When he had finished, he remained where he was and Wythen thanked him (feeling secretly very proud of his son for this extremely clever speech) and asked if there were any questions. At first there was only an embarrassed silence as every animal tried to pluck up courage to move forward and speak what was on his mind. Eventually Rufus broke it with a slightly nervous cough; he thought to himself that he would rather face six hounds than speak in public like this.

‘I, ’ he started, and gave another cough to clear his throat, ‘I think I speak for most of us when I say that none of us likes the idea of having an Urkku in the wood.’ Little murmurs of approval greeted this statement and gave him courage to carry on. His voice grew bolder and louder. ‘The Urkku have never done anything but harm to us; they destroy our homes, they poison our food and they try and kill us by any one of a hundred ways, all of which are liable to cause us the most horrible pain and suffering. Why then should we help any Urkku, even if it is only a young one?’ He stopped for he could think of no more to say: the thought of the Urkku made him angry and when he was angry he found it hard to think clearly; a fox must always remain cool and unflustered.

Pictor then voiced another point which was on all their minds. ‘How can we trust him?’ he said. ‘While he’s a baby I agree he can do us no harm but as he grows he will learn all our secrets and our defences and, worse still, he will find out where our homes are. What if then he joins the Urkku; he could destroy us all in a single day with what he knows. I don’t like it.’

Then Sterndale spoke. ‘I agree with everything Rufus and Pictor have said but I feel that we must put our trust and our faith in the opinions of our two “elder statesmen” Wythen and Bruin. In any case the Urkku can do no harm for a number of seasons yet, and if things turn out for the worse we shall have to kill him before he goes over to the Urkku. But I, for one, would like to wait and see for a while: if the legends are true then we would be foolish to get rid of him now.’

The rest of the Council agreed that the decision should be left with Wythen and Bruin. Bruin spoke first and said that, like his noble friend Sterndale, he thought that ‘wait and see’ was the best policy, although secretly he believed that the little baby in the sett would prove in some way, although he didn’t know how, to be the friend and ally of which legend had spoken ever since he could remember.

Wythen, of course, agreed. When Warrigal had told him the news he had known immediately that the time had come of which he had dreamt for so long. The baby should stay with Brock, he told the meeting, because it was obviously safe and happy there and they could all trust Bruin’s grandson whom they knew to be a brave and imaginative badger with a practical partner who would look after and guard the baby in the best possible way. The baby’s progress would be reported to the Council at the seasonal meetings and decisions as to his future would be taken then.

With that he wished them all good luck for tomorrow and, as the moon began to sink in the night sky, all the animals of the wood made their way thoughtfully back to their various holes and setts and roosts, where they pondered over the strange story they had heard.

Mystery was in the air and there was not one of them who, beneath his overriding fear of the Killing tomorrow, did not feel a little thrill of anticipation as he settled down for what remained of the night.

The next day dawned bright and clear and cold; the sun shone down from a blue sky, cloudless except for a few wisps of white that drifted purposefully across. Already drips of thawing snow could be heard all over the wood and the icy crust that had formed on the surface began to give way to a mushy layer of large wet crystals which sank as they were trodden on.

Brock was suddenly woken by the persistent hooting of an owl. He looked across at Tara and the baby; she had been fast asleep when he came in from the meeting last night and he had not told her the good news that the Council had agreed that they could keep the Urkku in the wood – at least until he began to grow into an adult. She was awake now and, when he told her, she was both pleased and relieved. ‘It’s odd,’ she said softly so as not to waken the baby, ‘in only one day and night I’ve grown really fond of him and I think he trusts me and feels comfortable with me. I was dreadfully worried that the Council might take him away.’

‘Listen,’ said Brock, ‘do you hear it; Warrigal’s warning? He’s by the pond; we arranged that he would roost there and hoot loudly when he saw the Urkku coming. You must stay down here of course when they’re in the wood and keep the baby quiet. Although there’s very little chance of their hearing him crying from above we must not take the risk.’

‘Where are you going?’ asked Tara.

‘I’m going up to the surface to see what happens. Don’t worry; I’ll stay in the passage and just poke my nose out as far as I need to be able to watch. I’m anxious to see what comes of the plans the Council arranged last night. Besides, Bruin is too old to be up during the day now – he needs his sleep – and he asked me to report to him.’

When Brock reached the top he cautiously put the black tip of his nose out and looked to left and right before proceeding, a pace at a time, until he could see almost the whole of the field at the front. All around him, in the wood, hundreds of rabbits were running in from their morning feed and vanishing into their holes. He could see Pictor in the field shouting at them to get a move on, hopping after them and herding them in like a sheepdog until he himself finally vanished down his hole in the centre of the rhododendron bush to the left of the Great Beech. He could also make out in the distance a number of hares running off over the fields, although he couldn’t tell whether Perryfoot was among them. If only they could keep their ears down when they ran, Brock thought, they would be so much more difficult to spot. Still they were far enough away from the Urkku not to be fired at and there were no mishaps.

He could see the Urkku approaching over the field. It was a frightening sight. There seemed to be very many of them and they were stretched in a single straight line right across the field. Slowly they walked towards Silver Wood with their death sticks pointing outwards and downwards from their bodies. There was a hum of conversation from the line which broke the stillness of the morning and shattered the peace. Brock could smell the unmistakable pungent smell of Urkku and the other smell which often came from them: a cloying smoky smell which rasped in his nose and stuck in his throat so that he found it hard to breathe. These smells lingered in the wood where the Urkku had been, sometimes for a whole day and night, tainting the air and serving as an awful reminder of the death and suffering they had caused, for it was extremely rare that Urkku came into Silver Wood except to kill.

When the line got to the very edge of the wood it stopped and an Urkku at one end gave a great shout; suddenly the air was full of a cacophony of strange whistles, shouts, guttural calls and the sound of the undergrowth being thrashed. This noise came from behind Brock, at the back of the wood, and slowly began to come nearer. These were the beaters.

Brock waited, his heart pounding. He could see very close to him one of the Urkku standing with his legs apart and the death stick raised against his shoulder ready to kill anything that flew out; his body was round and fat so that Brock could see, where the overjacket was open, a great roll of flesh hanging over the belt in the middle of the man’s stomach; the face was a purply-red colour and had loose jowls of skin hanging down around the neck.