rt or other of his
recumbent sire. For a few moments, he was nonplussed by the situation;
then, desperate for his plaything, he suddenly began to dig, and, in a
twinkling, was half buried in the hay and leaves; while to right and to
left he scattered soil and bedding that fell like a shower over his
mother and sister. Before the old dog-badger had realised the meaning of
the commotion, Brock had grabbed his treasure, and, withdrawing his head
from the shallow pitfall he had hurriedly fashioned, had caused his
drowsy parent to roll helplessly over. This was more than a
self-respecting father could possibly endure in his own home and among
his own kin, so, with unexpected agility, as he turned in struggling to
recover his balance, he gripped Brock by the loose skin of the neck, and
held him as in a vice from which there seemed no escape. Brock,
doubtless thinking that his right to the bone was being disputed, strove
vigorously to get hold of his sire, but the grip of the trap-like jaws
was inflexible, and kept him firmly down till his rage had expended
itself, and he was cowed by his parent's prompt, easy show of tremendous
power. When, at last, the old badger relinquished his hold, Brock shook
himself, and sulkily departed from the "set," followed to the door by
his relentless chastiser. An hour before noon, Brock heard the note of a
horn--sounding far distant, but really coming only from the other side
of the hill--succeeded by the eager baying of a pack of fox-hounds.
Then, for a while, all was silent, but soon the cries of the hounds
broke out again, away beyond the farm by the river. Evidently something
was amiss. Brock, though hardly, perhaps, alarmed, shifted uneasily in
his retreat under the yellow bracken, and finally, almost fascinated,
lay quiet, watching and listening. Presently the ferns parted; and a
fox-cub appeared in full view, treading lightly, his tongue lolling out,
his jaws strained far back towards his ears, and his face wearing the
look of a creature of excessive cunning, though for the time frightened
nearly out of his wits. The fox-cub paused an instant, turned as if to
look at something in the dark thickets by the glen, climbed the mound,
and, after another hasty glance, entered his home among the outer
chambers of the "set." Unknown, of course, to Brock, the leading hounds
were running mute on the fox-cub's scent down the path by the river.
They swerved, and lost the line for a moment, then, "thro