1900-1901.] Badgers. 143 
the victim of as contemptible a trick as was ever perpetrated 
on a boy of tender years; but, as events turned out, I scored 
against them, and was made a hero in spite of myself. Bassett 
had over a dozen rabbit terriers, half of which were well-bred 
and the other half a motley group of mongrels. I could not 
better describe them than in the words of Dandy Dinmont: 
“There was old Pepper and old Mustard, young Pepper and 
young Mustard, little Pepper and little Mustard.” Then there 
was Nettle, Mischief, Venom, Tartar, and others, whose names 
I have long since forgotten. Besides the well-bred Dandies, 
there were “mongrel, whelp, and cur of low degree,” but 
having had large experience among rats, cats, stoats, weasels, 
and badgers, they would turn tail to no creature covered with 
hair. 
While the sacks were being prepared the terriers, knowing 
_ what was up, kept yelping in wild excitement. It was there- 
_ fore arranged that the under-keeper and I were to start and 
put the sacks in the holes, having a string from each of them 
a considerable way up the bank and secured to the branch of 
atree. The sacks being duly inserted and pinned round the 
entrances to the burrows, I was told to sit near the tree with 
the strings in my hand. On leaving, the keeper asked if I 
was “feared.” To tell the truth, I was terrified, but this need 
not be wondered at, considering my youth. However fright- 
ened I was at being left alone, I was ten times more so to be 
_ called a coward; so, though trembling from head to foot and 
my voice husky with excitement, I replied, “No, I’m no’ 
feared.” I saw the keeper’s head and shoulders between me 
and the sky, and when he disappeared I felt as if my last hour 
had come. It was a dark ravine closely overshadowed by trees. 
The agony of that night still haunts me. The glen was, and 
I presume still is, a favourite resort of owls, and that night I 
could safely say in the words of Burns that 
“The cry 0’ hoolets maks me eerie.” 
Little did I then think that the same eerie cries would 
afford me so much pleasure in after life. I at last heard the 
yelping of the terriers in the distance, and felt some relief, as 
I thought the keepers would come to me. I strained my ears 
to listen, but the excited yelping of the terriers died away, 
