HOUNDS SWIMMING AN OTTER.To face p. 78.
HOUNDS SWIMMING AN OTTER.To face p. 78.
Round and round the big pool swims the otter, rising now under the bank, now amongst the hounds, narrowly escaping their jaws. Time after time she returns to the cubs, but only to be ejected by one or other of the terriers. At last, after being badly shaken by the hounds, she lands, gallops round the line of men with the white terrier at her rudder, and gains the water beyond. At amazing speed she follows the winding reaches to the rapids, and even succeeds in gainingLongen Pool, famous in the annals of the Hunt. However, the hounds again press her sorely, and after a while she takes to the tangled coppice on the hillside, traverses it, reaches an ancient hedgerow matted with bramble and thorn, and there lies listening, trusting to have escaped pursuit. But she has left a burning scent, and soon the cry of the pursuers warns her that her hopes are vain. Nevertheless, asshe is very weary, and as the pool to which the hedge runs down offers no harbourage, she remains where she is. But though the hounds soon wind her, the denseness of the thicket hinders them from getting at her until the terriers force her to the river. In the shallow water every eye can mark her where she swims and note her shortening dives. The end is near. Presently Dosmary seizes her as she rises, and the pack worries her life out.
That night, when the storm had passed, themiller heard the cries of two otters in the tangled coppice beyond the orchard, and as he knocked the ashes from his pipe before going indoors, said: ‘They’re missin’ her, I’m thinkin’.’ He was right. It was the voice of the cubs calling for their mother.
They were there again the next night, and the next; after that they gave up the vain search and withdrew to the moorland.
It was well for the young creatures, thus thrown on their own resources, that they were able to fend for themselves. Indeed, as has been seen, the male cub had already shown signs of revolt against his mother’s authority, and of a desire for independence.
He was free now, free to roam as he liked, tokeep to the trail or leave it as he pleased, to fish when and where he chose; for his sister had no influence over him. Yet, for all his selfish, headstrong ways, he proved a safe leader, his movements being inspired by the wariness of the outlawed creature. He was a stickler for good hours, rising late and couching early. He curbed his passion for wandering, and showed rare judgment in the choice of hovers, selecting always with an eye to strength and invariably shunning such as were not near deep water where refuge might be sought in emergency. On sallying out he generally fished upstream for a mile or two, gambolled till the night was nearly gone, and then floated back with the current, shooting the rapids and lesser falls on the way. Yet fear haunted both him and his sister, for they carefully scrutinized every bush, rock, and bole that might harbour an enemy, and their fears grew to terror once when they happened on the remains of one of their kind recently killed by the hounds. On the discovery they were at once all consternation, as their puffing and blowing showed, and forthwith forsook the tributary for the river, kennelling at the end of their hurried retreat in a hover below the mill. They lay in this holt on the following day, but thenext found them ensconced under the bank of the weir pool at Tide End. There they were waked towards noon by the tide, which rose and rose till it invaded their quarters, and compelled them to seek refuge in the opposite bank, where a young dog-otter was already lying up. Their coming startled him not a little, but the moment he saw the new arrivals were otters like himself he settled down again, and soon all three were sound asleep. At dusk they journeyed on together and, after fishing and sporting in the salmon pool below the morass, sought the roots of the alder. They lay there again on the morrow, a morrow momentous in one of its happenings—the separation of the cubs. For when, at setting-out time, the male cub began moving up-water, his sister, till that moment the most faithful of followers, turned her back on him and, with the strange otter at her heels, struck into the wood. She had renounced the brother for the lover. Is it possible, animal though she is, that she can abandon the companion of her life hitherto, without some sign of regret? May not the slowness of her steps indicate reluctance to sever the ties that have so long bound them? Surely it is so, for just as she is about to enter the undergrowth, she stopsand turns her head to find her brother watching her. The next minute, however, she has passed out of his sight and out of his life, as, with her mate, she follows the trail that leads by the woodman’s cottage and the cairn to the distant mussel creek whither she is bound.
CHAPTER VII
THE OTTER AT THE TARN
So the otter held on his way alone, and before dawn broke sought shelter in the wooded ravine next the edge of the moor.
The rocky recess was one of the favourite holts of his kind, partly on account of the dry lying it afforded, but more because of its congenial surroundings. The seclusion, the gloom, the roar of the fall, and the tumult of the pool all contributed to please the shy wildling; and he became so fond of the ledge by the foaming waters that, like abadger to its earth, the young nomad returned to it again and again, till at length the instinct to roam began to cry out against his unnatural conduct and urged him to seek new quarters. ‘Wander, wander,’ repeated the voice that grew more insistent as the days stole by. ‘Tarry, my child, tarry,’ replied the spirit of the glen; and for a while—a little while—he resolved to stay. Yet before his short sojourn came to an end the pool was sought by a huntedstag and turned into a pandemonium.
THE OTTER.Reproduced by kind permission of Mr. J. G. Millais.To face p. 84.
THE OTTER.
Reproduced by kind permission of Mr. J. G. Millais.
To face p. 84.
