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 in 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 borne him no children. Anyway, while Dick and I were
busy, digging like niggers and listening like Indians--for Meg didn't
bark, not being trained to the work, and all we could hear was a
_thud, thud_ now and then, and the hard breathing of the grapple--all
of a sudden the old hag spoke, for the first time that day--
"S'trewth, but I've gripped!"
Looking up, I saw her stretched along the side of the turf, with her
head resting on the lip of the badger's hole and her right arm
inside, up to the arm-pit. Without speaking again, she began to work
her body back, like a snake, the muscles swelling and sinking from
shoulder to flank in small waves. She had the strength of a horse.
Inch by inch she pulled back, while we dug around the mouth of the
hole, filling her mouth and eyes with dirt, until her arm came to
light, then the tongs she held; and then Dick spat out a mighty
oath--
"It's the _dog_ she's got!"
So it was. The woman had hold of Meg all the time, and the game
little brute had held on to the badger. Also the badger had held
_her_, and when at last his hold slipped, she was a gruesome sight.
She looked round, reproachfully, shook the earth out of her eyes and
went in again without a sound.
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