGHT VISIT TO THE SEAL-CAVES        167

             XV. REMINISCENCES OF BOYHOOD’S DAYS           186

            XVI. BASS FISHING AT THE LAND’S END            206

           XVII. NED’S TALE OF THE BIRDS                   221

                 GLOSSARY                                  235

                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

        ANDREW THE EARTHSTOPPER
          (_Photogravure_). (_From a photograph
          by Richards, Penzance_)                _Frontispiece_

                                                    _Face page_
        THE EARTHSTOPPER ON TRENGWAINTON CAIRN.
          (_From a photograph by Richards,
          Penzance_)                                         12

        THE FOX. (_From a photograph by C.
          Reid_)                                             26

        FOX-CUBS. (_From a photograph by C.
          Reid_)                                             34

        TOL PEDN PENWITH. (_From a photograph by
          R. H. Preston, Penzance_)                          38

        LAMORNA MILL. (_From a photograph by R.
          H. Preston, Penzance_)                             44

        LAMORNA, SHOWING CAIRN DHU HEADLAND.
          (_From a photograph by R. H. Preston,
          Penzance_)                                         52

        THE OTTER. (_From a photograph by
          Quatremaine, Stratford-on-Avon_)                   64

        A HAUNT OF THE OTTER. (_From a
          photograph by R. H. Preston,
          Penzance_)                                         82

        CAIRN KENIDZHEK. (_From a photograph by
          Gibson & Sons, Penzance_)                          88

        THE BADGER. (_From a photograph by C.
          Reid_)                                            110

        ST BURYAN CHURCH. (_From a photograph by
          R. H. Preston, Penzance_)                         130

        STONE CIRCLE AT BOSCAWEN-UN. (_From a
          photograph by Gibson & Sons,
          Penzance_)                                        138

        SANCREED CHURCHTOWN. (_From a photograph
          by Gibson & Sons, Penzance_)                      150

        CHAPEL ST UNY WELL. (_From a photograph
          by Gibson & Sons, Penzance_)                      156

        ZENNOR CHURCHTOWN. (_From a photograph
          by R. H. Preston, Penzance_)                      166

        A STREET AT ST IVES. (_From a photograph
          by R. H. Preston, Penzance_)                      168

        HELL’S BAY. (_From a photograph by W.
          Cooper, St Ives_)                                 178

        NEST OF SEAGULL. (_From a photograph by
          Gibson & Sons, Penzance_)                         190

        ST MICHAEL’S MOUNT. (_From a photograph
          by R. H. Preston, Penzance_)                      194

        SENNEN COVE. (_From a photograph by
          Gibson & Sons, Penzance_)                         206

        PORTHGWARRA. (_From a photograph by R.
          H. Preston, Penzance_)                            210

        A HAUNT OF THE RAZOR-BILL. (_From a
          photograph by Gibson & Sons,
          Penzance_)                                        220

        THE HOME OF THE CORMORANT. (_From a
          photograph by Gibson & Sons,
          Penzance_)                                        226

        THE LAND’S END. (_From a photograph by
          R. H. Preston, Penzance_)                         232

                      WILD LIFE AT THE LAND’S END

                               CHAPTER I
                    THE EARTHSTOPPER UNDER THE STARS

IT was an hour after midnight when the Earthstopper of the Penwith Hunt
left his cottage on the outskirts of Madron. He carried a lantern and a
rough terrier followed at his heels. His track led, by lanes in the
heather, over a cairn to the furze-clad downs overlooking the lake.

To the West, sombre hills rose against the jewelled vault where the
stars in the depths of the frosty sky kept watch over the slumbering
earth. Half-way over the downs, beneath the roots of a stunted pine, was
a fox-earth. The old man knelt down and stopped it with faggots of
furze. The light of the lantern lit up his strong and kindly face, and
fell on the heap of sandy soil at the mouth of the earth.

Leaving the downs he turned towards Penhale, skirting the marshy ground
in the trough of the hills, and climbing a steep rise made for a
crag—playground of many litters—beneath which lay the next earth.
Furze bushes screened the entrance and hung like a pall on the slope.
The wind wuthered round the rocks and stirred the rushes in the fen
below; but the Earthstopper gave no heed to these whisperings of the
night, and paused but for an instant, as he bent over his work, to
listen to the bark of a fox in the pitchy darkness beyond. His way now
lay across a bleak waste. Rude monuments of a grey past dot its surface
and a solitary cottage overlooks its desolation. No path led along the
line he was taking: cromlech and monolith in ghostly outline guided his
steps.

The Earthstopper’s progress was slow, for the surface was rough and the
bogs treacherous, but yet he was getting nearer and nearer to Cairn
Galver, which rose like a cliff from the moor, its crest silhouetted
against the deep sapphire of the heavens.

“Good God, what’s thet?” said he, as a fiendish scream awoke the echoes
of the rugged hills. “Don’t sound like et, but et must a’ come from thet
cottage over theere. Iss sure, theere’s a light in the winder. Semmen to
me ’tes uncommon like murder.”

He had taken but a few stumbling steps along a track into which he had
turned, ere the faint thud of hoofs fell on his ear. More and more
distinct through the night came the sound, broken at times by a shout. A
rocky hollow lay in front of him; down which rider and horse came at a
furious pace, splashing the water as they dashed through the stream
below. Breasting the rise at the same frantic speed they were over the
brow and almost upon the Earthstopper before he was aware, and scarcely
had he jumped aside when they galloped past him.

Merest glimpse though he got of the man, he recognised him, for his face
was turned towards the light as it lay over the horse’s neck. It was
Jago the miner.

“Good Lor’, what’s the maanin’ of et? Why don’t eh stop the hoss?”

“Don’t take me for a Jack-o-Lantern, s’pose?”

Some distance along the stony track the clatter of the hoofs ceased. The
Earthstopper ran towards the spot.

“Where are ee, why don’t ee spaake?”

“Heere, An’rew, quick as you can.”

A minute later the Earthstopper, with one hand resting on the mane of
the heaving horse, was looking up at the miner’s blanched face.

“What’s the matter wi’ ee, Jago? you looked skeared.”

“Steve es killed by a faal o’ ground. We brought un hoam an hour agone.
Et wor moore nor Mawther could stand. Her rason’s clane gone.”

“Can I help ee?”

“No thank ee, An’rew.”

In breathless haste he spoke, and with a shout he was gone, his path
picked out in sparks, as the good horse without bridle or rein covered
the ground to the slumbering village.

Andrew stood peering through the night till the tiny fires died away and
the beat of the hoofs struck faint as the footfall of a child.

This incident had unnerved the lonely Earthstopper.

More than once as he ascended the Galver he turned his head, though
without staying his steps, to see that it was but the terrier that
followed him. Panting from the hurried climb he rested on a boulder of
the cairn and set the lantern down on the turf at his feet. The bitch
nestled between her master and the flickering flame.

The stars shone in all their splendour, but it was the glow-worm light
that crept through the gloom below which riveted the Earthstopper’s
gaze.

“Well, Vennie me beety, theere’s death and worse nor death in thet
theere cottage, and et’s shook me tar’ble, but our night’s work must be
got through somehow or theer’ll be no spoart to-day. With this wind a
fox es moast sure to make for Zonnor Cliffs.

“Come, me dear, ’tes cold up heere, two mile waan’t see us to cliff, and
thee must furst run through the radgell on the Little Galver.”

So, taking up the lantern, he went to the clitter of rocks and sent the
bitch in. He could follow her by the patter of her feet as she ran
through the cavernous hollows. On coming out at the far end of the rocks
she awaited her master and, when he came up, took her place at his
heels. Before leaving the high ground the Earthstopper stood listening
for a few moments with his face towards Madron, whither Jago had ridden
to summon the doctor. Hearing nothing, he made his way down the slope of
the cairn to the rugged waste that stretches away to the Northern coast.

Their work was now done till they reached the cliffs. He seldom spoke to
his dog in going from one earth to another, and to-night he had enough
to think about.

Thirty years of wandering under the stars had matured the philosopher
within him.

“Mine’s a wisht kind of a life, mine es; but so long as health and
strength do laast ’tes grand to traapse the moors and circumvent the
varmints. I know evra inch o’ thes eere country, evra patch o’ fuzze,
and evra pile o’ rocks, and the stars be moore to me nor to moast folks.
The eearth es beetiful, ’tes a pity to laave et, and when we do wheere
do we go to? The ways o’ the birds, the enstincts of evra wild crittur,
the min’rals I’ve blasted in the bal under the saa, the dimants up
theere, tell me plain enuf theere’s a Maister-hand behind et all. All of
ee say theere’s a God, but why are ee quiate as the grave about the
Better Land?”

The distant stars glittered in the silent vault, the wind was heedless
as the moor it swept, and there was no answer in the far-off mystic
murmur of the sea.

His sinewy strides soon brought him to the edge of the cliff. Two
hundred feet below, the Atlantic lashed the rocks and raged in the
caverns.

“Well, auld Ocean, I can hear ee ef I caan’t see ee. Hope theest heaved
up no dead thes tide. Lor’, how the gools do scraame, to be sure! but
’tes moosic and ’tes company to thet scraach on the moor”; and he
shuddered at the thought. Half trusting to the tussocks of coarse grass
but with muscles all alert he clambered down the steep zigzag his own
feet had traced, towards the adit of Wheal Stanny situate near the line
of the foam. Shrinking from the seething waters below he crept along a
narrow ledge and with scanty foothold reached the mouth of the adit,
where he brushed the sweat and salt spray from his face.

Then on hands and knees, his finger-marks effacing the footprints of
marauding fox, he entered the narrowing chasm and stopped the hole as
best he could, with pieces of quartz.

Drippings from the moist roof—retreat of trembling fern—blurred the
lantern’s light and dimmed the sparkle of the crystals.

Leaving the cliffs he made for the uplands, for a few earths lay in the
gullies that seamed them, and here and there a disused mine-work offered
a safe retreat to fox and badger. Carefully the Earthstopper picked his
way in the murky hollows, the lantern’s light awaking the frown of the
granite and falling bright on the gold of the bracken that fringed the
treacherous shaft. On the weird countryside above, the array of boulders
loomed like phantoms in the sombre heather.

Threading in and out among them as he rose and sank with the undulating
surface, the Earthstopper might have been a spy stealing from camp to
camp of spectral hosts bivouacking on the dusky slopes.

On the furthest ridge he stood peering into the darkness that shrouded a
moor over which he must pass. The level expanse might have seemed to
invite him as smooth water invites a swimmer wearied by the waves, but
superstitious fear held him there irresolute. For an eerie legend clung
to the heart of the moor. Crofters would draw closely round their bright
furze-fires as they listened to the harrowing tale. Little wonder that
the old man paused in his forward path, for the last earth on his round
was near a cairn that partly screened a haunted pool, and the moor
compassed it round.

Seeing a light—it was a mere glimmer—in a lone homestead on the low
ground between him and the cliff, he resolved to make his way down to it
and await the dawn. With difficulty, for the hillside was covered with
furze, he reached the byre where a candle burned on the ledge inside a
small window. Peeping through a cob-webbed pane, he was able to
recognise the farmhand at work inside, though the man’s back was turned
towards him.

Unfortunately for the labourer, the noise made by the turnip-chopper he
was working drowned the sound of the approaching footsteps, and Andrew’s
voice at the half-open door was the first intimation he had of the
Earthstopper’s presence.

“Mornin’, ’Gellas.”

“Lor’, you ded maake me joomp, An’rew. . . . Wisht news about Steve
Jago, edna?”

“Bra’ an wisht. I do hear the poor auld woman’s gone clane out of her
mind. ’Tes foolish like, but her scraachin’s thet unnarved me, I’m moast
afeered to go and stop thet theere eearth touchin’ Deadman.”

“Laave un be, noathin’ eearthly waan’t go anighst un for thes day. A
sinkin’ fox would raither die in th’ open nor maake for un. They do say
when any man or woman o’ thes heere parish, and ’tes a bra’ big wan too,
do die a vilent death like as ’ow” . . .

Andrew’s upraised palm had checked him.

“Then thee dost know all ’bout un?”

“Iss, iss, worse luck, I’ve heerd about the wisht auld thing.”

“Look here, An’rew,” said Tregellas under his breath as he drew close to
him, “I don’t knaw how fur may be fancy like, for I’d bin thinkin’ ’bout
un, but semmen to me I heerd a scraach from thet quarter about an hour
agone and theere—theere edn any housen to moore nor a mile” . . .

Andrew had heard more than enough and, before Tregellas could add
another word, he hurried through the open doorway, crossed the brook
that ran through the mowhay, and was soon breasting the rugged hill
leading to the Deadman.

On the edge of the moor he paused to listen. From out the distance came
the cry of some bird: the sea called faintly behind him. He looked
towards the East. There was no sign of dawn.

