CHAPTER IX
FROST AND FAMINE
After the night on which the whelps were born the otter repaired to his old hover on the point, whence he could slip into the water by day and, without exposing himself, catch what fish his mate needed to make good the drain on her strength. In going to and from the spot near the nest where he left his takings for her he soon beat a path amongst the reeds, by which the little mother reached the mere at nightfall and joined her mate in raiding the fish that seemed more abundant than ever. Eels indeed were scarce since the autumn migration, but of pike, tench and bream there was great store. On these the otters fed for the most part; but occasionally they fished in the sea, and took toll of the pollack, plaice, conger and shell-fish found in the inshore waters. They could not have wished for greater variety of prey, and the supply seemed as assured as it was inexhaustible.
But there was soon to steal upon the unsuspecting creatures a frost which exceeded inseverity any visitation of cold that even the old marshman had witnessed. It set in whilst the cubs were yet blind, and on the second night the water near the nest was frozen thick enough to bear the otter’s weight, as were also the shallows near the bar, for he landed on the ice there to eat his supper. Before many days passed, strings of wild-fowl arrived, causing great rejoicing to the otters, who, far from regarding them as harbingers of famine, foresaw an agreeable change in their usual fish diet. Nor had they occasion to look with apprehension on the gradual encroachment of the ice, inasmuch as thebreathing-holes which they made and kept open enabled them to range as freely as before the frost. Of course, they had to bring their prey to the open water; but for the trouble this gave them they found some compensation in the convenient landing-place afforded by the edge of the ice, which was soon dotted with the remains of their repasts. Moreover, the great sheet of ice served them as a playground when they were weary of gambolling in the mere, and on it they cut mad capers which held the mallard, widgeon, and teal at gaze.
Protected by their thick coats the creatures enjoyed the biting cold, and the cubs, cuddled together in the cosy nest, suffered no ill effectsfrom its rigour. Thepike, like the otters, revelled in the frost; but the tench, and theeels that had not gone to sea, felt its pinch, and the bream forsook their usual feeding-grounds. Where these gregarious fish had betaken themselves the otters never knew, but the eels and tench buried themselves in the mud and gave much trouble in the capture. Still, disagreeable though the process was, both these fish were to be had by patient searching in the ooze—at least, it was so at first; then the ground ice, which had gripped the stems of the weeds, spread and spread as the cold increased, until it formed an impenetrable layer over most of the bed of the mere. This followed on the withdrawal of the sea-fish to the warmer depths of the offing, inaccessible to the otters, which were thus caused no little uneasiness.
It was the closing of the breathing-holes however a few days later that seriously alarmed them, all but costing the dog-otter his life; for, never dreaming that he would be unable to reopen them at will as heretofore and get the air he needed, he made without misgiving for the best hunting-ground, far in beneath the ice-field, and after capturing a pike, swam unconcernedly to the nearest vent-hole. A single bump of hishead, hitherto sufficient, failing to break the crust, he delivered two more blows in quick succession; and when these proved of no effect, he saw his danger, and hurried to the next vent-hole, hard by a frozen-intrimmer. One blow, and only one, did he give; then he dropped the pike, and with lightning-like strokes of his powerful hind-legs made for the open water. It was a race for life, and he knew it. His lungs ached for want of air; again and again in the next few seconds—seconds that seemed hours—he was on the point of opening his mouth and throat to find an impossible relief, but he forbore, holding on his desperate way, till presently he shot from under the ice-roof and drew breath again in the frosty air. He had escaped drowning, but only to be confronted the very next night with difficulties even more aggravated.
The cold had then reached its greatest intensity. Themarshman was conscious of its severity as he sat by the fire, listening to thehonking of the geese and the trumpeting of theswans—rare sounds, that were music to the aged wild-fowler, and kept him to the chimney-corner later than his wont. Yet at daybreak he was at his lattice to get a view of the overnight arrivals. To his amazement, not a living thing could he see. Herubbed the pane, he rubbed his eyes, and looked again; then he realized—what he had never seen before—that the mere was completely frozen. Despite the depth of the water, the current, and the restless movements of the wild-fowl, the frost had had its way; the vast sheet was one continuous field of steel-blue ice. The otters had witnessed the sealing of the mere, had watched the ducks, geese and swans take wing and melt into the night, before they realized their desperate situation; then, had the cubs been able to travel, they would at once have turned their back on the marshland, as the wild-fowl had done, and made across country for the salmon river, where fish crowded the spawning-beds. But as yet the cubs could only sprawl, and to carry them over the miles of moorland that lay between or to attempt to reach it by way of the sea and the estuary was out of the question; they had no choice but to stay and face the famine that threatened.
As yet they had not suffered at all; indeed, they had caught more fish than they needed, and for their leavings thehill-foxes regularly visited the ice. Amongst them was a poor, half-starved vixen, who, along with the otters, witnessed the ice meet across the strait of open water. Thinas she was, her lot was preferable to that of the otter, with cubs wholly dependent on her; for it seemed impossible to support them unless the frost should soon relent.
