by B. B.
But it was trapping which occupied the greater part of their time. They did not trap for food but for pelts. Even Harold’s clothes were now in ribbons and they made themselves complete suits of skins, with the help, I must admit, of Smokoe Joe, who took a keen delight in ‘making do’ as he called it.
Smokoe also allowed them free use of his vegetable garden and they had all the potatoes and cabbages they wanted, which made a great difference to their diet.
Indeed, had it not been for the old charcoal burner, I very much doubt whether the boys could have stayed on in the forest for as long as they did.
One evening, towards the end of October, as they sat around their camp fire, Robin broached a suggestion to his brother outlaws.
‘I’ve been wondering lately about writing to Father and Mother and telling them what we’re doing. You see, Aunt Ellen’s sure to have written and told them all sorts of tales and they’ll be in an awful stew.’
‘But that’ll spoil everything,’ exclaimed Big John. ‘They’ll write back and tell Aunt Ellen, Aunt Ellen will tell the police and they’ll search the Chase from end to end until they do find us.’
‘Well, we’ve got to go back sometime,’ retorted Robin. ‘When they come home from India we won’t be able to stay out in the wilds any longer. I was thinkin’ that we might ease their minds; I bet Aunt Ellen’s painted as black a picture as she can. What do you say, Little John?’
‘Not a bad idea – it’ll let ’em know we’re safe and well, and not murdered or anything.’
Robin got up from the fire and went into the tree, emerging with a stub of pencil, a grimy sheet of paper and an envelope.
‘I got these from Smokoe when I fetched those cabbages last night. I wasn’t going to write anything until I’d talked it out with you. Now,’ he said, squatting down in the firelight and wetting the pencil stub, ‘what shall we say?’
‘Say we’ve run away to the woods and that Smokoe’s looking after us until they come back to England. Say we’ve been awfully unhappy and that Harold’s been ill with measles.’
‘Doesn’t sound much of a case,’ said Robin ruefully. ‘In her way Aunt Ellen’s been good to us, looking after us and having us at the Dower House.’
‘I know, it’s mighty difficult, but that’s about all we can say,’ said Big John. ‘Anyway, I think we ought to tell them where we are.’
So Robin settled himself on his elbows and began to write by the light of the fire.
Brendon Chase
October 20
Dear Father and Mother,
We expect Aunt Ellen’s told you we’ve run away from the Dower House and all about Harold getting measles. He’s quite all right again now, he’s with us. We were awfully unhappy at the Dower House, Aunt Ellen doesn’t understand us and we miss you both awfully. So we decided that when Harold went down with measles and we were told to stay on at the Dower House and have lessons with the vicar that we’d go off.
John and I ran away to Brendon Chase and later we went back for Harold when he was better. We’ve been living like Robin Hood, shooting all we wanted with Rumbold’s rifle – which we borrowed – and we’ve made friends with an old charcoal burner called Smokoe Joe. He’s a great pal of ours because we found his dog which had got stuck down a rabbit hole.
We’ve had a wonderful time. We live in a big oak tree right in the middle of the Chase. When you come home of course we’ll come back.
We expect you’ll be angry at what we’ve done. But we all decided that we’d write and let you know no harm has come to us and that we’re longing to see you again. And we didn’t want you to worry about us or listen to any of Aunt Ellen’s tales.
You told us you were coming back in the New Year. We’ll come back then and you can punish us how you like. We know we deserve it, but we’d rather take our punishment from you than from Aunt Ellen.
This has been a difficult letter to write.
Your affectionate sons,
Robin
John
Harold
P. S. We shot a wild pig in the forest and we’ve found a lovely pool called the Blind Pool which isn’t very far from our hiding place. It’s full of fish.
‘How will that do?’ said Robin, when he had finished.
His brothers read it in turn.
‘Yes, that’s about all we can say,’ said Big John. ‘It’ll let ’em know we’re safe and sound, anyway.’
Robin addressed the envelope, licked it and put it back in the tree. ‘We’ll give it to Smokoe to post in Cheshunt Toller; he’s going there tomorrow for his weekly supplies. Good old Smokoe, I don’t know what we’d do without him. We must ask him to supper one night. He can sleep here too, if he likes, though I don’t expect he’ll leave his kilns. He’s never seen our camp.’