“I’ll faace un, come what may. Be quiate, stop thet theere whinin’ will
ee.”

Then he trimmed the wick of the lantern, pulled his cap well on to his
ears and, stepping from tuft to tuft of the silent heather, set out
across the moor. He made straight for the cairn and with trembling hands
stopped the earth; but though he heard the wind sighing in the reeds he
feared to turn his eyes towards the tarn.

Hurrying from the eerie spot he set out on his way homewards, staying
his steps a moment near a pool to look at the clean-cut footprints of a
fox. Water was oozing into them, for the ground was very marshy. And so
he came to the gaunt ruin of Ding Dong Mine which serves as a mark to
the long-line fishermen of Mount’s Bay. Only the walls and end timbers
of the lofty roof are left for the gales to whistle through; and in the
grey dawn a kestrel perched on the gable was preening its feathers. From
the mine-burrows hard by, the wayfarer overlooks headland and harbour,
the surf round St Michael’s base and the waters of the sail-flecked bay.

Well might the Earthstopper, whose soul, like that of many a toiler, was
far above his lowly work, dwell on the awakening beauty of land and sea
below him.

The stars had paled their fires and crimson streaks in the throbbing
east heralded the sun. Lighting first the hungry Manacles the gladdening
orb rose over the serpentine cliffs of Lizard, bathing with its rays the
sea and circling hills, and touching with gold the battlements of the
castle and the pinnacles of the westward churches.

“No wonder thet furriners do bow their knees on desert sands and wusshup
ee. Don’t knaw when I’ve seed ee lookin’ so beetiful missel.” The hawk,
now hovering over its prey, disturbed his simple reverie. “Come, me
dear”—but Vennie had slipped away—“’tes nigh breakfust time, and the
cheeld will be ’spectin’ us.” So down the hill he hurried, the smoke
from his own hearth cheering him and turning his thoughts to his
peaceful home. He pictured the little room neat and clean, the
breakfast-table with his chair drawn up to it, the sanded floor and the
kettle on the brandis amidst the glowing embers. He forgot his fatigue;
his steps were lightened as he thought of the child who looked after his
few comforts and always welcomed his home-coming. At a turn in the track
by some stormbent hawthorns he came suddenly upon her, come out to meet
him. What a change comes over the old man’s face at the sight of her!
How his eyes brighten as she runs to greet him!

“I knawed thee couldna be fur away, granfer, for Vennie’s been home
these ten minits or moore.”

He looked behind him, but the bitch was gone.

“Ah, I can guess what’s drawed her theere.”

The girl took the lantern from his cramped hand and, side by side, her
arm linked with his, they made their way towards the cottage. Two
minutes later the clatter of hoofs behind them made her look round.
“Someone’s comin’ down the Forest Cairn, granfer.”

“Iss, me dear, ’tes Dobbin’s step thee canst hear. Now run home along
whilst I have a word with the doctor.”

[Illustration: THE EARTHSTOPPER ON TRENGWAINTON CAIRN.
              [_Face page 12._]

The girl was barely a stone’s throw away when the doctor cantered up to
where the Earthstopper awaited him.

“Mornin’, Andrew, another touch of rheumatism?”

“No, sir, never felt better in my life; no, tedn thet: I wanted to ask
ee about Mrs Jago.”

“You’ve heard about it?”

The Earthstopper nodded assent.

“It’s all over with the poor woman, Andrew.”

. . . “May be ’tes best so, sir.”

“Yes, best so,” repeated the doctor, as he rode away.

Andrew overtook his grandchild near the cottage, and was following her
through the open door, getting a glimpse of Vennie and her puppies on
the badger skin before the turf fire, when the bells rang out a joyous
peal as if to remind him of the festive day. He turned and listened: the
grey tower rose above the patched roofs of the cottages, the notes
struck clear through the crisp air.

A smile rose to the weather-beaten face, the lips moved, and cheerily
came the words:

“Ring out your best, auld bells, for ’tes Maddern Feasten Monday.”

                               CHAPTER II
                              THE FOX-HUNT

BEYOND the memory of Dick Hal, who remembered the home-bringing of two
wounded “Church-Town” men after Waterloo, the hounds had met on Feast
Days at the Castle. The grounds with their stately terraces and relics
of feudal dignity were thrown open for the meet, the protests of old
Jenny at the park gate notwithstanding.

Long before the hour appointed a little crowd assembled outside the
lodge. Fishermen in blue guernseys were there, miners in their workaday
clothes, and a strong force of villagers. It is noteworthy what a motley
crowd, from squire to ploughboy, from vigorous youth to crippled old
age, will congregate to witness a day’s fox-hunting.

And surely the sight of twenty couple of hounds drawing a patch of gorse
in an open and wild country, the suspense that follows the first
whimper, the find, the thrilling tally-ho, and the hurry and scurry of
the field, is a spectacle as pleasant as it is exhilarating.

Looking out of an upper window of one of the little towers that flanked
the gateway was old Jenny Trewheela, blind of one eye, whose sharp
tongue was more effective than a fifteen-pounder in defence of her
charge. Villagers averred that “her main suction ware vinegar,” and a
candid friend had told her so. As the hour approached the crowd began to
press too close to the lodge to please her vigilant eye. “Werta shovin’
to? Thee shussen wan of ee come inside the gates till th’ ’ounds ’a gone
through. They be Sir Bevil’s orders.”

“Sober, mawther,” said a keen-eyed poacher, “we be all afeeard of ee,
and thee dost knaw it; but hows’ever we doan’t want none o’ your
winegar. Custna haand round a bit o’ crowse and a drop o’ somethin’ to
drink? ’Tes a dry East wind and bra’ an cold.”

“Sauce and imprence! I do knaw thee and the crooked ways of ee, though
thee dost skulk behind a honest man,” and with that she banged-to the
window.

A few minutes before the village clock chimed the hour, the huntsman,
hounds, and whippers-in passed through the gate and along the approach
to the inner court, and drew up on the far side of the keep near the old
culverin. By ones and twos, gentlemen from the country round, tenant
farmers and crofters, rode up to the Castle.

This venerable building in the hundred of Penwith in the parish of
Madron had been the seat of the Tresillians from the time of Henry the
Second. The Castle is quaintly described in an old survey of Cornwall as
“very ancient, strong and fayre and appurtenanced with the necessaries
of wood, water, parkes, moors, with the devotion of a rich-furnished
chapelle and charitie of almshouses.”

The terrace is still haunted by the squire who fell on the memorable day
when the place was held for the King against the Roundheads. The
painting in the hall shows the assault on the outer wall, where a lurid
glare lights up helm and pike at the narrow breach; for above battlement
and turret, clearly outlined, leap tongues of fire from the beacon on
the Cairn.

Dents in the granite walls still mark where the cannon-balls struck the
building; and it was at that time—I know there are some who dispute the
date—that one of the quarterings of the family arms above the entrance
was effaced.

Sir Bevil and Lady Tresillian, who were standing on the steps below,
gave their guests a hearty welcome. Breakfast was laid in the
wainscotted hall, bright with log fires.

Cornish worthies in their gold frames wink at the merry gathering round
the table.

Sir Bevil, despite his grey hairs, looks young for his sixty years.
Life’s work is stamped on his high-bred features. He looks every inch a
soldier. The tanned face and parched skin suggest frontier fighting: the
scar on the brow confirms it.

Facing the mullioned window, on Sir Bevil’s right is Squire Tremenheere
of Lanover, the hardest rider of the hunt; next him is the Major of the
C.C. battery, whose neighbour is the popular member for the Land’s End
Division; next him is a shipowner whose vessels are on every sea; the
veteran with silvery hair and twinkling eyes has been purser of a
tin-mine for nearly half a century; the man with the long black beard is
the village doctor, and a kind friend to the poor; below him sit half a
score farmers, and a good time they are having.

“This be a good drop o’ zider,” says the weather-beaten crofter who sits
facing a portrait of Sir Richard Grenville. “Gos’t home,” said the
eldest tenant on the estate, “Tedden no zider: but caal ’en what you
like, ’tes a drop of the raal auld stingo.”

The aristocratic old gentleman, tête-à-tête with Lady Elizabeth, is Sir
Lopes Carminowe, who knows every gate, gap and fox-earth in Penwith.
Need it be said that the little wizened-face man with laughing eyes,
whose wit is as dry as the champagne, is the legal adviser of those whom
he is tickling with forensic anecdotes? The parson is the recipient of
much chaff and banter; but with eyes sparkling under his shaggy brows
and in the best of humour he is cutting about him with his sharp-edged
tongue to the discomfiture of his assailants. Says Sir Bevil, “The
parson reminds me of the Cavalier in the picture who has brought down
half a dozen of the enemy and is looking round for more.”

Breakfast over, the gay company passed out of the Castle, mounted their
restive horses and rode away to the covert by the lake. The Cairn that
overlooked it was covered with pedestrians who, like spectators in a
theatre, were waiting for the play to begin. Does any one doubt that the
sporting instinct is strong in Englishmen? Observe that poor old man in
clean smock-frock and white beaver. This is Dick Hal. He can’t see very
well, but he would like to hear the cry of the hounds once more. He
began earthstopping the year Bonaparte died at St Helena, and this
morning a little child has led him to the Cairn that he might perchance
hear the music he loved so well. And it seemed probable, so rarely had
the brake been found tenantless, that he and the rest, younger and
noisier in their expectation of sport, would not be disappointed.

The cry of the huntsman in the bottoms at once hushes the hum of the
crowd. Ears strain to catch the first whimper, and eager eyes search
every yard of open ground to view the stealthy movements of a fox. Under
the shelter of a boulder, apart from the crowd, sits Jim Roscruge, the
old mining pioneer, and near him a man in velveteen coat and sealskin
cap who looks the incarnation of vigilance.

Surely we have seen that cheery face before—it’s Andrew the
Earthstopper, looking little the worse for his night’s adventures. The
leading hounds had come through the brake. “Saams to me,” says Roscruge,
“that Nute drawed a bit too quick like. A fox’ll sometimes lie as close
as a sittin’ perthridge.” “May be you’re right: but Joe Nute do knaw ’es
work, and, lor’, what moosic’s in the voice of un! Harkee! . . . Grand,
edna you? Saam time I niver seed the brake drawed blank but wance
afore.”

The field began to move slowly to the next cover whilst the hounds ran
through some crofts where the furze was thin.

“Wild country this, Tresillian,” said the Major of Sir Bevil’s old
battery as they rode along side by side.

“Yes, it’s more or less like this all the way to Dartmoor, heather and
gorse on the surface, tin and copper underground. It’s the backbone of
the county in more sense than one.”

“And Lyonnesse must be somewhere near?”

“That,” said Sir Bevil, smiling, “is the submerged land between the
Land’s End and the Scillies. Scientists, confound ’em, are trying to
prove that the sea has covered it since the Creation. What right have
they got to meddle with our traditions? They’ll be saying next that the
letters[1] on the Men Scryfa—it’s in a croft over that ridge facing
us—have been cut out by the action of the weather on the granite.”

“Well, Andrew,” said Sir Bevil as he rode up, “where do you think we may
find to-day?”

“I caan’t hardly tell, sir,” said he, keeping pace with the horse; “but
at daybreak this morning I balled a fox”—at this Sir Bevil pulled up
his horse,—“on that bit o’ soft ground under Ding Dong on the Quoit
side, and seys I to missel, me shaver es moast likely kennelled in that
bit o’ snug fuzze to the lew side of the stennack.”

“Very well, we will draw that next and drop back to Boswortha if we do
not find,” added Sir Bevil as he rode away to give instructions to the
huntsman.

“Come ust on, Jim, best foot foremost, or the draw’ll be over afore we
get theere.” They gained the crest of a rise overlooking the cover just
as the huntsman, who was now afoot with the hounds around him, was about
to draw it.

“Wheere ded ee light on they theere prents of the fox, An’rew?”

“Do ee saa thet big bunch o’ rooshes anigh the pool, away ahead of the
rock touchin’ the Squire?”

“Iss sure.”

“Well, they’re close handy to un, laystwise I reckin so: ’twas by the
furst glim o’ day I seed ’em.”

Below them lay a stretch of marshy ground fed by some bubbling springs.
Rills trickled along channels in the peaty ground, sparkling here and
there between tussocks of rush and withered grass, losing themselves in
a vivid green patch that fringed a chattering trout-stream. On the
higher side, nestling under shelter of a craggy ridge, was about an acre
of furze with a big dimple in it where yellow blooms lingered.

The scarlet coats of the riders gave a few dashes of warmth to the grey
expanse of boulder-strewn moor.

Sir Bevil watched the hounds as they drew up wind, the big chestnut with
its pricked ears seeming as intent as his rider. Their shadow lay almost
motionless aslant the lichen-covered rock. The working of the pack was
easily seen, save where the ground dipped around a pool or boggy growth
luxuriated. Flushed by hound or crack of whip, a woodcock rose and
dropped in some withes a furlong away. Still there was no sign of the
fox, no view holloa, not a whimper. The idler hounds lapped the tempting
water, seemingly heedless of the huntsman’s voice.