Shut off from the mere and the stream that fed it, the night after the closing of the ice the otters turned to the land and quested wherever cover afforded prospect of finding prey. They threaded the reeds and furze-brake, they drew the two osier-beds and tussocky ground between them, but met with nothing save a few dead starlings, from whose sorry skeletons they turned away, hungry though they were. On the next night the hard-set creatures made their way along the stream until they came to the solitary homestead in the heart of the western moor. There they left the ice, clambered up the high bank, and climbed the farmyard wall to the cart-shed, where, standing on their hind-legs, they examined the crannies in the wall for snails, but found none. Coming out, they skirted the pigsty, passed between an alder-tree and the lighted window, and just as they rounded the corner of the house, found themselves almost face to face with a white cat. Savage tom though he was, he never thought of fighting. In a twinkling he was in full retreat, with both otters at his heels.The male was the faster, and he pressed the cat very closely across the small garden in front of the house, through a gap in the wall, and along the strip of field at the side. He must have overtaken it before reaching the gate had not the cat suddenly swerved and gained a couple of feet, maintaining the lead until it passed through the hole in the stable door at the upper end of the farmyard. The otter followed. Scarcely were they out of sight when the female otter came up the yard on their scent, and also passed in through the aperture at the foot of the door. A fearful spitting ensued, and immediately the cat reappeared with the male so close behind that his nose all but touched the big fluffed-out brush. At a desperate pace both sped over the frozen dung-heap towards the alder-tree; the cat swarmed up, despite the efforts of the otter to seize it, and from its safe perch amongst the topmost branches sat looking down at both otters, from whose nostrils the breath issued like jets of steam. Presently the blazing up of the furze fire within drew the eyes of the otters to the window, and when a shadow fell on the blind they slunk away, followed the rude cart-track to the boundary of the farm, and struck straight across the moor in the direction of theLiddens.
A bitter wind swept the waste, but they held on in the teeth of it, crossed the frozen pools, and headed for the mere. On reaching it the female otter made straight for the nest, where she lay oppressed with the dread of famine, till fatigue had its way and sleep made her deaf to the plaints of her unfed cubs. At dusk she and her mate foraged alongshore and found a fewlimpets, on which they managed to keep themselves and the whelps from starving until the supply failed. Then the little mother, driven to extremity, dulled the gnawing pangs of hunger with seaweed.
To the famine under which parents and whelps were wasting was presently added the outlawed creature’s most treacherous enemy—a fall of snow. It began one morning soon after they had sought their couches, and did not cease until a thick covering lay on the marsh and on the hills about it. That night the otters again foraged along the coast, but nothing passed their lips save a few more limpets and a little water from the runnel which still trickled in the cave behind the clitter. Yet, distressed as they were, they rolled and gambolled on the snow in the heart of the mere, whence the tell-tale trails diverged, ready to betray their whereabouts to the first comer. Some hours later, however,more snow fell, obliterating the tracks, and spreading a coverlet over mother and young where they slumbered in the deep nest. The mother’s light sleep was broken by the creaking of the windlass over the well and the quacking of the marshman’s ducks, but both sounds, under the muffling effect of the snow, seemed to come from far beyond the cottage. The quacking of the ducks was so tantalizing to the famished creature that she actually left the nest and, with just the arch of her back showing above the snow, stole towards the spot whence the noise proceeded. On and on she forged her way, and actually advanced to within gunshot of the duck-house. Then her courage failed her, and caused her to retreat along the furrow she had made.
She was afoot again at early nightfall, joined her mate and followed him to the shore. After they had fished far and wide to no purpose she turned to him with a distracted look that meant, ‘Whither now?’ For answer he shifted his gaze from her face towards the cottage; and when, after some hesitation, he moved towards it, she understood, and took her place at his heels. They passed very near the nest—near enough indeed to catch, despite the loud rustlingof the reeds, the plaints of the cubs. On hearing the pitiful cries, the mother, her maternal instincts stirred, quickened her pace in a succession of leaps that gave her the lead, which she maintained until the sight of the cottage brought her to a standstill and her mate to her side; then, with their necks raised like little watch-towers, their keen eyes reconnoitred the enemy’s dwelling. Nobody stirred, no light showed; the whistling wind favoured them; all seemed propitious, and they drew near the duck-house. Within a few yards of the door they suddenly halted, turning their heads towards the cottage. But it was a needless alarm; the noise that scared them was only the scraping of the wall by the branch of a medlar-tree. The instant they discovered the cause of their hesitation they stepped forward, and put their noses to the crack at the bottom of the door. The scent of the birds within nearly drove the starving creatures mad. But how were they to get at them? Though only a wooden partition separated them from the savoury prey, it was enough. They never thought of biting through it; to crawl under or dig their way in was impossible, and the aperture at the top seemed out of their reach. Nevertheless, this opening was their only chanceof entrance; and frantic were the efforts they made to obtain a hold on the top of the door. More than once the otter all but succeeded; had his claws been long and sharp instead of short and blunted, he would have got a footing and probably an entry. But the door rattled and creaked with their futile attempts, and the noise, with the quacking of the terror-stricken ducks, reached the ears of themarshman as he lay listening to the gale. Old and stiff though he was, it was the work of a moment to jump out of bed, open the lattice, and shout at the top of his voice. At the sound the guilty creatures stole away in the direction of the big osier-bed; yet their lot was so desperate that when they neared the furze-rick the little mother stopped and looked back. Despite her dread of the marshman, she would have returned to the duck-house had her mate been willing; but whilst she stood he kept on, and presently she followed and overtook him. It was with weary steps they plodded forward, hopeless as two otters can be. Whither could they turn? Not to the hills, whence even apolecat had come to the marsh to forage; not to the cliffs nor inshore waters; they knew them only too well. And so with no goal to make for, the luckless creatures passed into the night.
CHAPTER X
TRACKED
Day had scarcely broken when the old marshman came bustling out of his cottage to see whether the fox—as he supposed the marauder to be—had carried off any of his ducks. Before he had crossed the little garden, however, he descried the snow-marks on the door and, from their size, judged them to be made by a badger, till his eyes fell on the unmistakable trail outside the gate, which placed the raiders’ identity beyond all possible doubt.
‘Oters! Lor, whoever would ha’ thought it?’