‘Good idea – yes, let’s!’
‘And we’ll have a special supper in his honour, and one for Bang – Gyp I mean,’ suggested Robin.
The old fellow was manifestly pleased when he was asked.
‘Yes, I’ll come, Gyp an’ me. There’s a moon now and I can find me way.’
‘Oh, we’ll fetch you,’ said Robin, in the tone of voice one might expect if he were offering to send a car for Smokoe. ‘One of us’ll act as guide. You’ll never find us by yourself.’
And so Smokoe came, accompanied, of course, by Gyp. At first he was awkward and shy. Smokoe, away from his kilns and his shack, was like a fish out of water; he was as bashful as if he were dining off spotless napery with a footman behind his chair, but he soon forgot his self-consciousness. He admired the tree house and the cunningly made door of bark – which was always shut to at night, now the weather was cold – and he chuckled when he saw the deep bracken beds inside the tree. ‘You’m be as snoog as badgers in this ’ere place, blame me ef you ain’t. No wonder they couldna find ye ’ere!’
For supper they had for first course pike cakes, boned and fried, with fresh watercress, followed by a hotpot of squirrel and pigeon with mushrooms (dubbed by the outlaws Hunter’s Pot) with cold roast duck to follow, and potatoes baked in the embers – Smokoe’s potatoes, fresh greens – also Smokoe’s, a savoury of infant perch on toast, and apples – Smokoe’s – for dessert.
There was no wine but Blindrush water, but that didn’t matter because Smokoe rarely drank intoxicants save at the festive season.
‘Blame me, but there’s nothin’ wrong wi’ that for a supper,’ said the old man when the meal was over and Gyp had had his share. ‘Live like fightin’ cocks, you do, blame me ef you don’t.’
‘Of course,’ said Robin, ‘the vegetables and apples were yours. By rights we ought to grow our own.’
‘You don’t need to do that,’ said Smokoe, ‘I’ve plenty, more’n I need. Anything you want, ax me. That duck was a good ’un. Where d’you get ’im?’
‘Blind Pool; they’re coming there a lot lately.’
‘Ah, nice and quiet, you see,’ said the old man, ‘nobody disturbs ’em like. Ducks allus goes to a pond like that, tucked away in the woods. I’ve seen otters there sometimes, an’ once I sees a badger, as big as a bear; a beauty ’ee was, cummin’ to drink.’
‘A badger!’ exclaimed Big John. ‘D’you know, Smokoe, we’ve only seen one so far, and she had a lot of babies with her. They all ran off squeaking like little pigs when they saw us.’
‘Ah, they would! There’s no end of badgers in the Chase, but you don’t see ’em, not often. But that there badger I sees, ’ee was as long as a gate, as long as a gate ’ee wur!’
‘I’d love to trap a badger,’ said Robin. ‘Are they hard to catch, Smokoe?’
‘I’ve caught ’em now and agin, in deadfalls.’
‘We don’t have much luck with our deadfalls,’ said Little John, ‘don’t know how it is.’
‘Mebbe you ain’t baitin’ up properly, or maybe yer trigger’s not made proper. What d’you bait up wi’?’
‘Oh, odds and ends, birds and young rabbits.’
‘Ah,
you ought to cotch ’em wi’ young rabbits, they eat a lot o’ they. Saw an old badger once, slit open, an’ ’er belly were full o’ baby rabbits, forty-two on ’em, all as long as me finger! They brutes’ll eat most things they can master. Eggs too, they’ll go for, eggs specially, them an’ ’oney.’
‘If you ever have a hen’s egg you don’t want, Smokoe, we’ll try it as bait.’
‘Ah – you can ’ave one, but ef you’ve got any o’ that ’oney o’ yours left try it, better’n eggs. I’d like to see yer cotch a badger, but it’s getting’ late now. They’re still about though. They won’t go down until the real ’ard weather comes along.’
‘Where’s the best place to set the trap, Smokoe?’ asked Little John.
‘Oh, somewhere near their sett, or ’long a ride somewhere. A badger, ’e ’ave a ’untin’ path like a fox or a rabbit, reg’lar trod down.’
‘We haven’t found a sett anywhere near here,’ said Little John, ‘maybe that’s why we haven’t caught one.’