“I’m afeard o’ my saul ’tes blank, Jim; hounds don’t saam to maake
nawthin’ of un.”

“Nawthin’ at all, scent’s gone along wi’ the frost. But don’t ee go and
upset yoursel’ about et, ’tes noane of your fault.”

Amongst the members of the hunt, disposed in little groups behind Sir
Bevil, the green of the bog and the gleam of the rippling water showing
between them, expectation drooped, and the little cares of life that a
whimper would have kept to the crupper, seizing their opportunity, began
to steal back to their owners.

The doctor’s eyes wandered to the lonely cottage; the shipowner found
himself thinking of the fall in freights, the miner of the drop in tin;
and even the red-whiskered farmer was wondering whether the ten-score
pig hanging by the heels in his outhouse would fetch 4¾d. or 5d. a lb.
on the next market day.

Suddenly Troubadour, the most reliable hound of the pack, threw up his
nose as he whiffed the tainted air.

“He’s got un, Jim. See how eh crosses the line o’ scent see-saw like.
’Pend upon et, ’tes a find.”

The hound now left the edge of the cover near the bog and worked round
its upper side. Losing the scent he came back, recovered it, threw his
tongue and dashed into the brake.

“Thet’s what I do caal rason in a dog,” whispered Andrew, whilst his
restless eyes watched every point of escape for a view of the fox.

In a moment the pack rallied to the trusted voice of Troubadour, and the
furze was soon alive with waving sterns.

“What moosic, Jim! Look out, slyboots’ll be gone in a twinklin’.”

“Theere’s the fox staling away along by them theere brembles.”

“I caan’t see un,” said Roscruge. And truly none but a trained eye like
Andrew’s, which saw a suspicion of brown here and a tell-tale movement
of tangled growth beyond, could mark the course of the sly varmint. It
had eluded the gaze of the whippers-in. Grasping the situation, Andrew
ran to where he last saw the fox and gave a loud tally-ho.

Then all was stir: the field seemed electrified. Shipowner, miner,
farmer, ay and squire, parson, soldier and whipper-in, each forgot his
worries—for who has none?—and black care lay in the wake of the hunt.

“Lor’, how they do race,” said Andrew as the hounds, with a burst of
music, streamed across the heather. “The fox is maakin’ for cleff.
Desperate plaace thet; but as luck will have et the tide is out.” The
hunt was now lost to view, but with his hand raised to shade his eyes he
kept looking towards the Galver. . . .

“They’re crossin’ the sky line. Do ee see ’em, Jim?”

“Iss, and ef I baan’t mistaken, the white hoss es laast as usual.”

Tregellas had been busy in the cattle-shed since early morning, and now,
having put a double feed in the troughs and filled the racks with
sweet-smelling hay, was about to leave work and put on his Sunday-best,
after the custom of Feast Day, that his appearance might do credit to
his side of the parish when he sauntered past the critical eyes of the
girls of Churchtown.

Just then Driver, who had been curled up in the straw dreaming of summer
days amongst the moorland cattle, pricked his ears, rose to his feet,
jumped the half-door, and barked furiously.

“What’s thet?” said Tregellas as the music of the pack awoke the echoes
of the cliffs. “Why ’tes the hounds in full cry sure ’nuff.” Out of the
byre he rushed and climbed the turf rick near the pig’s crow, hoping to
get a view of the hunt. The passing chase was one of the few excitements
of his dull life; and next to a sly glance at the girl of his heart the
sight of a fox before hounds was what he loved most.

His eager eyes searched the rugged hillside and swept the open sward
lying between it and the cliff. A sea-gull skimming its pinnacled edge
drew his gaze that way. It was only for an instant; yet when he looked
round again, the fox with an easy stride was crossing the springy turf
where in summer thrift blooms, and discovering dips in the ground where
human eye found none, with lithe movement was making for his earth near
the foot of the cliffs. “Lor’, what a beety! how eh do move over the
ground that steelthy like! What a broosh! Wonder ef he’s the saame
varmint as killed the auld gander.”

Thrice before the fox had stood before hounds, and the last time he had
but narrowly escaped with his life. Less than a year ago, it was in the
month of March, they had found him on the sunny cliffs where Lamorna
overlooks the ocean, and the great run he gave that day from sea to sea
is still vivid in the memory of the hunt.

[Illustration: THE FOX.               [_Face page 26._]

This morning dawn had surprised him miles away from his rocky
stronghold. For hours before daybreak he had lain in wait with glowing
eyes under the shelter of some rustling sedge that grew amidst the
waters of a pool, for wildfowl. His listening ears caught the swish of
their tantalising wingbeats as skein after skein circled above his
lurking-place, but he had awaited in vain the splash of widgeon or teal
on the lane of water he had opened in the thin ice as he swam to his
“islet” ambush. Hunger and expectation had kept him there too long and,
in the grey light that had quenched the green fires of his eyes, chilled
and famished he had stolen away to the near brake, and under its
thickest furze-bush shunned those hateful rays that jewelled the frosted
spines above his lair and gilded the crags between him and his earth.

Scarcely had he curled himself up before the tread of human steps made
him cock his ears, and when the Earthstopper bent over his clean-cut
footprints the ominous silence had brought him to his feet. But as the
footsteps died away he had settled himself down again, and it was out of
a deep sleep that the warning voice of Troubadour had roused him. Once
more, like an outlaw, he was driven forth under the eye of the wintry
sun with hue and cry behind him, conscious that his safety lay in his
own cunning and endurance and the stout heart that had carried him
through before.

As he crosses the sward there is nothing hurried in his stealthy
movements, despite the clamour in his ears. He is not sure that his
earth is open—more than once he had found it closed—so he is
husbanding his strength, and, if need be, every bit of it will be doled
out under the direction of his vulpine brain in the attempt to outwit
his enemies. Some fifteen feet from the cliff a slab of rock—outcrop of
the granite formation beneath—brings back to his memory a ruse that the
old vixen had taught him, when one August day at sundown she anxiously
led her playful litter up to the great world overlooking their rocky
nursery. This he at once decides to put into practice.

So to the amazement of the open-mouthed Tregellas he crosses and
recrosses the rock as he had seen her do, hoping thereby at least to
check his pursuers, if not to foil them altogether.

Leaving the tangled lines of scent for the hounds to unravel, he, by a
single leap, reaches the verge of the cliff and for an instant clings to
its dizzy edge as if to listen to the swelling cry, for his mask is
turned that way. Then, gathering himself for a spring, with a whisk of
his brush he is gone. This was too much for the spellbound Tregellas,
good Methodist though he was: “Well, I’m dommed, that taakes the
fuggan.”

The leading hounds were breaking through the furze at the foot of the
hill, their voices ringing like silver bells.

Flashing across the open they checked at the rock, but only for a
moment, and then, like an impetuous stream, poured down the cliff.
Thither Tregellas, loosing the dog he had been holding, ran at the top
of his speed and looked over. The scene below stirred his Celtic blood.
The pack, with the fox a furlong ahead, was racing along the narrow
beach, till, reaching a jutting point, pursued and pursuers took to the
water and, skirting the rocks, swam out of his sight.

Knowing the line the fox would probably take, Tregellas, with the fever
of the chase in his veins, climbed the steep hill leading to the Deadman
and, though he bruised his knees through his corduroys, gained at length
the topmost stone of the cairn that crowned it.

“Aal for nawthin’,” he gasped as he overlooked the stretch of silent
moor beneath him. The only sound of the hunt was the distant thud of
hoofs where the “field” galloped along the coast road. Yet with quick,
restless eyes he swept the waste as from that very eyry a sparrow-hawk
was wont to do, watchful for the slightest sign. The echo of the horn
had kept hope alive, faint though it was, but now he has seen something
which rivets his gaze.

He is looking towards the lower side of the moor, over the shoulder of
which lies the sea, fringed with surf where it frets the black precipice
of a headland. He is watching a bird that flies close to the stunted
furze. The white of its plumage gleams as the sun catches it. Threading
the sinuous lanes between the bushes, appearing at the distance almost
like the shadow of the overhanging magpie, is the hunted game; and
though Tregellas cannot hear the chattering of the bird, he knows that
it is mobbing the fox whose mask is set in the direction of Deadman. As
his form comes well in view Tregellas fancies that his stride is perhaps
not quite so easy as when he swung so lithely across the turf, and it
may be he was shaken by those terrible leaps adown the jagged rocks
where a whipper-in, a coastguard, and a truant schoolboy are at this
moment attending to two crippled hounds. “Es eh failin’ a bit, do ee
think, ’Gellas?” “Caan’t hardly tell,” said he, answering the question
put to himself. And then the hounds heave in view. At what a pace they
sweep over the waste, how silently they are running! With anxious eyes
he follows them as they cross the moor above. “Dear life, they’re niver
headin’ for Deadman, are ’em? Iss . . . iss . . . wonder ef An’rew
stopped the eearth. . . . Hooray!” for standing on tip-toe he saw the
blurred pack swerve near the heart of the haunted moor as though at that
point the fox had been headed.

“I knowed ee raather die in th’ open nor go to ground in that wisht auld
plaace.”

Then the field at full gallop passed before his gaze. “Lor’ a mercy,
passon’s bin and falled into the bog,” and he laughed as only a yokel
can laugh.

Tregellas lingered until the desolate waste swallowed up the hindmost of
the field; the circling flight of a snipe being the only sign that the
hunt had swept across the moor.

The stout fox held bravely on; but the pack, racing for blood, with
hardly a check, kept lessening his lead as moor and croft were left
behind.

With what a crash of music they dashed through the Forest Rocks and
through the belt of pines to the open heath beyond. Though death was
ringing in his ears there was the gallant fox struggling gamely forward.
Racing from scent to view they pulled him down on the dead bracken below
the now deserted cairn.

The huntsman, Squire Tremenheere and Sir Bevil close behind him,
galloped up in time to rescue the carcass from the ravenous pack. The
who-whoop was heard by the parson as he urged his grey mare, mud to the
girths, between the pine boles. To him, when he came up, Sir Bevil
handed the mask; the brush he had presented to the Squire.

Late the same night the parson sat in his study recording the incidents
of the chase and, despite the strains of “Trelawny” which reached his
ears from the “One and All” hard by, where Tregellas and his friends
were making merry, kept true to the line of the fox and with graphic
touches described the run.

Closing the book, he returned it to the shelf between the door and the
pegs, where his hunting-cap hung. Then for the first time that season he
took a map from its tin case and spread it on the table. It was a map of
West Penwith, and was crossed by lines in all directions, reminding one
of threads of dodder on a furze-bush. Those thin red lines represented
the best runs of the hounds during the five and thirty years he had
followed them. Having put on his spectacles, he dipped the fine-pointed
nib in the ink and, starting from near the pool under Ding Dong, traced
the run to the adit at the foot of the cliffs. Why did he pause there,
why not let the pen skirt the coast and the headland and cross the moor
to Deadman?

See! there is another red line—a line that starts at Lamorna
Cliffs—which ends at the adit, and as his eye wandered along the
converging tracks he was wondering whether the fox which gave that great
run from sea to sea was the one whose death he had just recorded. That
is why his hand dwelt and why he raised his questioning eyes to the wall
facing him.

He could not be sure, and the fixed grin on the fox’s mask hanging
between the cap and hunting-crop did not help him.

-----

[1] Riolabran Cunoval fil.

            FOX-HUNTING, AS IT WAS IN THE DAYS OF QUEEN BESS

           _Quoted from “Carew’s Survey of Cornwall, 1565.”_

“BEASTS of venerie, persecuted for their cases, or ‘dommage feasance’
are martens, squirrels, foxes, badgers and otters. . . . The fox
planteth his dwelling in the steep cliffs by the sea side; where he
possesseth holds so many in number, so dangerous for access, and so full
of windings, as in a manner it falleth out a matter impossible to
disseize him of that his ancient inheritage. True it is, that sometimes
when he marcheth abroad on foraging to revictual his ‘male pardus’ the
captain hunters, discovering his sallies by their espyal, do lay their
soldier-like hounds, his born enemies, in ambush between him and home,
and so with har and tue pursue him to the death. Then master reynard
ransacketh every corner of his wily sconce, and bestirreth the utmost of
his nimble stumps to quit his coat from their jaws. He crosseth brooks,
to make them lose the scent; he slippeth into coverts, to steal out of
sight; he casteth and coasteth the country to get the start of the way;
and if he be so met, as he finds himself overmatched, he abideth and
biddeth them battle, first sending the mire of his tail against their
eyes in lieu of shot, and then manfully closing at hand-blows, with the
sword of his teeth, not forgetting the whiles to make an honourable
retreat with his face towards the enemy; by which means having once
reached his fortress, he then gives the fico to all that his adversaries
can by siege, force, mine, sword, assault, or famine, attempt against
him.”