And then, as he remembered that the mere was frozen and the creatures shut off from the water, the expression of surprise changed to one of triumph, and forgetting for a moment his decrepitude, he exultingly exclaimed: ‘They’re mine—sure as eggs, they’re mine!’ It was not their destruction that elated him, but the prospect—the almost certain prospect—of securing their pelts, and of adding a sovereign to the dwindling store in the thatch.
Of course, before he could dispose of the skins he must find the otters, and shoot them when found; but what could be easier, he thought, than to track them down with such a trail; and then even he, old and infirm though he was, could hardly fail to hit the long-bodied creatures as they left their couches and floundered through the snow. So easy did the task seem in the first flush of excitement, before the difficulties presented themselves, crowding upon him as if to shake him from his purpose. The bitterness of the wind, the depths of the drifts, the possibility—nay, the probability, of the creatures having sought the cliffs, his own physical debility: all confronted him, but only to be made light of and swept aside before he turned and hobbled back to the cottage, determined at all costs to make the attempt.
On crossing the threshold he went straight to the hearth, his eyes raised to the two guns and a brassblunderbuss that rested on wooden pegs above it. Theflintlock was within easy reach; but it was the modern gun he meant to use and, standing on tiptoe, he managed to grasp the hammers and take it down. A little over a year before, when he had put the wonderful piece there, he thought he should never use it again,never dreaming of such an easy chance as that offered by otters on the snowed-up mere.
‘Can I hold straight enow, wonder.’ ‘Iss, sure,’ came the complacent answer; ‘you can hold straight enow for that.’
Nevertheless, as if conscious that he could not and fearing to put his enfeebled powers to the test, he kept blowing on the barrels, though all the dust had gone, until at last, remembering the dark, snow-laden sky, he raised the stock to his shoulder, shut one eye, and looked along the gun. In his younger days man and weapon might have been molten together in bronze, so steadily could he stand and hold; but now, as he had dreaded, the sight zig-zagged over the pane when he aimed at a starling on the medlar-tree outside.
‘’Tis no use; couldn’t hit a seal, leave alone an oter, with muzzle wobblin’ all over the place like that—dear, dear, oh, dear!’ and he sank into the corner of the settle.
But as he sat before the furze fire which a girl was tending, warmth came back to his hands, the thought of the golden sovereign quickened his blood, and he resolved to make a second attempt. Rising to his feet, he again raised the gun to his shoulder and, holding hisbreath, aimed at the bird still bunched up on the swaying branch. As the sight kept fairly true to the mark, confidence returned, the old man’s face brightened, and resting the weapon against the table, he set about his preparations. He fetched from a drawer in the dresser powder-flask, shot-pouch, caps and wads; he loaded both barrels, and replaced the ramrod. Then he turned up the collar of his worn velveteen coat, pulled the badger-skin cap over his ears and, telling the child he should not be away long, sallied out with the gun at half-cock under his arm.
The trail led past the frozen-inboat towards the tossing withy-bed, but just before reaching it, swerved unexpectedly, as if the creatures had caught a glimpse of some forager who had forestalled them, or had all at once thought it best to make without delay for the farther side of the marsh. Bending his bowed figure as he turned, the old man set his face to the gale and plodded bravely along by the side of the tracks, the snow in places reaching half-way up his leather leggings. The depth of it made him hopeful that the otters had not gone far before lying up; so, as he drew near each bit of cover that offered harbourage, he raised the hammers and held the gun at theready. He did this again and again, whilst beating the tussocky ground on the farther bank of the stream, where the otters had stayed to quest before crossing the unbroken expanse of snow that stretched to the foot of the hill.
At every stride now he was getting more and more under shelter of the land; every score yards the snow was becoming appreciably deeper and deeper, until at last it lay in abig drift that threatened to bar his way. A break in the embankment, fluted and escalloped by the wind, showed where the otters had tunnelled their way through; and the old man, sanguine as to their near neighbourhood, after blowing on his numbed fingers, tightened his grip on the barrels and determined to follow. As the drift was formidable enough to daunt a younger and a taller man, he twice shrank from committing himself to the smothering mass. But again the thought of the golden sovereign, now as he believed so nearly his, lured him on: he held the gun above his head, went at the yielding obstacle, sank in it, disappeared all but hand and gun, fought with it, and at last battled through. Furiously brushing the snow out of his eyes, he looked eagerly to right and to left, thinking the game was afoot and striving to escape; but among the laid reedsthat met his gaze no living thing stirred: only the big and the little trails, as plain as under the wall of the duck-house, wound in and out amongst the stems, trending in the direction of the mere. ‘No hurry, my beauties; I shall come up wi’ ’ee by-and-by;’ and snap, snap, went the brittle reeds as he made his slow way through them. He kept looking eagerly ahead as though he expected to catch sight of the game retreating before his noisy advance, but nothing caught his eye save the wing of a moorhen on which some fortunate forager had broken his fast.
Yet though he saw nothing of the otters themselves, he came on evidence in the snow which told him they had not spent the night wholly in wandering. Between the reeds and the creek were the beaten places where they had rolled, and a gunshot farther, the slope down which they had slid. On sighting the slide he stopped, astonished that famine-stricken creatures, as he knew they must be, could waste a moment in gambols. ‘Most playsomest critturs on God’s eerth,’ said he; but at once resumed his murderous errand, now with grave misgivings lest he should presently discover that the otters had kept straight on to the bar and cliffs, and got beyond his reach. He was greatly elated, therefore, onreaching the furzy foreland, to find that his fears were groundless, that the otters, instead of crossing the mouth of the creek, had rounded the point and passed up the inlet; for so he felt sure of coming upon them, and most probably in the nearer of the two likeliest holts towards which, whenever he peeped from under the sheltering peak of his cap, the gleaming eyes were directed. It was the ancientpollard whence he had twice seen an otter steal away as he sculled past the island on which it grew.
