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whether he should go over and inquire if there was something he might do to help.
    However, just as he was hoisting his bulk out of the rocking chair, the girl stopped writing, wiped her eyes, and stowed her book in a biscuit tin. She and the boy exchanged a few words, after which she pushed the tin into . . . yes, into The Brockery’s side entrance! Then the two of them walked down Holly How together, in the direction of Tidmarsh Manor.
    Bosworth frowned. He had no objection to the young person’s concealing her writing in his side entry, but he thought he ought to know what sort of writing it was, in case of—well, just in case. So he went round the hill, located the biscuit tin, and took out the book, which bore the legend Kitchen Accounts on its black leather cover.
    Bosworth smiled. Ah, Kitchen Accounts. As the proprietor of The Brockery, he had to deal with things like this on a daily basis, so Kitchen Accounts were familiar, although he didn’t know quite why the girl should have been weeping over them—unless, of course, the Accounts were overdue or in a muddle, which frequently happened at The Brockery, in spite of Bosworth’s best efforts. But when he opened the book to the first page, he saw to his great surprise that these accounts were not written in any language that he could read.
    “Why, bless my stripes,” Bosworth muttered. He turned the page in some puzzlement, for he was a linguist as well as a historian, and knew a great many languages. But Page Two was much like Page One, written in writing that looked exactly like writing. The sentences (if that’s what they were) began with a capital letter and ended with a period, but in between there was only an unreadable jumble of letters, numbers, and symbols:

    Sr%jm# kqm sp*nn ergx2.

    Frowning, the badger turned the book upside down to see if this might improve matters, but finding that it did not, turned it right-side up and studied it again. At last, in some puzzlement, he returned the book to the biscuit tin and the biscuit tin to its hiding place and sat back on his haunches, thoughtfully scratching his chin with his right hind paw and wondering what he should make of this mystery.
    Indeed, it was the second mystery (the third, if one counted the badger kidnapping at the Hill Top quarry) that Bosworth had recently encountered. Very early that morning, just as the sun had peered over Claife Heights to inquire what sort of day it was going to be in the Land between the Lakes, Bosworth had ambled around the hill and down, aiming for the sheep fold above Holly How Farm. The meals at The Brockery were ably prepared by Parsley, a young badger of some culinary talent, but Bosworth liked to go out for breakfast once a week or so. Earthworms were plentiful under the dew-wet grass of the stone-fenced fold, which was chiefly used at sheep-clipping time and when the ewes and lambs were to be sorted and sold.
    The farmer, old Ben Hornby, was evidently intending to sell some of his Herdwicks, for the evening before, he had put two ewes and three lambs in the fold. Bosworth (who had quite a wide view from the rocking chair on his front porch) had watched him do this. It was quite natural, then, that the badger should expect to have company for breakfast—not a problem, of course, since badgers and sheep have shared the same fellsides and patches of tasty turf for eons.
    Indeed, Bosworth was rather looking forward to hearing the latest gossip from Tibbie, the chief Herdwick ewe, who could always be counted on to know the news. The Herdwicks were given free range upon the fellsides, for they had an unerring sense of direction and a very strong sense of place. They were heafed to their native pasture, it was said, and required neither shepherd nor bell-wether to take them to and from the fell. On their travels, Herdwicks were always encountering other Herdwicks who came from as far away as Dungeon Gyll or Borrowdale or even Seathwaite Tarn, and there was always a