"I saw a wild
beast this morning. A wild beast with a long nose and a sort of grey
colour."
"That wasn't a wild beast. That was an old badger."
"Well, isn't a badger a wild beast?"
Cass Dale laughed scornfully.
"My gosh, if that isn't a good one! I suppose you'd say a fox was a wild
beast?"
"No, I shouldn't," said Mark, repressing an inclination to cry, so much
mortified was he by Cass Dale's contemptuous tone.
"All the same," Cass went on. "It don't do to play around with badgers.
There was a chap over to Lanbaddern who was chased right across the Rose
one evening by seven badgers. He was in a muck of sweat when he got
home. But one old badger isn't nothing."
Mark had been counting on his adventure with the wild beast to justify
his long absence should he be reproached by his mother on his return to
the Vicarage. The way it had been disposed of by Cass Dale as an old
badger made him wonder if after all it would be accepted as such a good
excuse.
"I ought to be going home," he said. "But I don't think I remember the
way."
"To Passon Trehawke's?"
Mark nodded.
"I'll show 'ee," Cass volunteered, and he led the way past the mouth of
the stream to the track half way up the slope of the valley.
"Ever eat furze flowers?" asked Cass, offering Mark some that he had
pulled off in passing.
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