‘They’re theere right enow,’ the old man said when he saw the trail turn that way, and raising both hammers to full cock, he went on with a stealth he had not before thought necessary. As he reached the island he lost the tracks under the snow-laden tangle. This he proceeded to beat thoroughly; but as he did not really expect to find the quarry there, presently he ceased trampling, looked towards the hollow trunk where he believed they were, called out, ‘Harkin’, are ’ee?’ crept as close to the bole as he dared, and peeped through the cleft. He was obliged to keep at some little distance to get a fair shot when they bolted; and screw his eyes and crane his neck as he might, it was impossible to distinguish the dark bodies in the gloomy recess. He felt surehowever they were there, and it occurred to him he might dislodge them with a snowball. Taking up a cake of snow that bore the impress of his hobnailed soles, he made two balls, which he hurled in quick succession through the opening. The second was scarcely out of his hand before he picked up the gun he had laid down, and stood ready to shoot the animals as they escaped; but still no otter showed. ‘Not theere after all, s’pose,’ said he; yet he advanced on tiptoe to the tree, kicked it, and jumped back with an agility that showed his expectations were not quite exhausted. Again there was no response: nothing stirred except the snow that fell from the rickety crown. Then he walked up to the tree, and peering through the crack, examined the dusky shell from root to branch to find nothing save an old nest with fish-bones on the ground beside it.
Convinced at last that the otters really were not there, he proceeded to make a cast beyond the island, using the gun to steady him as he crossed some exposed ice to the snow. There the sight of the trail brought home to him his want of prevision, and threw him into a rage.
‘Drat my stupid old head, why didn’t I ringthe eyot afore?’ came the quick, hot words. ‘Once bit, twice shy,’ he growled, and strode from bank to bank in search of a return trail which would prevent his being fooled again. But neither on the open snow nor amongst the reeds was there a sign that the otters had broken back. On regaining the track he advanced along it, confident now that the creatures were lying up at the end of the creek.
‘At laist, and worth all the trouble. In pride of pelt they’ll be. Take your time mind, aim for the head, and the big un fust.’
The nearer he got to the end of the inlet, the more agitated he became, until, on reaching the spot where the otters had passed in single file between two tussocks before entering the brambles, he was in a fever of agitation. But despite his excitement, the precautions he took showed he had got himself well in hand, that he was anxious to make the most of his hardly-earned chance. He raised the flaps of his cap that no sound might escape his ears; he brushed away every particle of snow from the barrels of the gun, and to satisfy himself that the weapon would not miss fire, he raised the copper caps and saw that the powder was still up in the nipples. Then, everything being ready, he began totrample upon the matted sprays in order to drive the otters from their last possible retreat.
He had taken some half a dozen steps when a patch of snow falling from the brambles well in front informed him that something was afoot. On the instant he stopped to listen, whilst his restless eyes sought the likely points of escape, and the gun shook in his nervous hands. As the otters did not show, he felt sure they were stealing away before him, and carefully watched some reeds into which they must pass on leaving the thicket. Seeing a slight agitation in the stems, he tore like a madman through the rest of the scrub, and stood at the edge ready to shoot. But, too excited to await the otters’ pleasure, after the briefest delay he advanced again, not however with the reckless strides of a few moments before, but with gingerly tread, as if now that the supreme moment had come he was apprehensive of dislodging the creatures he was so eager to kill. He had taken a few cautious steps when there was a slight rustling; then, to his dismay, abittern rose and flew down the creek. Up went the gun, the fore-finger found, but did not pull, the trigger; and the bird escaped without further scare. It was a terrible disappointment, under which the old man collapsed.The gun fell from his shoulder; his jaw dropped; the eyes, but an instant before full of fire, were dull and listless. He seemed inches shorter as he staggered through the reeds and along the gully towards a small enclosure about which the banks rose almost sheer.
‘Niver can be in thePiskies’ Parlour to be sure; and yet how could they get out?’
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when his eyes fell on the fresh marks against the face of the scarp. Then he saw the footprints left on the snow by the otters as they sprang to the lowest ledge.
‘Has the frost touched my brain, or the little folks my eyes? Nonsense! nothin’ of the kind; thee’rt seein’ things as they are. Well, well,’ he went on after drawing a long breath, ‘I’ve been wanderin’ about the ma’sh for wellnigh fifty year, and come on many tracks, but never prents like these. Lor mercy! must be a mighty big varmint as left ’em. What a catch if only I could ha’ bagged un!’
The sight of the footprints had put fresh life into him; he determined to follow as far as he could.
‘I’m bone-tired, but I’ll see it through if I drop on the track.’
Only a cat could follow where the otters had climbed; so he made his way back to the creek and clambered up the high bank to the wind-swept ridge leading to the cliffs. A forlorn figure the old man looked as he fought his way in the teeth of the gale to the brink of the precipice, only to find the trail end on a slab of rock, from which the spray had washed some of the snow that covered it.
‘It’s all up,’ he said, turning his eyes to the great pile of loose rocks farther along the cliff; ‘they’re gone toclitter. Now, old fool, goest home along.’
After a glance at thesea, on which not a sail or a wing showed, he made his way to the point of the bluff above the mere, and letting himself carefully over the edge, succeeded by clinging to rock and tussock in making the descent without mishap. At the foot he stood awhile to rest; then, presently, set out across the snowfield for the cottage, his thoughts full of the otter, which however he had given up all hope of getting.
So convinced was he that the creatures were in the cliff that he attached no importance to the trail he stumbled on in the midst of the mere, till he came to the spot where the tracks forked; but there he awoke to the significance of the situation.
‘Oh, oh,’ said he, as he checked his steps, ‘so this was where you parted, was it?—one for the reed-bed, t’other for up along, the withies most like.’
