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. "Kind of nutty taste they've got, I reckon. I
belong to eat them most days."

Mark acquired the habit and agreed with Cass that the blossoms were
delicious.

"Only you don't want to go eating everything you see," Cass warned him.
"I reckon you'd better always ask me before you eat anything. But furze
flowers is all right. I've eaten thousands. Next Friday's Good Friday."

"I know," said Mark reverently.

"We belong to get limpets every Good Friday. Are you coming with me?"

"Won't I be in church?" Mark inquired with memories of Good Friday in
Lima Street.

"Yes, I suppose they'll have some sort of a meeting down Church," said
Cass. "But you can come afterward. I'll wait for 'ee in Dollar Cove.
That's the next cove to Church Cove on the other side of the Castle
Cliff, and there's some handsome cave there. Years ago my granfa knawed
a chap who saw a mermaid combing out her hair in Dollar Cove. But
there's no mermaids been seen lately round these parts. My father says
he reckons since they scat up the apple orchards and give over drinking
cider they won't see no more mermaids to Nancepean. Have you signed the
pledge?"

"What's that?" Mark asked.

"My gosh, don't you know what the pledge is? Why, that's when you put a
blue ribbon in your button