I 9 6 STUBBS THE BADGER 
bright pungent, such as she had never winded 
before. She backed hastily, but as what a badger 
has seized that will he hold as long as there is breath 
in him, she ripped the boot from top to sole. Dinny 
yelled, and dropping the match, which fell sputtering 
into a puddle, he swung himself on to an adjacent 
rock and tucked up his legs. ' It 's the divil, an' 
he runnin' like a pig,' he groaned. 
But Mother Badger had no mind to fight for 
fighting's sake. Had she not feared for her cubs, 
she would have fled at once from a creature who 
could summon that hot, bright mystery at will. She 
withdrew cautiously in her tracks, and one by one 
her cubs followed her from rock or heather tuft 
where each lay. Once in the darkness, beyond the 
reek of whisky and the dreaded voice of man, they 
breathed more freely ; and they bumped along in 
single file down to the beech and bramble woods 
which lie by the Hollow Field, and which from 
bud-time to leaf-fall are seldom visited by men. 
But, from that day to this, Dinny Purcell swears 
that the devil met him that night in Knockdane, 
in token of which he shows his split boot-leather ; 
and for every time of telling, the devil increases so 
much in size and ferocity. 
Towards the end of May the cubs were weaned, 
