The Tale of Holly How by Susan Wittig Albert Page A

the ducks and chased cats and stole birds’ eggs. She was much more at ease with quieter children, especially with girls who enjoyed books and art—girls like herself, when she was younger. Now, she thought of how she would have felt if she had been shut up in that dark, menacing house, and shivered. If Caroline Longford was timid and impressionable, she might well be terrified, especially when the wind whistled down the chimneys and battered at the windows.
    “Lonely? Oh, aye,” Mr. Jennings agreed. “Nobody on t’ place but a housemaid or two and t’ Beevers—Mrs. Beever cooks, Beever keeps t’ garden and drives t’ phaeton when it’s wanted. And there’s t’ companion to Lady Tidmarsh. Miss Martine. She’s giving t’ girl her lessons ’til she goes off to school.”
    “The child needs an animal to keep her company,” Beatrix said decidedly.
    As children, she and her younger brother Bertram had kept all sorts of animals in their third-floor nursery at Bolton Gardens, frogs and lizards and snakes and mice and even a bat and an obstreperous raven. Over the years, her pets—Punch, her frog; the splendid Belgian rabbit she called Peter Piper; and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, a dear little hedgehog who had died quietly just a few months ago—had become even more important to her. They had served as models for the drawings she used in her little books and had gone everywhere with her. On this trip, for instance, she had brought her pet rabbits and mouse, as well as a guinea pig named Tuppenny, about whom she wanted to make a story. In fact, she had already written it out some two years before, calling it The Tale of Tuppenny . But she had decided instead to do the Kitten book, set at Hill Top Farm. If Lady Longford’s granddaughter would like to borrow her guinea pig—
    “Don’t think so,” Rascal said confidentially, into her ear. “Dudley says that Miss Martine doesn’t approve of—”
    “Doubt she’d be allowed, Miss Potter,” Mr. Jennings said.
    Beatrix frowned. Not allowed to have animals? That would be a hard thing, and a lonely life, indeed.
    “Talkin’ of animals,” Mr. Jennings said, pointing again, “dust tha’ see t’ top of Holly How? Up there is a very old badger sett, older’n any others between t’ lakes, some say. Doan’t know how many badgers live there, but it’s home to rabbits, and likely a fox or two. Most of t’ setts between t’ lakes has been dug, some of ’em dug more’n once. But Lord Longford ’ud nivver let anybody meddle with t’ sett on Holly How, and auld Ben has carried on t’ way his lordship wanted. So there’s badgers there, I expect.”
    Beatrix looked where the farmer was pointing, at a rocky hill outlined against the sky. She had studied and sketched quite a few wild creatures, but not badgers, who were nocturnal animals and quite shy. “The only badger I’ve ever seen,” she said thoughtfully, “was a very old, very fat badger in a traveling circus. I felt rather sorry for him. They’re not much liked by farmers, I understand.”
    “Some say they eat chicks and eggs in t’ hen coop,” Mr. Jennings replied, “but them ’re mostly careless folk who don’t shut up their chickens proper.” He paused, frowning. “Somebody dug t’ sett down by t’ Hill Top rock quarry a few days ago. Badger-baiters, most like. There’s some in this village that doan’t mind takin’ a chance on a fight ’twixt a badger and a dog.”
    Rascal growled deep in his throat. His father had been tossed into a badger pit once, and although a stalwart warrior, had barely lived to tell the tale. Badgers were known as stout fighters who employed both tooth and claw—and they had long, sharp claws—against their foes. He himself was brave, but he should not like to go up against one.
    “But the law prohibits badger-baiting,” Beatrix replied with a frown, not sure whether she felt sorrier for the badger or for the dog. “Not to mention that the diggers were