After a pause he added with a chuckle, ‘Jack oter, you’re mine yet.’
At the thought of the valuable prize falling to him he was all life and energy again: the vigour of his stride showed it as he stepped along the furrow made by the otter, with eyes fixed on the isolated clump near the inflow through which he expected it would pass. His surprise and excitement may be imagined when on reaching it and ringing it, he found no sign of track on the snow beyond.
‘Niver can be in this morsel of a patch,’ said he under his breath, as he took up a station between it and the reed-bed he felt sure the otter would make for. ‘Yet eh must be, eh must be.’ Then, raising his voice, he called out, ‘King Oter, thy time is come; show thyself and get the business over.’ With that he began to beat the reeds with the gun, trampling the stems as he advanced. In the midst of the clump he came on the couch. He stooped quickly and felt that it was warm. ‘I knawed thee was theere,’ said he; and crack, crack, crack went the reeds as he levelled them with the ground.
Less than a dozen yards of cover remained when the old man, in his anxiety to get a glimpse of the otter, knelt down and peeped through the stems. Only the head of the otter showed, but the eyes of man and beast met. Before the marshman could regain his feet, the creature had bolted, making wild leaps in its attempt to escape. Bang! bang! first one barrel, then the other; and the old man, who believed he had wounded the animal, started in mad pursuit. For a few strides he actually gained on the short-legged creature: but for want of breath he might have overtaken it. As it was, all he could do after covering a score yards was to lament his helplessness, and watch the huge dark form draw farther and farther away. ‘What a grand beast!’ he gasped again and again; then suddenly, ‘He’s down!’ he exclaimed, starting to run. But the otter was not down: not a pellet had struck him: he was only lost to sight in a drift. When he reappeared near the bar, the excited marshman saw his error, and once more stood to watch. On reaching the ridge the otter ran along it, showing his magnificent proportions. Once he stopped to look back at his enemy; a few moments later he disappeared from view, and the old man turned on his heel and made for home.
CHAPTER XI
BACK IN THE OLD HAUNTS
On passing out of the old man’s sight the otter made for the cliffs, where he lay close, impatiently awaiting nightfall that he might return to his mate. The light had scarcely faded when he took to the water. Early though it was to be abroad, he had not got far before he espied her swimming towards him, and presently he saw that she held a cub in her mouth. The reports of the gun had made her apprehensive for the safety of her young, the tiniest of which she was removing first to theclitter. The sea was rough and the spindrift blinding, yet she held on with her precious burden till she had reached a cave behind the boulders and laid the dripping mite in a nest there. Then she hurried back for another; when that was placed beside the first she fetched another, and yet another, till all four were in safety.
As soon as she had deposited the last she assisted her mate to scour the sea-bed between the cliffs and the Seal Rock in search of prey torelieve her maddening hunger. For hours the couple drew likely ground without result; but when they were about to end their quest they came on a stray pot containing a big crayfish. The find was as welcome as it was unexpected. In their eagerness to get at the prize the starving creatures swarmed about the osier cage like terriers about a rat-trap, vainly striving to find a way between the bars or through the aperture at the top, which was all but closed by the battering the pot had received. It was a most tantalizing situation. The otters’ only hope was to stay near the cage until tide and ground-swell should drive it ashore, dash it to pieces against the cliff, and leave the crayfish at their mercy. So through the long night they never left it except to breathe. In the end their patience was rewarded. The breakers got hold of the trap, tumbled it over and over, and wedged it between two rocks, smashing one of the bars, and making a hole through which the female otter managed to squeeze. In a twinkling she had seized the fish and crushed its life out. As soon as the wave which covered her withdrew, she began devouring her prey. Whilst she feasted, the otter made frantic efforts to get in, but failed, and presently desisted, contenting himself with the bits thatescaped through the bars. The tide rose, yet the little creature, despite the rush of the waters and the blows she received from the stone that weighted the pot, remained where she was until she had consumed all except the feelers and harder parts of the shell; then, leaving by the way she had entered, she skirted reef and ledge in the dawn-light, and made straight for the clitter. Her one thought was for her famished cubs, which, before the sun was very high, she was suckling from her abundance, purring whilst they fed.
That day a thaw set in, and a shag appeared on theSeal Rock; The otter, who had shifted his quarters to avoid the drippings from the cliffs, after watching the bird’s fishing for a time, began himself to fish. At the end of a long, fruitless quest he landed; but now, in his extremity, no longer careful for his safety, he lay out in the open on a granite boulder. Happily no harm came of it. Through the night he and his mate hunted in the deep water beyond the rock, still without seeing a fin, so that when the sun peeped above the sea the creatures returned to the cliffs in despair. At noon the mother brought her puny little ones from the dank cave and laid them in the sun’s rays to enjoy the genial warmth;but as they soon cried to be fed, for fear their plaints might betray them she carried them back to the nest, and there, lulled by the sob of the restless tide, she at length dropped off to sleep.
She might have slept for two hours when the clamour of sea-fowl awakened her and brought her in haste to the edge of the clitter, where the otter was already on his feet gazing at a flock ofgulls, whose excited movements showed they were over fish. Whilst they looked the shoal disappeared, and the gulls dispersed—like the wonderful scouts they are—to watch for its return to the surface. The instant the birds congregated over an agitated patch of water between the clitter and the Seal Rock the eager otters slipped into the sea. Soon they were near enough to distinguish the silvery spoil in the beaks of the birds, and two minutes later they were in the middle of the shoal.
