“St. Francis preached to the trees,” said Mark.  “And St. Anthony preached to the fishes.”

“They must have been a couple of loonies.”

“They were saints,” Mark insisted.

“Saints, were they?  Well, my father doesn’t think much of saints.  My father says he reckons saints is the same as other people, only a bit worse if anything.  Are you saved?”

“What from?” Mark asked.

“Why, from Hell of course.  What else would you be saved from?”

“You might be saved from a wild beast,” Mark pointed out.  “I saw a wild beast this morning.  A wild beast with a long nose and a sort of grey colour.”

“That wasn’t a wild beast.  That was an old 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?”