[Illustration: FOX-CUBS.               [_Face page 34._]

                               CHAPTER IV
                  THE OTTER—TRACKING THE WILY VARMINT

WITH the putting aside of the lantern that had lit his way through the
winter’s night Andrew’s thoughts turned to the otter. The mystery
surrounding the ways of this wild creature drew him to it as buried
treasure attracts the spade. “Ah, the varmint!” he used to say,
“theere’s no gettin’ to the bottom of un, he’s thet deep and artful. The
fox valies hes broosh, but he’s reckless, I tell ee, compared along wi’
the otter. Night and day, the restless varmint’s got a danger signal
afore hes eyes.”

The Earthstopper’s words convey some idea of the subtle and wary habits
of this nomad of our fauna, which conceals its existence so well that
its presence generally escapes observation in districts where it is not
hunted.

This is partly due to its having no conspicuous holts like the fox or
badger, being content in its wanderings with such lodgings as stone
drains, hollow river banks and marshy hovers, all which are as well
known to the tribe of otters frequenting a district as wayside
camping-grounds are to the gipsies.

In West Cornwall, where the sources of the streams are but four or five
miles from the sea, the otters’ quarters by day are, for the most part,
crevices and caverns in those mighty granite cliffs that keep watch and
ward over the Atlantic.

Thence it sallies out when the twilight of its holt deepens into
darkness, to raid the trout, and fearful of couching inland, rarely
fails to steal back to its stronghold with the last shades of night,
vanishing from moorland and coombe like a spectre before the dawn.

Tactics of this kind, well devised though they are for the creature’s
safety, are fatal to sport; and as the meet at the lake drew near,
Andrew kept turning over in his mind how he could circumvent them.

To induce an otter to lie up near this favourite fishing-ground, Sir
Bevil, who was a keen otter-hunter, gave orders that, to keep the lake
quiet, no one but the Earthstopper was to go near it.

He, however, might have been seen there once soon after daybreak,
stealing noiselessly round the margin as if he feared to awaken the
spirit of the place, bending over the sand of the little bays and the
skirts of the marshy ground to find track of the game. Years of such
work and the love for his craft had so sharpened his keen, quick eyes
that the faintest trace of bird or beast could hardly escape their
restless glance. Not, however, until he had made his way round the
creeks and crept under the rhododendrons fringing the bank, did he light
on the object of his quest.

The footprints were clearly marked on the bare ground beneath the low
branches, and impressed the Earthstopper as he stooped to examine them
in the sombre light, not so much by their unusual size as by a defect in
one of the prints, showing that the middle claw of one forefoot was
missing. This would make it easy for him to identify the track and so
aid him in finding out whether the otter had gone down the coombe to the
sea.

Few sportsmen looking down at the lake, in its setting of wild hills,
would dream that the poacher, after its night’s work, would trouble to
seek the shelter of some distant sea-cave rather than lie up in the snug
reedy hovers skirting the creeks.

[Illustration: TOL PEDN PENWITH.               [_Face page 38._]

But the Earthstopper knew better. Too often had he seen the hounds
follow the trail of an otter down to the edge of the tide, to feel
sanguine that it harboured near the lake. Already, indeed, he was
fearing, as he forced his way back through the wild luxuriant growth,
that it had returned to the cliffs.

How those cliffs haunted him! Did he catch sight of an otter’s seal
shortly before a meet, as surely would the picture of the great granite
walls with their impregnable fissures and caverns obtrude as it did
then.

Leaving the lake, he followed its overflow down the valley, examining
the banks of the stream carefully, yet dreading to come across a trace
of the beast. You would have thought he had caught sight of an adder,
had you seen him start back when he found the downward track in the
low-lying plantation under Castle Horneck. It was on the bank just above
a high waterfall which it would seem had caused the creature to land,
but from there to the beach no trace could he find, though he spent
hours in the search. It was possible, he thought, that to conceal its
line of retreat, the wily creature might have gone down to the sea along
the bed of the stream. This view would perhaps have gained on him, but
that in its lowest reach the sluggish water nearly circles round a
meadow, and the otter must have taken, as is its wont, the short cut
across the neck of the bend, and in so doing must have left its tracks
in the marshy ground there.

Another solution occurred to him. It was by no means improbable that the
creature was laid up in the plantation; for not only does human foot
seldom disturb the sylvan quiet there, but in an angle of the stream,
just below the waterfall, under a tall elm there is as inviting a hover
as nature’s sappers can tempt the eye of otter with.

Floods have bared the gnarled and twisted roots and hollowed out the
ground behind them, so that the backwater on the edge of the swirling
stream extends far under the bank, and is lost in the gloom it casts. It
was almost by chance that he discovered, a few days before the meet,
traces of the otter, that left no doubt as to its line of retreat. He
was standing in the plantation at the time, aglow with excitement from
having seen the fresh seal of an otter a little way above in Lezingey
Croft, and debating with himself whether he should again follow the
stream to the sea, when his eye fell on some moist marks that were fast
drying and only visible in a certain light, on a flat rock half hidden
by creepers. Faintest indication though it was, it furnished a clue to
the line taken by an otter, and though there was no trace of footprints
in the gap in the boundary wall above, the Earthstopper felt sure that
the poacher had within the hour passed up the hill on its way to the
Newlyn stream which flows down the adjacent valley.

Thither he went at once, and after a long, fruitless search began to
think, though against his better judgment, that the otter, if it had
reached that stream, must have gone up the water towards Buryas and not
down towards the sea.

Fortunately he persevered, and there just below a sudden bend, on a
deposit of silt, was the cleanly-cut footprint, showing the defect he
had first noticed under the bushes at the head of the lake. Before him
was convincing evidence of the difficulty of tracking the creature he
was pitting his brains against, for its path on leaving the shelter of
an overgrown ditch lay among some wild iris whose leaves met above,
screening all the footprints but the solitary one on the mud. This would
have been washed out had the mills up the valley been thus early at
work, and even as it was, a tiny wave from time to time lapped the silt
as if striving to erase the tell-tale print. Holding back the flags to
get a clear view, the Earthstopper gazed long at the beaten path,
heedless of the brambles that tore his fingers, or of the stream that
swirled around his feet.

“The auld game es et, Maister Sloper? laast night a robbin’ the trout,
thes mornin’ curled up saafe and sound in the cleeves of the rocks. Ah,
you rascal, ef et keeps me up all night, I’ll be even wyee yit.”

On his way home Andrew called at the Castle to report to Sir Bevil what
he had seen, and to tell him what he had made up his mind to do, namely,
to try and prevent the otter returning to the cliffs.

“I leave the matter in your hands, Andrew,” said the Squire, “my only
fear is that if it comes up, and the chances are that it won’t, it may
wind you in your hiding-place and be scared back. However, you know best
about that. You won’t go over the ground again, I suppose?”

“No, sir, I shudden wonder ef I’ve bin wance too often as et es; but I
couldn’t keep away.”

“Is it the seal of a good otter?”

“The biggest I ever seed.”

“Sorry to hear he’s been in a trap; you’ve no idea, I suppose.”

“Noane at all, sir.”

All the way across the heather to his cottage, Andrew thought of what
the Squire had said, but reflection did not shake the confidence he felt
in his plan. More than once, when he had lain hidden on the bank of the
stream, an otter had swum past within a few feet of him without
betraying the least alarm. Of course, he had kept as still as death.
Almost in the twinkling of an eye the Earthstopper can become as rigid
as a rock, and so disarm the suspicion of the shyest of wild creatures,
provided they don’t get wind of him. He is in sight of his cottage now,
but he is still defending his plan against the Squire.

“Well, ’spose the wust, say eh is skeared, what do it matter? Hee’d be
back in they theere cliffs long afore the hounds could come anist un,
an’ I’ll warn ee, with a bellyful of the Squire’s trout.”

Rightly or wrongly, he determined to try to head the otter back, and
even first to lie in ambush and see it pass on its way to the lake. But
where?

It was this he was considering as he sat smoking his pipe over a glass
of beer in the parlour of the “One and All,” the morning before the
meet. Save for Vennie, who was curled up under the window seat, he was
all alone. Not that “Maddern” men don’t like a glass of beer, but the
leisure hours of an Earthstopper are not those of ordinary toilers; so
that he had nothing to break in on his thoughts but the tinkle of the
blacksmith’s anvil, and the clear tenor voice of the parson who was
trying over some chants in his study behind the shrubbery. Sitting
there, the Earthstopper could see, as though it lay spread before him,
the tranquil lake, its tiny bays and miniature headlands, the silver
thread of the stream as it flows through croft, woodland, orchard and
meadow on its way to the sea, and every overhanging tree and bordering
bush.

What memories intruded on his thoughts as he searched the banks for an
ambush! how vivid were those of long ago!

In a patch of furze near the stepping-stones he had found a long-tailed
tit’s nest when he was a lad; in the dark pool under the bridge a big
trout had carried away his hook and two strands of new gut; under the
spray from the water falling from the wheel, during the great flood, he
had caught his only salmon peal; between the apple blossoms that nearly
kissed across the mill stream his young eyes had first followed the
flight of a kingfisher.

Skipping the rising ground between the coombes, he lit on the track on
the silt, and instantly he reproached himself, as he had done again and
again, for having, in a moment of excitement, held the leaves of the
iris and tainted them with human scent.

[Illustration: LAMORNA MILL.               [_Face page 44._]

At last he pitched on an ambush which seemed likely to favour his vigil
if the otter should chance to come up, unless the moon should be clouded
over, or the wind chop round when the sun went down.

It lay on the bank of the stream midway between the lake and the
plantation, and from it he could command the otter’s line of approach.
Let it not be thought, however, that he had no misgivings about his
ability to confine the wily varmint to the lake, even should it pass him
without suspecting his presence. No one is more familiar with its
resources when danger threatens; but the sting of past failures and the
wish to be even with the elusive creature, above all, his anxiety to
provide sport for the hunt, urged him to attempt the almost impossible
task he had set himself. No doubt some will say he was over zealous, and
complain—and with some show of reason—that he did not engage a score
of helpers, who could have formed a ring round the lake and at a given
signal have made noisy demonstrations. Those who take this view would,
of a surety, condemn him at once, did they but know the fame of
“Maddern” men for beating tin cans when the bees are swarming.

The Earthstopper, it is true, did contemplate calling in their aid, only
however to dismiss the idea from his mind; not because of any dearth of
old kettles and pans, but through an experience of a year ago at
Marazion Marsh, since which disastrous night—an otter broke through the
line where two men lay asleep—he has “thought slight” of Gulval men,
for all their skill in smelting tin and cutting early broccoli. But this
tale must be chronicled elsewhere. There were, however, other allies on
whom he felt that he could depend, and these he meant to make use of.

That afternoon, he paid a visit to Nute, the huntsman; and had you been
standing by the smithy at the corner of the village street when the
school children were going home, you would have seen Andrew coming with
leisurely stride along the lane leading to the kennels, with a big
lantern in each hand, and the mouth of a hunting-horn lifting the flap
of the side pocket of his velveteen coat. He had learnt to blow that
horn as a kennel-boy, when he was little bigger and less educated than
the boys that crowded round and plied him with questions.

Good-natured, if evasive, were his replies about his use for the
lanterns now that earthstopping was long over.

Slowly up the street past the chute, where a woman was filling a
pitcher, went the group, getting smaller and smaller as the boys reached
their doors, until Andrew and Vennie were alone as they took the
footpath that led across the heather to his cottage.

Over “a dish o’ taa and a bit of saffern caake,” he amused his
grandchild with a tale of his boyhood, recalled by a dent in the old
horn he had placed on the table.

                               CHAPTER V
                         THE OTTER—_Continued_
                        THE EARTHSTOPPER’S VIGIL

THE sun had gone down over the cairn and night had drawn its curtain
across the lingering afterglow, when the Earthstopper, with a lantern in
each hand and the hunting-horn in his pocket, set out for his ambush in
the bottoms.

He did not pass through the village, but reached the park by an
unfrequented path, and was soon threading his way amongst the trees in
front of the Castle. The stars were out, and the moon, now at its full,
was climbing the cloudless vault and silvering the countryside with its
rays.