‘I knows where there’s a sett, leastways there used to be, an’ that’s purty close to the Blind Pool.’
‘We’ll go and find it tomorrow,’ exclaimed Robin, ‘and we’ll set a deadfall there and bait it with honey.’
‘Badgers be purty cunnin’,’ said Smokoe, pulling Gyp’s ears gently, ‘you’m ’ave to be careful like the way you ’andle the trap, same as ef it wur a snare. One smell o’ you an’ he’ll give it the go by, that ’e will.’
‘Smokoe,’ exclaimed Big John, ‘we’ll get that badger tomorrow night!’
Smokoe laughed. ‘I ain’t so sure o’ that, master. You’ll very like cotch a rat instead.’
Then he went on to tell them of many wonderful badger hunts in which he had taken part as ‘a nipper’, tales of tongs and terriers, and of how once he saw a keeper have all four fingers taken off by an old boar badger. ‘They bite wors’n a dog,’ said Smokoe. ‘’Nother feller I see ’ad ’is ’ead down in the ’ole an’ a badger cum up wi’ a terrier arter ’im and the badger bit the chap’s nose off, took the end right off, clean as a whistle!’
Robin’s attention was, in consequence of the anecdote, directed to Smokoe’s nose. As I have said, the boys were so much with the old man they had come to take no notice of his affliction, but as Robin looked at it in the firelight it seemed bigger than ever. Smokoe must have seen him looking at it, for he appeared uncomfortable. No mention had ever been made of this abnormally large appendage; the boys had not liked to appear morbidly curious and Smokoe had never referred to it in any way. But he did so then.
‘I can see yer lookin’ at this.’ Smokoe pointed with his finger at the huge purple mass which was nearly as big as his fist. ‘Ain’t exactly a beauty, am I? And don’t I knows it, when I goes inter the village! All the older kids make fun o’ me, an’ the tiddy totties runs to their mammies, squealin’ and squallin’. Don’t suppose you’ve ever seen a nose like mine afore?’
The outlaws certainly hadn’t. They could imagine how Aunt Ellen would have drawn her skirts aside if she saw Smokoe in the offing, she would certainly have thought his nose was ‘catching’.
‘Has it always been like that?’ asked Big John awkwardly.
‘No, it ain’t. Can’t think wot’s cum over it. P’raps the smeech from me ovens or summat. But I’d give all I ’ad to be rid of it and ’ave a proper snitch agin. But it’s gettin’ bigger. I know it is. ’Ave you noticed it gettin’ any bigger?’
‘No, Smokoe, of course not,’ said Robin, lying deliberately. ‘It’s just the same as it always was.’
‘P’raps it’s wot comes o’ livin’ in the forest,’ said Smokoe ruefully, ‘all alone like, wi’ the smoke an’ the trees. But I wouldn’t ’ave no other life, no, not ef you paid me an ’undred pound I wouldn’t.’
‘I believe a doctor could cure it, Smokoe,’ said Little John. ‘I know Doctor Bowers at Yoho is awfully clever.’
Big John shuffled uncomfortably and Robin kicked Little John’s leg. Angela had not been forgotten and the doctor was her father. Strange as it may seem, none of the boys had ever met him. Aunt Ellen did not have Doctor Bowers for some reason or another, possibly because his surgery practice was rather far from Cherry Walden. But more likely because he was not what you would call a very impressive or prosperous-looking person and his patients were mostly among the poor. Aunt Ellen could never understand why he chose to live in so mean a hamlet as Yoho with no other ‘gentry’ in the place, unless it was because Twelvetrees House had such a lovely garden and, as everyone knew, the doctor was a passionate gardener. But for all that, whatever his manner or the way he dressed, he was one of the best doctors in the county; the poor loved him.
‘Don’t reckon Doctor Bowers nor no one else cud cure this trouble,’ said Smokoe gloomily. ‘I ’spect it’ll grow an’ grow until I can’t see, nor yet eat me vittuls. I’ve sometimes wondered ef one day it’ll drop off, same as a ripe pear. But I don’t ’spect it will. No, poor old Smokoe won’t never ’ave a proper nose. It’s me cross, that’s wot it is, an’ I must bear it!’
Robin felt awkward, and to change the topic of conversation, he talked about the badgers again and the possibility of trapping that monster which, as Smokoe said, was ‘as big as a gate from snout to bob’.