Luckily the fish were sprats, so small that the otters could eat them without landing, and if the shoal had remained long on the surface the animals would have filled themselves to repletion; but before they had gobbled down a tithe of what they needed the fish again sought the depths. The otters pursued as far as breath allowed, raising themselves in the water whenthey came up, to look towards the direction the fish had taken. Time after time they stood up to gaze over the heaving surface, but with the gathering of the dusk and the withdrawal of the gulls to the cliffs they ceased, and landed on the Seal Rock.
As the few sprats had excited rather than allayed their appetite, after a short rest they began to fish again, little dreaming of the struggle in which they were almost at once to be engaged. For they had scarcely reached the bottom when a tiny fish darted across an opening between two clumps of weed; close behind, in pursuit of it, came a bigconger. At once they took up the chase of the pursuer where it followed its prey from tangle to rock and from rock to tangle and presently, when a sudden turn brought them within striking distance of the unsuspecting fish, they rose from beneath, careening over so as to fasten on the fleshy throat. Their teeth had scarcely met before the still depths were convulsed by the writhings of the fish in its efforts to shake off its assailants, who however hung on till their victim grew quieter. Then, using their tails and hind-feet, they raised their prey through fathom after fathom until, for lack of breath, they had to let go and come to the top. It was a fewseconds only before they were back again; but the disabled fish made good use of the interval, and had reached the mouth of the cave when they overhauled it. They began anew to drag it towards the surface. The monster writhed in their grip, trying again and again to fold its tail about some projecting rock past which it was being lifted, but it failed to get a hold, and was borne up, and up, and up, until the stars were just visible through the water. Then the otters were again compelled to let go and rise to breathe. At the third attempt they barely held their own against the fish, so violent was its resistance; at the next, however, after a terrible struggle they succeeded in getting it to the surface, where with glowing eyes they lay and rested beside their ghostlike prey before essaying to land it. Soon they began towing it to the cliffs towards which the tide had drifted them, but before they had got far the conger, singling out the stronger enemy, strove to coil itself about the otter. Failing to get a grip of the slippery, lissom form, it lashed the sea as if to vent its rage at its own impotence. Then it took to shaking its head and snapping its jaws. The otters however had it helpless, and held grimly on their way till they brought it to the edge of the breakers, wherefrom sheer exhaustion they let go, resting awhile to recover a little strength before committing themselves to the welter of the surf. Though the fish too seemed to be at its last gasp, suddenly, as if roused by the warning voice of the breakers to a final effort, it shook itself free from the otters, who had seized it as it stirred, and, with a great swirl, disappeared beneath the surface. Like a flash the otters were after it, but rose without it once and again. The third time the fish was between them. Almost immediately a wave bigger than its fellows curled over them, buried them in its mass of waters, and hurled them on the sand, up which the otters dragged their prize inch by inch till they had brought it to a wide table of rock beyond reach of the surf. Although out of the water, the conger still writhed until the otter bit through its great backbone; then it lay almost quiet whilst the starving creatures sliced and munched and gulped as if they never would be satisfied. Satiety however came at last, and when they could eat no more they withdrew to the clitter—night though it was—to sleep off the orgy that marked the close of the days of want.
With the continuance of mild weather pollack and plaice returned to the inshore waters, so thatsoon, through the plentiful supply of food, the otters regained their good condition, whilst the cubs lost their emaciated appearance and throve apace. From that time the ties that bound the otter to his mate grew looser and looser, and a week after the young had learnt to swim he left her altogether, to resume his solitary life.
For a while he kept to theheadland and the cliffs near theGull Rock: then, tiring of these haunts, he crossed to the wild coast opposite, where he lingered week after week, until the breath of spring quickened his roving instincts and set him longing for the old trails. So he retraced his steps from the point of the promontory to which he had penetrated, and on the night of the full moon drifted up theestuary toTide End. There, after fishing, he sought the shelter of a pile of faggots before the villagers were astir. He slept soundly, despite the near neighbourhood of man, and when dusk fell swam past the lighted cottages towards the wood. Landing there and striking straight through the trees, he held on without a stop till he reached the rude wall at the upper end, on which he stood to listen to the croakings proceeding from the marshy flat beyond. Presently he stole towards the biggest of the pools that silvered the rushy waste; butwhen about midway he must have been heard or seen, for the frogs there ceased their chorus, and forthwith the marsh became as silent as when in the grip of the frost. On gaining the water’s edge he dived, and in a twinkling was back witha frog, which he skinned and devoured. This was the first of some half a score that he caught and ate before repairing to a ditch-like piece of water, dark from the shadowing alders, where he long remained feasting. At length he had had enough and, leaving the marsh, made for the river, which he followed mile after mile till he reached the morass and laid up in the hollow bank in which he was born.
Meanwhile otter-hunting had begun, and all the country-side over men were on the lookout for his tracks. Not since the mysterious disappearance of the bob-tailed fox had so keen an interest been taken in any wild creature. Through the winter he had been the topic of conversation in the chimney-corner of cotter and crofter, and a very frequent intruder on the thoughts of the squire. The slightest association was enough to recall the creature to his mind: the sound of running water, the appearance of a salmon-poacher in court, even the sight of the short-legged animal carved on the screen of the parishchurch—indeed, his preoccupation showed itself in many acts of his daily life.