“Grand night, couldn’t be better: wonder ef he’s on hes way up,” said
Andrew to himself as he reached the furze-bush on the bank of the
stream, which he had chosen as a hiding-place. After concealing the
lanterns in a bed of nettles and looking round to see that he was not
observed, he forced his way into the prickly bush and lay down at full
length. He was not quite hidden, though he thought he was, as his bright
hob-nailed soles projected a little, and nearly touched the edge of a
footbridge leading to a farmhouse whose gable showed against the sky. To
have a clear view of the ground, with his clasp knife he cut two
peepholes in the furze, through which he could see the rough track on
his left and a smooth pool on his right. An ivy-clad ash cast a deep
shadow on the stream and track, but bright belts of lighted ground lay
on each side of it, and the pool shone like quicksilver. Seldom does the
footfall of wayfarer disturb the silence of the spot at night. About ten
o’clock, however, a country housewife, returning late from market,
trudges past; thoughts of cream neglected during her absence, or of
geese not securely housed from the fox, hurrying her along despite the
heavy basket she carried. Luckily for her, Andrew has got over a fit of
sneezing, and she passes the bush unconscious of his presence. When her
footsteps die away, night and its shy denizens claim the earth for their
own. A rabbit runs along the space between the wheel-ruts and pauses for
a moment on the further bright space. To the Earthstopper its ears are
in a line with a big stone that holds the gate leading into a rough
meadow bordering the stream. The rabbit has scarcely passed out of sight
before a stoat follows, like a murderer on the trail of his victim, and
is lost to view in the shadow of a hedgerow. Nothing escapes the
vigilant eyes of the Earthstopper behind the furze screen, and his ears
are strained to catch any tell-tale sound along the course of the
stream. As yet there is no sign of the otter, and every minute that goes
by lessens the chance of its appearing, for it is nearly midnight now
and dawn is but a few hours off. Wearying a little from the strain of
his vigil and his cramped quarters the old man begins to fear that the
poacher may not be coming, and again it makes him as “vexed as fire” to
remember the iris and the huge print on the silt.

All at once he becomes alert. Nothing has darkened the lighted space but
the tiny shadow of a circling bat: not a ripple has broken the silvery
surface of the pool. What can it be that has wrought this sudden change?

The cry of a moorhen, startled from her nest among the sags some two
furlongs down stream; and if we may judge from his state of excitement,
the Earthstopper must feel pretty confident that the otter is the cause.

[Illustration: LAMORNA SHOWING CAIRN DHU HEADLAND.               [_Face
page 52._]

At dusk the otter had left his holt near the base of Cairn Dhu. Ravenous
after the long day’s fast, he hurried down the steep face of the rock,
and reaching a ledge which the waves lashed, dived through the surf in
quest of his prey. The sea teemed with fish, but a ground-swell that
stirred the bottom and discoloured the water baffled his attempts to
seize them. A greyhound might as well have hoped to catch a hare in a
fog as the otter to capture peal in the cove or turbot on the sandy
bottom near the Bucks. Ever vigilant against such raids, the fish were
only scared by the dreaded and indistinct form of the marauder as he
glided past them in the clouded depths. Convinced at length of the
hopelessness of his efforts, the otter landed on the Mermaid Rock to
consider where he should go to get his supper. He is within reach of two
streams and the lake; and their waters are as clear as crystal. Lamorna
stream is close at hand; but the trout, owing to frequent raids on them
since the gale, are very wary. Newlyn stream is some four miles away,
and attracts him because of its larger fish; but what appeals to him
most is the lake with its bright Loch Levens, then in the pink of
condition. It was several days since he feasted on them, for the taint
of human scent on the iris had alarmed him; but, as he rested on the
rock, hunger proved stronger than fear, and despite the distance he
decided to go there, fully intending to be back in some coast fastness
before dawn. By skirting the base of the cliffs, and running along the
shore where a beach invited him, he at length reached the mouth of
Newlyn stream. There was nothing to arouse his suspicions: the last
loiterer had left the old bridge, candles were out, and the moonlit
village lay wrapped in slumber. Passing under the arch, the otter stole
up the coombe, keeping to the shadows of the bushes that fringed the
stream. Within winding distance of the clump of iris he paused, but
detecting no taint, passed between the flags, made his way up the hill,
and dropped down to the Lareggan stream, on the bank of which the
Earthstopper lay in ambush. Threading his way among the reeds at the
upper end of the mill pool, he disturbed the moorhen, but heedless of
her cry, crossed the stream, and pressed on at his best pace towards the
lake. A few moments later—for the creature’s progress was rapid—the
Earthstopper, who has been shifting his glance from track to pool,
becomes as rigid as the stems about him. His gaze is fixed on a shadowy
patch, no bigger than your hand, under the lowest bar of the gate. He
has not a doubt that it is the mask of the otter, for a minute ago that
patch was not there. He tries to make out its long body, but the bars,
and the shadows they cast, conceal it. What dread of its enemy the beast
must have, to hesitate thus on the skirt of this rude track in the depth
of night! It cannot be that it winds the Earthstopper, for the breeze
that rustles the leaves of the ash, fans his flushed face, and stirs his
bushy eyebrows. At length the creature comes noiselessly across the open
space, as if making for the furze-bush, the moonbeams catching the
glossy hair on its arched back, and lighting the dust it raises. Human
eye has never seen it before, so well has it kept the secret of its
existence. In the shadow of the tree it is almost lost to view, and then
as it brushes past the furze, the Earthstopper gets a glimpse of its
long glistening whiskers, and is sorely tempted to lay hold of its
trailing tail. Why it did not wind him is, like other mysteries of
scent, beyond the power of explanation.

Far from being scared back as the Squire feared, the otter, unconscious
of a lurking foe, pursues its way to the lake. Not for some minutes does
the Earthstopper back out of his ambush. “What a beety! ef I can only
keep un up, we shall see summat to-day: ef!” says he under his quick
breath as he brushes himself down with his hands. Then he lights his
clay pipe and tries to calm himself, for he has seldom been more
excited. Unable to stand still, he walks up and down the grassy bank
above the footbridge, as a sailor paces to and fro on a jetty, only more
hurriedly. It is nothing but his nervousness that makes him puff so
vigorously at the ’baccy, that stops him every few minutes to listen.
Not a mouse may move in the hedge or a cricket chirp in the crofts above
without his thinking it is the otter returning, though the raider is at
the time seeking its prey in the depths of the lake and spreading terror
amongst its finny tenants.

At length tired of his pacings, the Earthstopper feels that he must be
doing something towards keeping the otter up. So he gets the two
lanterns, stinging his fingers as he gropes for them. Notice, as he
lights them, the change in his face since we saw him sitting over his
tea. Had he committed a crime he could scarcely look more agitated. Even
his uncertain stride as he moves along the track betrays his
disquietude, and the blind way he stumbles over the wall of the croft is
as unlike him as the smothered oath he vents on the unoffending stones.
One lantern he suspends from a rude granite slab spanning the stream, so
that it hangs within a few inches of the rippling water. The other he
fastens to a branch of a blackthorn on the far side of the croft. This
done he climbs a mound amidst the furze and looks towards the lake now
barely a furlong away. The surface is like a sheet of silver. No glimpse
of living creature does he get, no sound reaches his ears but the voice
of the fall and the song of a sedge-warbler. Retracing his steps he
takes up a position on the rugged slope near the corner of the park.

It was close on two o’clock, judged by the stars, before he took the
horn from his pocket. He might well have postponed blowing it a little
while, but he could stand the strain of waiting no longer. Only by great
self-restraint had he prevented himself from beginning an hour earlier;
for more than once he thought he heard the otter breaking back, and each
time his trembling hand had sought the horn. It was a relief to him when
at last he raised it to his lips.

Now the Earthstopper is deep-chested and sound of lung, and he was so
fearful that the otter might not hear the notes, that he blew with
needless vigour and frequency. How groundless his fears were! In the
stillness those blasts were heard for miles. So near did they seem to
old Jenny at the park gates that she thought they came from the
plantation behind the lodge. The Earthstopper had not handled a
hunting-horn since his boyhood, much less blown one in the dead of
night; and it never entered his head that his noisy proceedings could
alarm the countryside and lead to a breach of the peace between his
harmless neighbours. But so it was. Presently he heard the door of the
farmhouse violently slammed. “Hullo, T’wheela’s movin’ early thes
mornin’.” Certainly, unless the farmer suspected that a poaching
hedgehog was the cause of the falling off in the cow’s milk, it was
early for him to be moving.

Old Jenny and farmer Trewheela, however, are by no means the only
persons in the parish roused by the untimely music, which had made the
Squire’s hunters prick their ears and set all the cocks a-crowing.
“Maddern” Churchtown is less than a mile away as sound travels, the wind
was not unfavourable, and the notes of the horn were so penetrating that
the Earthstopper might nearly as well have been serenading the villagers
from the heaping stock of the “One and All.” Little wonder that the
heavy sleepers were turning under their blankets before he had been
blowing many minutes, and that the old men were lifting their stiff
limbs out of bed and opening their windows.

“What be et, Jim?” said the parish clerk, whose white-nightcapped head
was set in a framework of thatch, to a silver-haired veteran across the
narrow street.

“Caan’t saay, I’m sure. Ef et happened when I wore a boay I should ha’
ben afeerd that Boney had landed.”

Toot, toot, toot. “He’s goin’ for’n braave an’ no mistake. Wonder who eh
es?”

Toot, toot, toot.

By this time heads were sticking out of all the upper windows save one
behind which a poor woman lay sick.

In the street below, Trudger, the constable, whom the first blast of the
horn had stricken with the trembles, was now parading as if the
incessant tooting were as ordinary an occurrence as the midnight chiming
of the village clock.

“Well, doan’t ee hear nawthin’?” said the parish clerk, taking upon
himself, in the absence of the parson, the duty of spokesman. Toot,
toot. “Iss, iss, I hear un right enuf. ’Tes no business o’ mine, ’tes
outside my beat.” Toot, toot, toot. “’Tes in the corner o’ the park, I
tell ee, down below the bastion. I’m sartin on et.”

“No tedn, ’tes over in Paul parish.”

“Ain’t afeerd of the auld Squire and his hounds, are ee?” said a woman
with a shrill voice. “I’ll come wy ee ef thee art.”

At length the constable, stung by many taunts, was driven out by the
force of upstairs opinion, and set off at the rate of about two miles an
hour, to show that he was not to be hurried.

Thus it chanced that the farmer and the constable, attracted by the same
cause, but impelled by different motives, were approaching the
Earthstopper from opposite directions. Trewheela’s naturally high temper
was not sweetened by his sudden awakening out of a dream in which he
found himself selling basket after basket of butter at half-a-crown a
pound, and the way he strode across his bridge augured badly for the
disturber of the peace if the farmer could set hands on him.

Hearing him coming, the Earthstopper, on whom the truth slowly broke,
blew a stirring blast—for was there not the otter to be kept up?—and
hid himself where, without being seen himself, he could see what should
happen. In a very few minutes Trewheela was standing on the very spot
from which the tooting had seemed to come, and a casual observer might
have thought from the eager way he looked here, there, and everywhere,
that he was mightily taken by the landscape. The scene was indeed very
beautiful, and chastened as it was by the silvering rays it would have
calmed many a savage breast. It worked no soothing effect on the farmer,
whose anger at not finding the offender became unbounded. He regretted
that he had not brought his sheep-dog as well as a horse-whip. In all
the impotence of baffled rage he stood still under the shadow of a tree,
but to his great relief soon heard someone stealing along the other side
of the thick-set hedge which separated him from the park. “Ah, the’rt
theere, arta, Maister Boogler? Out of breeth with blawin’, are ee?
Thee’ll be singin’ a defrant toon in a minit, I reckon,” he whispered to
himself with malicious delight as his hand tightened on the handle of
the whip. Within a few yards of where he had been standing was a narrow
gap; and the farmer, who was moving as stealthily as his unlaced boots
would permit, at the same pace as the constable, in making for the gap
nearly trod on Andrew’s head. We will not, however, dwell on the
feelings of the latter, for the constable, undignified as is the way he
is being stalked, claims our attention.

He has had a terrible time since leaving the village. Half-way down the
long avenue he heard, or thought he heard, a light footfall as of one
pursuing him. The more he hurried his steps, the more distinctly he
heard it, and the closer it seemed to be. Near the haunted terrace, just
past the marble statue, the thing, whatever it was, was all but on him,
and he felt inclined to scream. There was another way out of the
difficulty, and this he took. As fast as “regulation” boots could carry
him, athwart the great park he fled to the one outlet he knew of except
the road he came by. Breathless with his efforts he is following the
hedge to find the gap. The farmer is already crouching there.

On the scuffle that followed there is no need to dwell. Little is known
of it, as the combatants have never opened their mouths on the subject,
and Andrew confesses to being so overcome that tears filled his eyes and
prevented him from seeing through the hedge which of the two was
oftenest uppermost. The combat was too furious to last long, and the
opponents rose to their feet after a short time; but not before the
farmer, who had by this worked off some of the rage that blinded him,
had caught the glint of the constable’s buttons.

“What ded ee haave to me with that there whip for?” said the constable
gasping for breath.

“I’ll tell ee what for. Dust a think I be goin’ to have me skull scat
abroad wi’ that theere troonshun of yourn?”

“I must do me dooty, an’ I shud like to knaw what you’m a’ doin’
hereabouts disturbin’ the paace of the parish.”