At last the old man got up to go and they gave him the letter to post, which he promised faithfully to do. They pressed him to stay the night in the tree with them, but there was no room; certainly it would have been a terrible squeeze, especially with Gyp. So they all went back to Smokoe’s shack through the mysterious moonlit forest, along the paths which were striped like zebra’s skins by the shadow of branch and twig.
Early next day the outlaws went to find the badger sett which Smokoe had told them about. It was some while before they came upon it, a huge mound of yellow earth scratched out under a bank of fern. The marks of his spoor were visible in the yellow clay, and quite a beaten track wound away under the hazels. It was a marvellous place for a sett, as cunningly concealed as the boys’ own hideout.
It took them all the morning to make the trap, but at last it was done and baited with some of the wild bees’ honey. They tried the ‘drop’ of the massive log, and adjusted the trigger until the slightest jar set it off. And then they left it, full of excitement as to the success of their primitive contraption.
‘I expect he’s deep asleep down there, under that bank,’ said Robin. ‘Sleepin’ away tucked up in his ferns just like we hog away in the old tree.’
‘Snoring too, I’ll be bound,’ said Little John. ‘Never mind, if he does come out he’ll go for that honey, I’ll bet my boots.’
‘We’ll see,’ said the less optimistic Robin. ‘P’raps all we’ll catch will be another beastly hedgehog. The next hedgehog I catch I’m going to eat like the gippos do; you roll ’em in clay. Anyway, it ’ud be something to say we’ve eaten a hedgehog. The numbers of people I’ve met who say, “Hedgehogs are good to eat, you know, you cook them in clay like the gipsies do,” and when you ask ’em whether they’ve ever tried one, they say, “Oh, no, but the gipsies say they’re awfully good.” I hate that sort of person.’
For the next two days the trap was untouched. The boys took it in turns to visit it. Robin’s turn was first, then Little John’s, then Big John’s.
When he pushed his way silently down the bank, the first thing he saw was that the trap was sprung; the big log had fallen straight and true between the palisade of oak logs, and it had not fallen quite home, which showed something was inside. And there it was. Big John could not believe his eyes, a magnificent silky-haired badger, so heavy he could barely lift it, and nearly as long as himself.
Badgers, like moles, are easily killed by a blow on the nose, even though some people say it takes more to kill a badger than to kill a cat. The heavy log had struck it fair and square; it had been killed instantaneously.
Big John drew it out by the back legs and stroked the thick pile of its fur. He admired the strong, incu
rved tusks, part of the comb of honey still fixed between them, and the vivid black-and-white head. What a skin, phew! What a prize!
It was a very exhausted but triumphant Big John who returned to camp, lugging behind him the heavy burden. They laid it on its back as soon as it was cold, and Robin skinned it by a method Smokoe had shown him, the way a deer is flayed, by slitting up the inside of each leg and rolling the skin back with the knuckles. He made no mess about the business and soon the fine, thick pelt was off, and every scrap of fat scraped away.
‘We’ll get Smokoe to cure it for us.’ said Robin. ‘It’s too fine a pelt to spoil. He’ll do it far better than we can, and besides we’re short of salt.’
Little John could not help picking it up and stroking it. ‘What a lovely muff it would make,’ said Little John, pulling at the bob tail. ‘A muff for Mother perhaps.’
‘Pooh, she wouldn’t want an old badger skin,’ said Robin. ‘D’you think so, Big John?’
‘Eh, what’s that you say?’ asked Big John, who had suddenly become preoccupied.
‘I said Mother wouldn’t think much of this old badger skin for a muff, after her lovely sables.’
‘No, she wouldn’t,’ mumbled Big John, and looked confused.
Robin looked at his brother puzzled. ‘Wake up, Big John, penny for your thoughts!’
‘Oh, nothing,’ said Big John, tossing a stick on the fire.
‘I suppose you think I’m going to bag the skin for myself, is that it?’ Robin demanded. ‘Well, you’re wrong. It was your turn to visit the trap and you brought it back to camp. So it’s yours. That’s forest law.’
Big John brightened up somewhat. ‘Oh, thanks, I didn’t think you’d be so decent about it. It’s mine to do what I like with, is it?’