Whilst the snow lasted he went every morning to the pond to look for tracks, and as soon as the first daffodils bloomed he began to dip his hand in the streams to try their temperature, longing for the time when the water would be warm enough for the hounds to draw them. In the meantime he busied himself with the various duties of amaster of otter hounds. He visited the kennels every day to make sure that the hounds got road exercise to harden their feet. He succeeded after much trouble in inducing the keepers on neighbouring estates to remove the traps which had been the bane of the Hunt. A fortnight before the opening meet he rode round to see the water-bailiff, the miller, the moorman, old Ikey, and the marshman, asked them to keep a lookout for the otter, and parted from each of them with the words, ‘Now don’t forget, my man. Morning, noon, or night, bring me word if you strike his trail.’ It is not true, as alleged by the gossips of the port, that he offered a reward of ten pounds for information that should lead to the finding and death of the otter, though had there been an offer of twice that sum thetrackers could not have shown greater keennessthan they did. There was evidence of it even before the search began, for every man from far and near who meant to take a part turned up at the hour fixed for theallotment of the waters, determined to get his rights. This unusual procedure had been adopted at the instance of the squire, in order to avoid the disputes and bad blood which he foresaw would arise unless the beats were formally assigned before the season opened.
Raftra, in his ‘Annals of our Village,’ gives a very full account of the meeting. It took place at theDruid’s Arms, with Reuben Gribble, thelandlord, in the chair. Between him and the red-bearded water-bailiff sat the venerable tenant of the Home Farm, called in ostensibly on account of his wide knowledge of the streams, but really because of his well-known powers of conciliation, which were needed as soon as the business of the evening began. The chief difficulty was with Sandy, the bailiff, who claimed by virtue of his office the whole length of the river, fromTide End to Lone Tarn. Though he was one against a score, counting the men in the doorway, he seemed bent on maintaining the unreasonable position he had taken up. When the miller and the moorman asked him for the reaches whichthey preferred and which every man round the table thought they were entitled to, he brushed their requests aside as if they were nobodies. As Raftra says, a Lord High Ranger couldn’t have treated vagrom men with more contempt. This haughty demeanour enraged everyone; in fact, it was all Geordie and the wilder spirits could do to keep their clenched fists off the bailiff’s person. As it was, angry words passed, but when a fight between the gipsy and the Scot seemed imminent, the oldreeve rose, lifted his thin hands to command silence, and said:
‘Don’t quarrel, my friends—don’t quarrel; better the otter never came anist us if it’s to lead to blows. And yet, as an old tracker, it does my heart good to see how eager every man of ’ee is to get a good beat. For what else does it mean but this, that the love of sport among us is as strong as ever it was? It makes me long to be one of ’ee, it do; to be young again, abroad at peep o’ day, when the sun is touchin’ the cairns and the wakin’ world is fresh and sweet, to feel once more the joy of comin’ on the wild rover’s prents. This minit in my mind’s eye I can see the five round toe marks and the seal of the otter I spurred beside theKieve. You’ve heard of the sport he gave. An old man’s tongue will runaway with him—run riot, I ought to call it. Your indulgence, my friends, and your further patience while I touch on the matter that brought me to my feet. And let me say by way of preliminary and to all alike, don’t be overreachin’; don’t, simply to keep others out, claim more water than you can search. “Live and let live” is a good motto for a sportsman, be he Englishman or Scot; and this I’m sure of, that my friend beside me will look at things as a big-minded man always do, and prove himself the good neighbour we’ve taken him for.
‘Mr. Macpherson, we’ve treated ’ee like one of ourselves since the coach dropped ’ee at the crossroads now three year back; the more so, maybe, since we’ve got to understand your mouthspeech. True, there was a little soreness because Zachy Kelynack didn’t get the job, but only for a month or two; and we did our best to hide it, agreein’ among ourselves that if theDuchy slighted our own man, ’twas no fault of yourn, and no case for pitchin’ and featherin’, or even for the pump. Come to look back upon it, for a rough-and-ready sort of people, whose parish is their world, we met thee handsomely, though I say it, as I hope we shall every strainyer who looks us straight in the eyes and does his duty withoutfear or favour. Now, is it askin’ ’ee too much to show a friendly spirit in return and a little consideration for local feelin’?’ Here the speaker paused; but, as thebailiff showed no sign of giving in, he went on: ‘Come, come, Sandy, only try and see the matter as we do. William Rechard and Matthew Henry were born and reared upon the moor, and have known the river all their lives. Right or no right, do ’ee wonder they think theirselves entitled to a reach or two? No, you cannot, you do not. Be strong, my friend, and give way.’
Now, it was not so much what the old man said as the way he said it that made the appeal seem irresistible to all but the bailiff. And truly the voice and manner of the speaker, mellow as the rich light that flooded the low-raftered room, would have gone home to men even less emotional than his countrymen; but the dour Scot seemed to be not the least affected till the landlord, who had hurriedly disappeared through a side-door, returned with a double-handled jug of old cider, and by the influence of the seductive liquid brought him to reason. At the fourth cup he gave in with a good grace, yielding to the miller the three miles of water above the mill. At the sixth he granted the reach above Moor Pool tothemoorman, who also got the stream near his cot; old Ikey got the Liddens, as was only fair, since the pools were on his holding; themarshman, the marsh; and thepoachers shared the waters that remained, the order of choice being decided by the length of straw, drawn from the landlord’s closed hand. Geordie and Tom, who as leaders of their profession had first and second choice, to their chagrin got the shortest straws.
Now for rivercraft or marshcraft the fourteen men that daily gave at least an hour or two to the search could not, perhaps, have been matched outside that most ancient terrain of the otter-hunter, the Principality of Wales. Yet though the otter followed the usual trails over the moor, the trackers never once came on a sign of him. The reason is not far to seek. The beds of the river and the streams are for the most part rocky, the shallows and landing-places pebbly, and spits of sand are few and far between. It was on these last that the trackers relied to find the footprints, and at dawn they might have been seen bending over them, plying their craft as eagerly as men seeking gold or precious stones. They found nothing, for the otter had never set foot there. Once, indeed, he left his tracks within abowshot of Moor Pool—tracks so plain that they seemed to cry out; but before the bailiff reached the spot the river rose and obliterated them, and the bailiff never knew how near he had been to discovery.
