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great deal of news to trade. In fact, the animals always said that Herdwicks were better than newspapers, and that they could tell you anything from the price of wool in Carlisle to the weather in Ambleside to the number of lambs that had been born that spring. Bosworth was hoping that Tibbie had heard some word of a young badger of his acquaintance who had stayed briefly at The Brockery and then headed west and north, beyond Ambleside.
    But he was to be disappointed, for when he reached the fold just after sunrise, he found the gate standing open and the enclosure empty. Tibbie, her twin lambs, and the other ewe and lamb were gone. For a moment, the badger stared around him, wondering whether old Ben Hornby had had second thoughts about selling his sheep, or whether a fell-walker had happened along and opened the gate, or whether Tibbie and the others had, for their own good reasons, decided to lift the hasp on the gate and take themselves off somewhere else.
    But badgers abide by the animal axiom that it is an impropriety to inquire into the whereabouts of one’s absent friends and companions, for life in wood and field is prone to accident. (This is obliquely expressed in the Seventeenth Badger Rule of Thumb, which says, “Hold a true friend with both paws, but be willing to let him go when the time comes.”) And anyway, Bosworth knew that life is made up of things that go as one expects and things that don’t, so it is well to be flexible and adapt oneself to the current circumstance. And since what was wanted at this moment was breakfast, Bosworth ignored the fact that the fold was empty and began to poke his nose here and there under the grass. Within the half hour, he had completely satisfied his appetite for earthworms and was on his way back to Holly How.
    But the mystery of the missing sheep had bothered the badger all the while he carried out his ordinary responsibilities of the day: discussing The Brockery’s dinner menu with Parsley; overseeing the two young rabbit maids, Flotsam and Jetsam, as they swept and dusted and made the lodgers’ beds; inventorying the items in the Supplies and Necessities Closet; reading his post, which contained a chatty missive from a distant cousin who lived in the Wild Wood, far to the south; and penning that sad note in the History, regarding the kidnapping of the mother badger and two cubs from the Hill Top sett.
    And now, to the morning’s mystery of the missing Herdwicks, Bosworth could add the equally puzzling mystery of the afternoon: What was the meaning of the unintelligible writing in the girl’s Kitchen Accounts? What sort of secret might be concealed in such cryptic sentences as the one that kept teasing Bosworth, as if it were a puzzle to be solved, or some sort of mystic chant:

    Sr%jm# kqm sp*nn ergx2.

5

    Sarah Barwick Makes a Mess

    The afternoon had turned overcast and sultry, and Sawrey drowsed in the growing July heat. Clouds of tiny midges—thunderflies, people called them—very small and black, and thought to be a sign of a coming storm, gathered in the air all over the village. In the garden of Tower Bank House, they annoyed Dimity Woodcock no end. She had tucked a sprig of rue behind one ear and a sprig of southernwood behind the other, hoping that the herbs’ strong scents would fend them off, but to no avail. And whilst thunderflies didn’t bite or sting, they got in one’s eyes and one’s mouth and were certainly aggravating.
    The garden had been without rain for too long, and Dimity was trying to catch up with the gardening chores, which probably seemed as overwhelming to old Fred Phinn (who came twice a week to putter around the borders) as they did to her. The lettuces, past their prime, were ready to bolt; the parched-looking roses and lupines, drooping with heat exhaustion, pleaded for a good sprinkle; and the couch grass, chickweed, and groundsel, always especially insubordinate at this time of year, were clearly plotting a major