Page:Quiller-Couch - Noughts and Crosses.djvu/230

218 He had the gypsy's secret with animals, and the poor little bitch hardly winced under his touch, though her under-lip was torn away, and hung, like a red rag, by half an inch of flesh.

We had dug and listened and dug again for our badger, all the morning. Then Dick sent his mongrel in at the hole, and the mongrel had come forth like a projectile and sat down at a distance, bewailing his lot. After him the Dandie went in and sneaked out again with a fore-paw bitten to the bone. And at last Meg stepped in grimly, and stayed. For a time there was dead silence, and then as we pressed our ears against the turf and the violets, that were just beginning their autumnal flowering, we heard a scuffling underground and began to dig down to it, till the sweat streamed into our eyes. Now Dick's wife had helped us to bring up the tools, and hung around to watch the sport—an ugly, apathetic woman, with hair like a horse's tail bound hi a yellow rag, a man's hips, and a skirt of old sacking. I think there was no love lost between her and Dick, because she had