“What do ee maan? I heerd a most ghastly noise down in the bottoms, an
I’ve coomed out in the middel of the night to see what et es. The
scoundrel what maade that unearthly row ought to be thrashed, an’ I took
thee for un. What was ee a doin’ crawlin’ like a rabbot down the hedge
like this here”—he imitated the movement of the constable—“ef thee’s
nawthin’ to do with et?”

Despite his attempt to put the constable in the wrong there was a
distinct change in the tone of his voice; for visions of Bodmin gaol
floated before his eyes. Fortunately both saw that the least said would
be the soonest mended; and after all, as the farmer would be able to
recover his boots at daybreak, the only damage done was to the
constable’s helmet.

“Well, look here,” said the farmer, “summons me ef thee’s got a mind to,
but thee’ll be the laafin’ stock of the court. Semmen to me, we’ve made
fools won of t’other; but what I do waant to knaw es, who the devil have
been too—tooting ef et edden thee?—Who es eh? and wheere be un gone
to?”

“Dedn thee saa no wan?”

“No wan but thee.”

“Well, I’ve had my own mispicions about who eh es from the furst.”

“Who do ee maan?”

“Don’t et strike ee who eh might be?” said the constable in a chilling
whisper.

“No,” was the whispered reply, after a pause.

“Who do ee maan?”

“Ded ee ever hear tell ef the auld Squire blawed the horn?”

“Man alive, I niver thought o’ thet. Moast likely you’m right. Moore nor
wance my auld woman has wok’ me up in the dead of night to listen to cry
o’ hounds. Passel o’ nonsonce, I’d say, but ’pend upon et her heerd
summat.”

“Good Lor’! wha—what’s thet glidin’ along by they theere trees?”

“Wheere? wheere? Lor’ a mercy. I’m turned cold as a quilkan a’ moast.
Feel my hand.”

The Earthstopper was biting a bit of furze to prevent himself from
exploding with laughter, and fearing he could control himself no longer
he resolved to give them a toot on the horn and to trust to their state
of perturbation for a satisfactory issue.

At a distance of fifteen paces he blew such a blast as otter or hound
has seldom heard.

For a moment farmer and constable were rooted to the spot, then together
they took the gap, but that being small for two big men, they struggled
as violently to get clear of one another as a few minutes before they
had struggled to come to close quarters. Though convulsed where he lay,
the Earthstopper heard the farmer banging at his door, for his wife had
locked him out for her own safety.

A crash of glass which followed drowned the gasps of the constable as he
bounded along Boscathna Lane, scaring the villagers who had come out to
see the fun.

“Well, ef that doan’t keep the otter up,” said Andrew, “nawthin’ will”;
and gathering up the lanterns and putting the horn in his pocket, he
returned home the way he came.

                               CHAPTER VI
                         THE OTTER—_Continued_
                         THE OTTER AT THE LAKE

THE otter had just landed on the island to eat his last trout before
returning to the cliffs, when the first blast of the horn fell on his
ears. Instantly the fish dropped from his jaws as though it seared them.
It is true that he had heard that penetrating note a few months before
when the foxhounds were drawing the cliffs, and, indeed, a far more
hideous noise from the siren of a steamer whose hull, during a fog,
loomed vaguely within sight as he peeped through a crevice of his holt;
but at these times the ocean lay only four or five fathoms below him,
and, conscious of his safety, he had curled himself up again and stopped
his small ears with his paws. Far different are his feelings as he
crouches under the pampas grass, peering across the lake in the
direction of the Earthstopper. He is quite sure that his enemy knows at
last of his existence and of his present whereabouts, and that the
tooting is meant to alarm him and cut off his retreat to the sea.
Unnerving though the noise is, he decides at once what to do. No thought
of seeking shelter near the lake hampers his resolve to break through to
the cliffs. His powers of stealth and phantom-like movements are all in
his favour, and surely he will succeed in his purpose. Noiselessly he
dives, silently he leaves the water, and steals over the bank to the
dark channel below the moonlit fall, with lithest movements he slips
over the shallows into the pools, his long supple body twisting and
turning with the sudden bends of the narrow stream. In his great hurry
he is nearly on the light ere he can check himself, for the lantern hung
below a sharp angle and a flowering fern hid its rays.

[Illustration: THE OTTER.               [_Face page 64._]

Quick as lightning, he whips round again, betraying his alarm by
breaking the water. Leaving the stream some thirty yards above he makes
his way aslant the furzy croft to outflank the flickering flame, but oh,
horror! again a terrifying light is there behind a thick bush awaiting
him. He retreats in earnest this time. Ignominious conduct, it cannot be
gainsaid, for a creature with the jaws of a bull-dog, for a creature
heedless of the fiercest lightnings or of the phosphorescent glow of the
waves, and tolerant of the glare of the midsummer sun when basking on
the rocks at the foot of the towering cliffs. He is not, however, at the
end of his resources. Stay at the lake he will not, and why should he?
There are other avenues of escape. In the next valley there is a stone
drain, very safe, though close to a lonely homestead, and he may
possibly reach it before dawn. He knows too well that there is no time
to lose, so leaving the lake he hurries up the hill and gains the crest
of the cairn without mishap. Now why, when every moment is precious,
does he dwell in that clump of bracken near the Giant’s Cradle? and at
what object can he be peering so intently through the fronds? Does a
lantern’s light confront him? or is it, perhaps, the flame of a candle
shining from the keeper’s window in the clearing amidst the pines?

It is no paltry glimmer behind a pane of glass, that holds him there.
Afar off, in the cleft between two dark hills, lines of vermilion streak
the amber East.

Full well the otter knows these harbingers of the sun that will expose
him to the eye of man, whose voice he dreads, whose footfall he shrinks
from, whose smell taints the air and chills the blood. He turns his
lissom head and looks back at the valley of terror. The deep-cut bottom
lies in gloom. Banks, creeks, island and marsh invite him to their dusky
shelter. He can discern tree, bush, reed-bed and the sinuous outline of
the placid lake, as he shifts his gaze from blot to blot of darkest
umbrage. Differences of shade there are, but not a vestige of colour,
save on the dome of a giant pine, the hue of which awakes as he gazes.
Instantly the faint green flush catches his eye, and to the East he
turns his mask again: “umph!” the rim of the sun shows in the trough of
the hills: it is day. Even then he dreads to return to the lake; after
all it is early for man to be stirring and he may reach the drain
unseen. Skirting the plantation he slinks along lanes in the
boulder-strewn gorse, gains the edge of the waste land, and looks over.
A cow is grazing in the rough pasture that runs up to it. He can smell
her sweet breath, but he does not fear her. He is about to jump from the
wall down on the grass and creep along a ditch leading to the drain.
“Shep boay.” It is the shout of the crofter he hears, and then the dog
comes through the open gate and runs up the hill towards the spot where
he is crouching. The cow takes little notice of the noisy lurcher, but
the otter steals back along his own tracks towards the cairn.

The garish hues of furze bloom, lichen and pine stem, the dewdrops that
jewel every blade, disconcert the belated wildling of the night, as with
reluctant steps he steals towards the lake whose shelter instinct has
warned him to shun. It is true that he knows its wild surroundings well,
its hollow banks, its reedy hovers; and this knowledge brings him such
solace as familiar fastnesses bring an outlaw expecting hue and cry
after him. How he wishes, as he decides where to lie up, that the valley
contained one impregnable stronghold, a network of forgotten drains, a
clitter of rocks, a labyrinth of half-flooded mine-workings. He has
reached the foot of the hill, and is stealing like a shadow down the
strand of a little bay athwart which lies a fallen tree. Look! he is
scrambling over the trunk: now he has dived. You will not see him again,
watch you ever so intently. Without once coming up to vent he has
crossed the lake some sixty yards in width and entered, by a submerged
hole in the trunk, the hollow willow on the bank opposite. It is night
in there save for the ray which shoots through a crevice of his
sanctuary, and glows and fades at the will of the trembling leaves
outside. The valley is awakening. The sunbeams that slant over the
lichened cairn now bright as with outcropping gold, bathe stem, leaf and
petal, and dance on the rippled surface of the lake. Hushed, indeed, are
the weird voices of night; but from spinney and brake come the songs of
finch and warbler, moor-hens call amongst the reeds, doves coo in the
pines, and a robin sings on a branch of the willow. Even the midges,
inspired by the joy that moves all creatures at the return of brightsome
day, have resumed their gambols around the gladdening ray up in the
turret of the otter’s lair. Why, look! the old vixen, who had been
puzzled at the midnight tooting, lies blinking at the mouth of her earth
under the gnarled pine on the sunny slope above; but fear possesses the
otter as it never did before. Five years ago—he was a cub then—the
footfall of a coastguard on the cliff above awoke in him the sense of
fear, and from that night he had never been able to throw off the dread
of man that haunted him, that made him steal abroad at dusk and lie
hidden by day. Yet man had never injured him—it was in a life-and-death
struggle with a huge conger that he lost his claw—as far as he knew,
man had never seen him. But fear was his heritage as it was the price of
his freedom. As he lies curled up against the sloping trunk of the
willow he gets a glimmering of what had been a mystery to him—how it
was that some of his tribe had disappeared from their haunts, and why he
had failed to find the skittish little otter with whom he had mated,
though he had sought her everywhere around the coast and along the
streams. A vague apprehension of impending danger kept him awake, and
before the sun was high in the heaven he knew all.

                              CHAPTER VII
                         THE OTTER—_Continued_
                                THE HUNT

THE Earthstopper, having snatched a little sleep in his arm-chair, has
returned to the lake to await the hounds. There he is, sitting on the
fallen tree over which the otter passed three hours ago. Its footprints
are marked on the sand between the lines of drift that tell of dwindling
springs on the moorland, and of the winds that ruffled the sinking lake.
In shape, the three acres of water resemble the shadow of a hand with
outstretched fingers. The rhododendrons cover the triangle of ground
between the narrow channel of the inflow and the creek next it; the
fingers of stagnant water are fringed with reeds. The old man is
wondering where the otter, if it has not returned to the cliffs, may be
lying up. His eyes wander to the likely places; to the island, to the
hollow banks, to the clump of bushes, to the reed-bed over which a mist
hangs, half veiling the blush of morning on the stems of the pines
beyond. He does not waste a glance on the bare bank opposite, or its
solitary willow whose tender green foliage stands out against the sombre
hillside. Turning his head he sees the hounds coming down the hill below
the cairn. They are not very wide of the line taken by the otter at
dawn. Only a small field is out. With Sir Bevil, who carries the horn,
are the parson, the doctor, and half a dozen others, keen sportsmen all
of them. Following in their wake are old Sir Lopes and Nute the
huntsman. Let me introduce the pack to you. Those rough-haired hounds
are Taffy and Gellert; the foxhounds are Troubadour, Merlin, Cunoval,
Vivien, Dawnsman, Padzepaw, Sweetlips, Jollyboy, Bucca, and Dozmary.
Better hounds never drew for an otter; but the terriers are the wonder
of this little pack. The one running alongside Dozmary is Vixen, who
never finds a drain too long or too wet. What battles she has fought
underground, her scarred head testifies. Then there is Venom. She is in
her usual place at Sir Bevil’s heels. A treasure she is, for she can
dive and enter the submerged mouth of a drain, and many an otter has she
thus dislodged from its holt.

“Well, Andrew,” said Sir Bevil, “did the otter come up?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you manage to keep him up?” This with a smile, for he too had heard
the midnight tooting. “I hope so, but there’s no knowin’, he’s bin
heere,” said he, pointing to the tracks on the sand.

