THE spoor was impressed deeply in the muddy 
ground where a stream ran by the path. The 
broad toes were well denned, and the punctures of 
the great digging claws had cut the clay. ' There 's 
badgers in the auld earth again,' said Paddy 
Magragh, standing up. 
It was a mild evening in March, with a grey 
sky streaked with faint reflections of the unseen 
sunset. Paddy turned to the right, up a track 
used more often by the Fur Folk than by man. 
There was a shallow pit here, and under the brim 
opened the mouth of a big burrow. Generations of 
persevering diggers had lived and died there, and 
each had added his quota to the mound outside the 
hole, and excavated yet another chamber among 
the honeycomb of galleries tunnelled into the hill. 