After the quest had gone on for nearly a month, when men and squire were beginning to fear that the otter had abandoned the district or that his skin was adorning the bedroom floor of some keeper who had trapped him, by the merest chance the moorman happened on the prints near the boundary of his little holding. He was struck all of a heap, as he said, at the unexpected sight; but on recovering himself he remembered the squire’s words and the look in his eyes, so, though the sun was only a few handbreaths above the moor, he left the peat where he had dropped it and set off at a brisk pace for the Big House. In his excitement he forgot the hounds were out until he reached the wood; but there, to the amazement of the watchingwoodman, who had wondered at his haste, he suddenly turned, late as it was, and made for the cross-roads, hoping to intercept the squire and save himself a very long journey.
By good luck the moorman reached the top of the hill just in time to hail the squire as he rodeby, and ran down breathless to where he had drawn rein.
‘Tracked un at laist,squire,’ he gasped.
‘Good news, Pearce. I’ve had a long day, but I’ll go back with you.’
‘It’s a brave way off, sir.’
‘No matter.’
So leaving the hounds to the whipper-in, he accompanied the man to the moor, and examined the tracks by the light of the lantern the moorman had fetched from his cottage.
‘They’re his, right enough, Pearce. Funny place to come on them.’
‘’Tes and ’tesn’t, come to think of it, for I’ve spurred otters on this very bit of ground more than once before, and all goin’ the same way. ’Tes a line of traffic from the strame to the revur.’
‘Ah, that’s interesting. But, my word, what amazing prints they are! What weight do you put him at?’
‘Afeerd to say, sir.’
‘They’re a couple of days old, Pearce.’
‘Iss, sir, all that, but you mind what you told me.’
‘All right, my man. I attach no blame; that’s not my meaning.’
‘He’s alive and in the country, sir.’
‘Yes, yes; to be sure he’s in the country. Great thing to know that. It will hearten every man of us. Great day, red-letter day when we drop on him, eh, Pearce?’
Then he rose to his feet, but was almost immediately on his knees again for a last look. At length he tore himself away, slipped a crown-piece into the moorman’s hand, remounted, bade the man good-night, and galloped off.
Now the moorman on his way to stop the squire had overtaken and told the post-woman: the blacksmith at the cross-roads had overheard what he said; and from these two the news spread so rapidly and so far that before the morrow’s sundown it was known through the country-side that the otter had been tracked on Matthew Henry’s splosh, that the squire had gone there and seen the prints with his own eyes. To what a pitch of excitement thetrackers were aroused by the tidings may be imagined. Most of them were at the stream-side at the first glimmer of day, and all of them remained out hours longer than usual. The squire, expecting that word of the otter might be brought at any moment, feared to leave the house. He had even given orders that Limpetty, the whipper-in, was tohave his meals at the kennels and to sleep in the loft.
But the otter’s plans ran counter to the hopes and expectations of his enemies. On the third day after the discovery of his tracks he forsook the moorland for the creek, where he feasted on mussels and flounders till he tired of them. Then he made down the estuary to the headland; he robbed thetrammels and spillers of the choicest fish, and on one occasion actually took a bass off a whiffing-line.
Thus another month passed, by the end of which the trackers who had stood so high in the estimation of their neighbours began to be made slight of, and even to be laughed at. Right welcome to them were the heavy rains that rendered river and streams unfit for hunting and furnished a sound excuse for discontinuing the hopeless quest. The flood was indeed a big one, as the mark on the door of the miller’s stable testifies. To this day the old men at the port will tell you they never before knew the sea stained to such a distance by the peaty water, adding in the same breath that the run of fish was ‘a sight to see.’
Harbour and estuary seemed alive as the salmon made their way up the river: peoplegathered at different spots to see them pass. Villagers crowded the bridge atTide End where the fish take the weir; Geordie and Tom stood at the fall beneath the pines; themiller, at the foot of his garden, watched them go up the new ladder.
‘Bra run, Reuben,’ remarked he to thelandlord at his side.
‘Iss, fy, and good fish among ’em. That’s a heavy fish goin’ up now. He’ll do it; no, he won’t, he an’t. That basin is like Malachi’s hen, too high in the instep. I said it was when they were puttin’ un in.’
As the miller took no notice, he bellowed in his ear, ‘Custna hear what I’m sayin’, you?’
‘Hear! Of course I can; I’m not deef. Hear, indeed! Thee wust drown the roar of a dozen floods, thee wust! What have ’ee got to say?’
‘Why, only this, that he’ll be up afore long.’
‘What do ’ee mean by he?’
‘What do I mean? What can a man mean these days but one thing?’
‘How teasy you are.’
‘Teasy, indeed! Do ’ee wonder at it? That varmint has got on my nerves. I’m always thinkin’ about un, I caan’t sleep for’n, and if I do, I see un in my dreams. Most like he willcome up; and I hope and trust he will, and that the hounds will find and kill un, or what’ll become of the parish I don’t know. From the squire to Tom Burn-the-Reed we’re gettin’ in a poor way, and you the one man gettin’ any good out of it.’
When the flood began to fall the otter did come up, and the first night spent hour after hour, to no purpose, chasing salmon in the pool below the rapids. At dawn he climbed to the ivy-covered branch of a tree overhanging the river, to sleep as well as his uncomfortable quarters allowed. That night he killed in theKieve; early in the morning the moorman disturbed a pair ofbuzzards from the remains of his feast, and tried to cross to look for tracks; but the current was dangerous, and after being nearly washed off his feet he turned back. The river had not yet fallen to hunting level; but as soon as it had, the bailiff, the miller and all the others were out again, confident that the otter was up and, despite previous failures, hopeful that they would come on his track on one of the many new sand-spits left by the receding waters.