At that moment Jollyboy hits the line of the otter, throws his tongue
and, jumping the fallen tree, takes to the water. The rest of the pack
follows, Sir Bevil cheering them on. Swimming close to the bank, they
make for the head of the lake, the valley resounding with their music as
they pick up the scent left by the otter in his night’s fishing. They
are a pretty sight as they skirt the wall of pale green reeds fringing
the nearest creek and leave the water to enter the yielding cover.
Evidently the varmint has not been there, for excepting the sing-song
voices of the Welsh hounds, the pack is silent. Leaving the reed-bed
they cross the furthest creek and are lost to sight under the dense
rhododendron bushes. From there the few otters found at the lake have
been “put down,” and the field is on the tiptoe of expectation. But
expectations are seldom realised in otter-hunting. Not a sound comes
from the dark green thicket except the cheery voice of Sir Bevil, for
even Taffy and Gelert throw their babbling tongues no longer. Andrew’s
heart sinks within him as the hounds issue from the tenantless bushes
and make across the inflow towards the opposite strand. But why dwell on
his disappointment, now that the united pack—for Troubadour and
Jollyboy have swum over from the island and joined the others—are only
a good stone’s throw from the willow? To all appearance, they might
nearly as well expect to find an otter on an open beach. True, there are
a few bits of hollow bank, but the eye can safely pronounce them blank
at a glance, and as for the tree, it looks as solid as an oak. “Terribly
slow this,” says one of the field to his neighbour; may be it is so for
him; but it is an anxious moment for the listening varmint, whose
forepaws, the water, disturbed by the approaching pack, is beginning to
lap. He is not kept long in suspense. Dawnsman’s bell-like note
proclaims the find, and the next moment the frantic pack is baying round
the willow. Unable to get at the quarry, the hounds swarm round the
half-submerged trunk, pawing the bark in their helplessness; but the
otter does not budge. It is not fear that holds him there. He is
bristling with rage and ready to do battle for his life, but only by
compulsion will he leave his sanctuary. Not one of the field is up to
thunder at his walls with an otter-pole; but Venom, ever at hand, dives
and at last finds the entrance, more than a foot below the surface. The
otter sees the head of the terrier as it fills the hole, sees it rising
through the dark water. “Yap, yap,” followed by a short, sharp scuffle;
and the next moment the parson, who has hurried to the spot, views the
chain of bubbles which betrays the escape of the game. A loud
hew-gaze—what lungs the parson must have!—sends a thrill through the
field, who have already posted themselves at different points around the
lake. Not an eye is turned on the hounds, now following the game, not an
ear heeds their music; no, every one, even old Nute himself, who loves
the hounds and has come out to see them work, is watching the rippled
surface ahead to get a view of the wily varmint when he vents. As if
disdaining the shelter of the banks, the otter comes up in mid-lake and
floats there like a log, the water flush with his long back and his
beadlike eyes gleaming in the morning light. “A grand beast,” says the
doctor without taking his eyes off it. Yes, he is in the full pride of
his great strength and without the help of the field; the pack, good as
it is, would never tire him out. His back is towards the clamorous
hounds, and surely they will seize him; but no, just as Dawnsman draws
near, he dives, leaving a swirl behind him. When he comes up again he is
not thirty yards from the fall. It were tedious to relate every detail
of the hunt which went on for the next four hours, during which the
hounds, aided by the hew-gazes of the field, never give the quarry any
rest. At the end of that time the otter, somewhat exhausted by repeated
dives, which have been getting shorter and shorter, lands on the island.
Little respite does he get, for Padzepaw and Jollyboy, finding him
there, make him take to the water again, but at the expense of frightful
wounds. Then it is that Andrew gets a good view of the creature as he
seeks the shallows and swims close to the sandy bottom. With his
forepaws lying against his body he is propelling himself with his hind
feet. His movements are too rapid for the Earthstopper to see this, and
like a fleeting shadow the graceful creature is lost in the dark water.
It next lands on the muddy margin of the near creek and rests on a mass
of drift lying there. Old Nute is looking down at the fine beast over
the reeds. The pack is nearly on him before he dives, but by swimming
down the lake and doubling he succeeds in throwing off the hounds and
gaining the shelter of the rhododendrons unobserved. A few minutes’
breathing-space only does he get before Merlin, Dozmary and Vivien
discover his whereabouts. Smarting from their wounds, for all three of
them have been gripped by the otter and taken to the bottom of the lake,
they hesitate to attack the infuriated beast as he crouches there,
grinning and showing his blood-stained teeth. Not so Vixen; the moment
she arrives she flies at him and, the hounds closing in at the same
time, a terrible conflict ensues. Badly mauled though he is, the
formidable beast fights his way through his foes, gains the water and
dives with Vixen fastened to him. The terrier comes up after a time, but
the otter disappears as if by magic. Baffled of their quarry, the
maddened hounds draw nearly every hover, except the insignificant one
near the willow where the otter is resting with just his nostrils out of
water. Old Sir Lopes sees him there; but he keeps the secret, though
with some misgiving, to himself. Forty years ago he would have shouted
himself hoarse; but somehow he cannot give the hunted beast away this
morning. Knowing how it must end if he keeps to the lake, the otter
resolves to try and steal away across country to the Newlyn stream. It
is a desperate way out of the straits he is in, for it will probably
mean death in the open; but there is just the chance that he may reach
the safe drain below Buryas Bridge if he can only slip away unnoticed.
But how is this possible? The space between him and the gulley that
seams the steep rise by the ice-house is covered with turf that rabbits
have nibbled close. Uninviting avenue of escape this under the very eye
of the parson now posted near the willow, and with Merlin and Dawnsman
swimming at last towards the spot where he rests, his eyes watching the
hounds’ white legs through the clouded water. Yet at this critical
moment, when renewed hue and cry seem imminent, fortune favours the
hunted creature. A tally-ho—by whom given Andrew was never able to find
out—comes distinct and thrilling from the reed-bed at the head of the
remotest creek, and draws away most of the field and all the hounds. The
tremor of the bank caused by the hurrying feet at first fills the otter
with fresh alarm, but in the quiet that succeeds he raises his head and
listens.

“Wind him, my boys.” It is the Squire’s voice he can hear in the
distance. Thinking the moment propitious he steals from the water,
dashes across the sward, and presses up the gulley at the top of his
speed. His immediate point is a hover beneath a big rock below Skimiel’s
Bridge. The stream swirls round it, but a dry holt within is known to
all the wandering tribe of otters. Only by a miracle can the slow-footed
creature cover the two miles to it, before he is overtaken. Look at him
as he hurries along under the shelter of that stone wall, as he threads
his way among the furze bushes, as he glides like a monster eel through
the coarse grasses, where the dew lies heavy. You are conscious of the
great effort he is making to save his life. That dark spot below the
high bank is the rock he is making for, and it is the silver thread of
the stream surrounding it that you see sparkling here and there at the
foot of the rugged slope. Till now he has taken nearly a bee-line, but
will he dare to pass before the door of the farmhouse he is heading for,
where an old woman is feeding the geese and a black pig blocks the
narrow way. Do not wonder that this shyest of creatures recked not of
the shaking of the old woman’s apron, that he paid no heed to the pig
which ran him neck and neck for twenty yards before going off at a
tangent. With the lake now more than a mile behind, a posse of
constables should not make him deviate from his line. But hark! Faint
though the cry be, the otter hears it. Full well he knows that his
escape has been discovered, that at every stride the hounds are gaining,
and that there is no twist or turn on his hot trail to check them; but
he cannot add to his best pace. Look, he has left the furze and bracken
that hid his movements and is about to enter the reedy swamp which
separates him from the stream. On landing he does not, like the fox,
dwell to listen. No, some twenty yards below the rock he dives, nor does
he come to the surface until he has gained its shelter. To his dismay he
finds an otter in possession, one with whom he has mated. The cubs,
awakened out of their sleep, hiss at the hunted creature as his head
shows above the gurgling water. Only for an instant does he stay to lick
the bitch’s face with his hot tongue, then, after swimming down stream
for some distance he lands and, reckless for the moment of his own
safety, runs along the open bank in full view of the miller from
Nancothan, who has tottered up the valley to raise the flushet of the
mill stream. See! the old man is waving his white hat to attract the
approaching hounds: he is shouting too at the top of his feeble voice;
but the gallant beast keeps to the open bank, and not until he is past
the shallows where the moorland cattle stand on sweltering days does he
dive, fleeing like a shadow below the surface, more determined than ever
to gain the safe drain he set out to reach. On reaching the stream most
of the hounds take to the water, and just as Venom is getting
dangerously near the rock Cunoval hits the downward line. Rallying to
his cry, the pack flash along the bank and rapidly lessen the distance
separating them from their distressed quarry.

Seeing the direction they are taking, the field, by a short cut, come up
with them by the mill, where they have met with a check. Across the
chord of a bend the hounds recover the line, and taking to the bed of
the stream pass under Nancothan Bridge. The otter hears them coming, but
another check gives him a slight advantage, and surely now he will reach
the drain. Vain hope! Between him and his objective, in the narrow
passage between two rocks that contract the stream, stands the
Earthstopper. On finding that the otter had stolen away from the lake he
guessed it would make for the sea, and has hurried across country to
intercept it. Breathless after his long run, he has hardly taken up his
position before he sees the otter coming towards him, breaking the water
in its frantic hurry. Bang up against his legs it comes, and as it
retreats up stream, the excited hounds come round the bend and swim over
it. Nearly exhausted by its efforts, the beast takes shelter under a
bank facing its old path to the lake, and when Sir Bevil has rushed
past, it dives, crosses the stream, glides between the flags, and
following the track it knows so well, presses up the hill as best it can
towards the plantation where the Earthstopper had found its tracks.

“Se—seen the otter, Andrew?” gasps Sir Bevil.

“Yes, sir, he’s gone up strame, he’s touchin’.”

[Illustration: A HAUNT OF THE OTTER.               [_Face page 82._]

The horn recalls the reluctant hounds, revelling in the scent that the
stream carries down. There they come past the Earthstopper. See how
eagerly they are drawing the banks, how impatient the check makes them.
Gellert, who has the best nose of the pack, is getting close to the
clump of iris; the next moment his tell-tale tongue warns the pack that
he has discovered the line of the quarry, and with triumphant clamour
they breast the hillside on its hot trail. The game varmint has nearly
gained the crest, but he can scarcely hope to reach the adjacent valley.
He seems to be standing still, in comparison with the hounds, which,
with hackles up, are now racing for his blood. He is not half-way down
the plantation when they stream over the wall that bounds it.
Troubadour, ever to the fore, gets a view of the beaten creature
struggling on; but above the ominous whimpers of the pack the otter
hears the roar of the fall, and this braces him to a final effort.
Troubadour is all but on him as he springs from the high bank, and the
next instant the spray flies from the pool as otter and hound strike the
water.

Without showing himself the hunted beast seeks refuge behind the roots
of the big elm which, a week before, had attracted the eye of the
Earthstopper. The otter is in sore plight, but little does he fear the
infuriated pack now. They may bay outside his stronghold to their
heart’s content. But he’s not done with yet. Venom and Vixen have just
disappeared between the coils of the roots and are making for a ledge
within, where the creature is resting and breathing heavily. Then Sir
Bevil, the parson, the doctor, and the Earthstopper come rushing down
between the trees. The next moment Andrew is lying at full length and
listening. With his ear close to the ground, he can hear the terriers
yapping six or eight feet below.

“They caan’t get at un, sir,” says he, rising to his feet after a time,
his voice scarcely audible above the clamour of the hounds and the roar
of the fall.

“Then we’ll leave him, we won’t dig. He’s a grand beast and deserves his
life. You look disappointed, Andrew?”

“No, sir, should only a’ liked to a’ seed the pad of un.”

With some difficulty the hounds are called off and the terriers induced
to come out. The otter lived some years after, but Andrew never spurred
him again.

                              CHAPTER VIII
                  THE WHITE BADGER OF CAIRN KENIDZHEK
                       THE EARTHSTOPPER IN DOUBT

IT is with some misgiving that I venture to insert this tale, inasmuch
as the telling involves mention of a place so weird that readers strange
to the Land’s End district may be incredulous of its existence.

For to this day an evil repute clings to Cairn Kenidzhek amongst those
best fit to judge its character—to wit, the few dwellers round the base
of the rugged hill on which it frowns. Within half a mile or so of it,
there are three small farmhouses, counting the one on the lower moor by
the quaking bog where Jim Trevaskis used to live, and from the
occupants, if you first win their confidence and are betrayed by no
“furrin” accent, you may learn some of the strange occurrences that take
place about it.

With bated breath they will tell you that on pitch-dark nights the pile
of rocks is at times lit up with an unearthly light, and that now and
then, especially when trouble is brooding and the death-watch has been
ticking in the “spence,” they hear, as they lie awake, the stony hill
ring under the stroke of galloping hoofs. Whether these and other eerie
happenings, around which legends have shaped themselves, can be
explained on scientific grounds, matters not to them, for the Celt of
the countryside turns a deaf ear to new-fangled notions and clings to
the traditions of his fathers. But of all the haunting memories of the
Cairn, that which inspires the greatest dread is associated with the
disappearance of two men who were last seen toiling up the hill at the
close of a wild winter’s day. No legend is this coming down from a
remote past; for Dick Shellal, Trevaskis’ farmhand, who could count up
to forty with the help of his fingers, had heard his great-grandfather
say that the mystery was talked about when he was a boy as if it were a
thing of yesterday.

On the December night when our tale opens, Trevaskis himself, as was his
wont in stormy weather, bedded up the cattle early, piled the furze on
the fire though the wind was westerly, and—a thing he would never have
done by day—permitted Shellal, who scamped the job in his hurry to get
indoors, to put the wheel of an old donkey cart on the “riffled” thatch
of the pig’s “crow.” Hours later, when his master had at length fallen
asleep, and Shellal could hear him snoring through the “planchen,” he
himself lay wide awake on his straw pallet listening to the moaning of
the wind, and, tempted during a temporary lull to gratify his curiosity
and see whether anything was abroad, sat up in bed and peeped through
the corner pane of the attic window. Angry clouds coursed across the
face of the moon, and the sky was nearly as dark as the earth; but
whilst he looked there was a rift in the black veil, and against the
silver disc he got a glimpse of the jagged crest of the Cairn. Lowering
his gaze at the sight of it, he followed the vague outline of the murky
cone of the hill, and then with the quickness of thought, buried his
shock head under the bedclothes. Coward! Let him lie there with
chattering teeth, and with knees doubled up to his chin. The light that
scared him, though it is so near the edge of the bog, is no pixie’s
light, no lantern held by shadowy hands; the feeble rays he saw, flicker
on the path of as human a being as ever trod the earth. He should have
known who it was, for there is but one man whose lonesome duty could
bring him there in the small hours of the morning, when the watch-dog
sleeps, and the fox is tyrant of the farmyard. Yes, it is Andrew who
threads his way in and out amongst the rush-clumps near the lip of the
treacherous quagmire. But what is he doing there? Why has he not taken
to the rising ground at his usual point, a furlong back, where the
herbage is scant, and scarce hides the stony surface? Surely he must
have missed his way, or he would not be following the widely circuitous
base to reach the fox-earth in the valley on the far side of the Cairn.

[Illustration: CAIRN KENIDZHEK.               [_Face page 88._]

It is not so. No, given to taking short cuts though he is, he prefers on
this night to keep on the rim of the haunted slopes, and as near the bog
as foothold will allow. Level-headed as he is in most things, the taint
of superstition is in his blood too, and it is fear, excited by the
story he heard two hours ago, that dictates the path he follows.
Dropping in at the “Jolly Tinners” at Trewellard for a glass of beer
before starting on his round, he found himself an involuntary listener
to what he would rather have missed. On pushing open the door, he was
surprised to find some half a dozen miners in the bar, and wondered at
the cause of their silence. They were seated on a form in front of a
fire, but their attention was apparently taken by an aged miner, for
their heads were turned his way. Andrew, who feared there had been loss
of life in the mine, stole into a seat opposite the old man, who, to his
dismay, related the story of the two men lost upon Cairn Kenidjack, for
so he called it. Thrilling was every word he said, even when dealing
with the well-known facts—the sighting of the strange sail, the landing
at the Cove, the path taken by the men across the moor, their
conversation with the miners near the Cross, the spot near the Cairn
where they were last seen in the gathering gloom, the lurid light that
lit up the rocks, the finding of the broken claymore. But when with
trembling voice he threw out dark hints of what most likely befell the
missing men at nightfall, a deathlike silence fell on his rugged
listeners, and so unnerved was the Earthstopper that he started at the
creaking of the signboard, and shrunk from the thought of the journey
before him. The tale ended, Andrew would have called for a quart of
strong ale, but that he was short of cash and would not ask the landlord
to put his name on the slate, “no tick” being the custom in the parish
of Pendeen. Yet, for the sake of the company and the brightness of the
room he stayed on and, not knowing the gossip of the mining village,
strove, but in vain, to change the current of his thoughts by putting
questions about the “bal” and even about the ponies in the submarine
level, which extends more than a mile under the sea. At turning-out
time, he put the cat that had fallen asleep on his knees gently on the
floor, and lit the lantern. Leaving the inn, he went up the road with
one of the miners who lived on the edge of the moorland, and when the
wind slammed Jan Jose’s door behind him, Andrew, oppressed with a
feeling of loneliness he seldom experienced, left the track and set out
across the gale-swept waste leading to Kenidzhek, with uncle Zackey’s
version of the mystery vivid in his brain. On the way he stopped two
fox-earths, his tramp till then being void of incidents, save for the
startled cry of a snipe that sprung from his feet near the edge of a
marsh, and the scream of an owl that glided past him where, to avoid
some waste heaps, he swung round by a mine-ruin. He had not, however,
proceeded three furlongs from the spot where Shellal saw his light,
before he got a fright which, for an instant, paralysed his steps and
all but took his breath away. “Good Lor’! whatever es et?” he gasped as
something white crossed his path. His first thought was that _his_ fate
had overtaken him, and that he would disappear as mysteriously as the
two men of Zackey’s yarn. Recovering from the shock and feeling the
ground still under his feet, he moved on, his stumbling steps betraying
his agitation. “Couldn’ be a whi—a white hare; no, no, was too big for
that and et didn’ loup along like a hare. Was et a livin’ crittur at
all? Was et—rubbish!” “Pull yourself together, man,” said a voice
within, “go back and see if the thing left any track.” Though the sweat
stood in big drops on his face, and the gale which met him in the face
impeded his steps, he conquered his fears so far as to go back. The
thing had passed up the slope, he remembered, near the Giant’s Quoit,
for against that he had momentarily leant for support; and there he bent
over the ground, his face blanched, his eyes wild but eager as if they
would devour the bare places between the tussocks that skirted the
trickling water. Two paces above, on the margin of a shrunken pool made
by the runnel, and clean-cut as in plaster, the light of the flickering
flame fell on the track of a badger. “Good Lor’!” he exclaimed, as the
footprints met his astonished eyes; and then hurriedly retraced his
steps. The farther he got from the spot, the more strongly reason
asserted itself over superstition. He argued thus with himself: “White,
wadna? sartinly: the track of a badger, wadna? I should say so—” This
with the trace of smile, for he had never seen more clearly-cut
footprints. “Have I seen a white badger, I wonder? Auld Dick wance said
as much and was laafed at for the rest of his days. No, et caan’t be,
and yit ’tes hard to believe et edden. Sperrits doan’t maake
badger-prints in the mud. How many glasses o’ beer did ee have at the
‘Tinners’? Only wan, worse luck? Es et saafe to tell the Squire? The
Caastle waan’t hould un, he’ll be in such a pore.” It must be explained
that Sir Bevil took the keenest pleasure in collecting curious specimens
of the fauna of the district. In the entrance hall at the Castle were a
cream-coloured otter, a grey fox, and a yellow seal, but as yet there
was only a grey badger in a case below three pied Cornish choughs. And
here let me mention an incident which bears on the story, inasmuch as it
serves to explain the Earthstopper’s caution and hesitancy, despite his
intense eagerness to report what he has seen. Some four months after the
capture of the otter, he was standing under the Cairn near the Castle,
at the edge of the brake which hounds were drawing, his eyes strained to
catch a view of a fox. A slight rustle in the furze, and a brisk waving
of Cunoval’s stern, had attracted his attention, or the animal he got a
glimpse of might have escaped his notice. As it was, he saw only the
body and tail of the creature as it flashed across a narrow opening
between the bushes, but whatever it was, its coat and brush were as
white as snow. Great was his excitement, but greater far was his
chagrin, on looking over his shoulder as he ran in the direction of Sir
Bevil, to see the snow-white creature climbing the stem of a fir that
rose out of the brake. Of course, had he known that the Squire had
brought home a big Persian cat on his return from Plymouth the week
before, he could not have fallen into such an error as to believe that
he had seen a white fox; cats, foreign or indigenous, being, unless
their ears are cropped close, such inveterate poachers.

This experience and his narrow escape from making a fool of himself
dwelt with the Earthstopper, and occurred to him more than once before
he had completed his round. His work done, he has plenty of time to
reconsider the evidence in cold reason now that the powers of darkness
have crept back to their lairs. He is sitting in the lewth with his back
against one of the boulders of a stone circle, set like a coronet on the
brow of a hill commanding the steep slope over against him, down which
the hounds will come on their way to the meet.

The sun that reddens the East has lifted the veil of night from the
valley, revealing the smoke rising from a few chimneys where
white-washed homesteads dot the countryside. Some cows, released from
milking, are waiting for a boy to open the gate of a meadow; a flock of
geese is making its way to a pool in the bottoms. The Earthstopper takes
no notice of them, of the cosy rickyard, of the grim cairn beyond, or of
the distant bay for all its roseate hue and lovely setting. His thoughts
are centred on the ghostly thing that crossed his path, and as he cannot
but believe, left a badger’s footprints on the edge of the runnel. In
all his wanderings he has never met with anything to excite his interest
and imagination so much, or to cause him such anxiety. He feels that he
ought to tell the Squire, but by doing so he runs the risk of incurring
the ridicule that had fallen on Dick Hal. He has every confidence in Sir
Bevil’s discretion, but he knows that somehow, secrets leak out of
Castles as freely as they do out of cottages. How unfortunate it was
that owing to the wildness of the night Vennie had to be left to keep
his grandchild company! The dog would have flown at the thing if it were
a living creature, and that would have dispelled the slight misgiving he
feels that the prints might have been those of a grey badger which had
passed up the hill earlier. But in that case what could he have seen? A
witch? or the lost soul that is said to wander there? No, no, the sun is
too high in the heavens for him to heed old men’s tales. His mind is
made up, he will risk everything and tell the Squire before the day is
out, and the sooner the better for he will know no peace until his
secret is shared. His decision made, he knocks the ashes from the pipe
he has been smoking and, choosing a sheltered spot, lies down on the dry
fern, and with a mossy stone for his pillow soon falls asleep, for he is
tired after his long round and the buffeting of the wind. A couple of
hours later he awakes with a start. Has he overslept himself? He looks
at the sun. It is not mid-day, but still the hounds may have passed;
Troubadour may have found him in the hollow where he lay, may have
licked his face and gone on, without his being any the wiser. He scans
the hills around, but can see no horsemen silhouetted against the sky;
the few cattle in the valley are grazing undisturbed; he listens but he
can hear no tell-tale sound, no toot of horn, no bark of farm-dog, only
the voice of the dying gale, the faint rustle of dried bents, and the
whistle of the golden plover. He runs to a gap he knows of at the far
end of the croft, but finds in the mud there no track of horse or hound,
and then, on looking across the valley, he sees the hounds coming down
the steep lane where it skirts a stunted plantation, the space between
the huntsman and the whippers-in flecked with the white markings of the
pack. The meet is at a small village which he cannot see from his
station, but he waits where he is, knowing that the cover below him is
the first to be drawn. And now he begins to think of his report and to
turn it over on his tongue. It runs smoothly enough until he comes to
“white badger!” It is not the word white or the word badger that scares
him, but the two together. “White mouse, white rat, white ferret, white
cat, white otter, white elephant, whi—white badger.” Yes, white goes
naturally enough with all but badger. Dare he tell the Squire after all?
He becomes irresolute. He walks to and fro across the heathery space
enclosed by the stones, and finally moves half-way down the hill and
takes his stand behind a big boulder. Hardly has he gained it when a
whipper-in gallops past him to take up a position on the far side of the
stone circle; then Sir Bevil comes up the croft on the grey mare, and
from his favourite spot, which is some twenty yards away from where
Andrew is, watches the working of the hounds. Seeing after a time that a
find is unlikely, Andrew half resolves to go, there and then, and
unburden his mind. Twice he left the shelter of the rock and as often
retreated, but not before Sir Bevil had remarked his hesitating
behaviour. A third time he ventured a little further, and then, if he
were about to retire again, the Squire’s voice checked him.

“Do you wish to speak to me, Andrew?”

“Yes, sir, I do and I doan’t.”

“No one trapping foxes, I hope?”

“No, sir, leastwise, not this side the country,” said Andrew, walking up
to him.

“You’ve bad news of some sort, I fear.”

“No tedn that nither, sir. Et’s like thes—I was coming down-along round
the foot of the Hootin’ Cairn, soon after midnight, when summat white
crossed the ground afore me.”

“What was it?” said Sir Bevil with a smile, the eeriness of the place
and the superstitious fear of the Earthstopper occurring to him.

“Thet’s just the point, sir.”

“Was it twenty paces ahead of you?”

“Lor’ bless your life, sir, ’twas touchin’, under my feet, so to spaake.
’Twas a darkish night, for all the moon was nearly full, but the thing
showed up as white as a ghost, and the sight of un gov me a bra’ turn,
the more so being where I were.”

“Is that all you have to say?—I see the hounds are moving off.”

“Only thes, sir; on second thoughts, I went back all of a quaake to see
ef the thing left any track.”

“Well, did you find any?” said Sir Bevil, rather excitedly; till then he
had not seen what the Earthstopper had been driving at.

“Iss, sir.”

“What was it, my man, what was it?”

“The track of a badger—of a heavy badger, the prent was that deep.”

“You believe then, Andrew, that you have seen a white badger, a white
badger,” said the Squire, repeating the words deliberately and
emphatically, as was his wont on the bench at crucial points of a
witness’s evidence, and looking the while straight into the
Earthstopper’s unflinching eyes.

“Iss, sir, I do; but aifter thet I wouldn’t care to tell anyone savin’
yoursel’.”

“Be at the Castle at nine o’clock to-morrow morning,” said Sir Bevil,
somewhat peremptorily, and then galloped off after the hounds, leaving
Andrew staring open-mouthed after him.

                               CHAPTER IX
            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