Not by mere chance, after rounding the base ofLone Tarn, was the beast’s antlered head set for the ravine. It was there he had first seen the light. The early weeks of his life had been spent in the ferny clearing where the otter’s trail ran, and his mother used to lead him, a dappled calf, down the steep bank to drink at the shallows of the otter’s pool. Four years had passed since then; but the memory of the sombre, sequestered glen and of the pool at the foot of the high fall was still clear in his mind, and to them he turned his wearied steps in the hour of his distress. After crossing the rugged purlieus of the woodland, he threaded his way between the stems of the birches and, entering the ravine at its lower end, made his way up and up along the shaded waters until he came opposite the holt, where a submerged rock permitted foothold. His wild rush through the shallows had filled the startled sleeper with alarm; but the otter did not understand the cause of the strange creature’s distress until the cry of the pursuers caught his ears—a cry that swelled louder and louder until every hound had splashed into the pool and swam there, baying their quarry with deafening clamour. More than once whilst the din was at its height the otter was on the point of slippinginto the water and stealing away; but it was well he refrained, for presently the stag broke its bay and made off down the river, drawing the pack after it.
Then, though calm returned to the pool from which it had been so ruthlessly banished, it brought no peace to the otter. Apeel leaped where the stag had stood, trout rose where the hounds had clustered, pigeons ‘roohooed’ overhead, and a squirrel came down and drank at the water, yet the otter was still perturbed. His faith in the holt was gone, and he longed for dusk that he might leave it and get away from the taint of hound that drowned the scent of moss and fern and poisoned the sweet, fresh breath of the river. He did not await the fall of night, for a faint glow yet lighted the spaces between the boles when he left, and as he came out upon the moor, the sky was still red with the embers of sunset. Far ahead loomed the familiar outline of the solitary hill, as yet unvisited; and now at last he determined to follow the stream that veined it to the summit, and there find the refuge that the specious ravine denied.
At a good pace he moved over the heather and bog till, a furlong or so beyond some stacksof turf, he came to a sudden standstill. It seemed as if he had caught some suspicious sound along the back trail, for his head was suddenly turned that way; but, discerning nothing, he resumed his brisk trot along the bank that at this point rose high above the rushing river. Soon he came to the tributary down which his mother had led him and, swimmingMoor Pool, as the meeting of the waters is called, he crossed to the opposite bank and kept it till he reached the troubled‘Kieve’ at the base of the hill. As though haunted by the memory of the hounds, he again looked back over the moor, now black under the stars; but in the end, after peering long and satisfying himself that no enemy followed his trail, he slipped into the foaming basin in search of the trout it contained, and on two of these fish made a hurried supper before beginning the climb of the great cone that towered grim and forlorn above him. He kept close to the wild, headlong stream, and made the ascent by scrambling up the rocks that abutted on fall and cascade. Far, far up, his nostrils caught the scent of a body of water, and in his eagerness to reach it he redoubled his pace and soon gained the crest. There he found himself face to face with a tarn—a tarn of aspect as forbidding asthe strangely contrasted shores that encompass it, for the sheet of water lies sullen and monotonous between precipitous rocks and a beach of grey shingle. No islet rears its head above the surface; no line of flotsam marks the shelving strand. The wanderer had come out on the shingly beach, and after sniffing the water he trotted leisurely along its edge, and presently descried a small bed of reeds, till then hidden by a rocky headland. Gladdened by the discovery, he mended his pace, yet kept surveying the tarn, doubtless on the lookout for signs of prey. A wave in the shallows, a splash, or even a dimple, any break of the water, would have betrayed the presence of some finny inhabitant, of which, however, his nose had given him no hint; but the surface had no message for him. Neither was there a single wild-fowl; there was no animal of any sort. At the far end, however, and almost in his path as he made the circuit of the pool, lay the skeleton of a giantpike. Though the vertebræ had dropped into crannies between the stones, the bleached skull, its open jaws bristling with teeth, was the most conspicuous object on that desolate shore. Yet dry bones apparently had no more interest for him than the newly risen moon, for he passed on and clamberedover the rocks towards the reeds, where he was soon at work preparing a couch in which to pass the coming day. The unusual noise awoke abuzzard in his eyrie above, and kept him awake until the otter ceased trampling the stems and entered the water; then he lowered his head on his wing and dropped asleep again.
The otter, meanwhile, swam towards the horn of the bay, his long back flush with the surface, scarce rippled by his advance. When clear of the point, he dived and began exploring the recesses and ledges. There was not a harbourage along the cliff’s base that he did not investigate, but he did not sight a single fish. Reaching the glassy surface by the overflow, he spreadeagled himself and drifted more and more quickly towards the lip of the fall, till it seemed that nothing could save him from going over; but within a foot or two of the brink he suddenly wheeled, and extricated himself by rapid strokes that took him within a score yards of the beach. Then he dived again and quested along the stretch between the shallows and the deep. This likely hunting-ground also proved as void of fish as the water under the cliff; so at the farther end he landed, shook his coat, and rolled on the shingle, thus catching the skull of the pike, whichhe sent flying over the stones. The rattle it made caused him to run after it, and the grim toy served to amuse him, for he played with it much as a kitten plays with a ball.
Not so had its owner been bandied about by his forbears. More than one otter, appalled by his great bulk and terrible jaws, had shrunk from tackling him: even the father of the cub was glad, after a tussle that convulsed the little bay, to reach the rocks and escape with his life. But famine had effected what no enemy could effect—a famine caused by the ravages of otter, of heron, ofcormorant, of the pike themselves, reducing the fish one by one till only the monster of the reedy bay remained. Whilst strength lasted he made a daily circuit of his wasted realm for prey to satisfy his maddening hunger. As his weakness increased, his beat dwindled, until one day, after but a short cruise, it was all he could do to regain his station among the reeds. There he lingered till death claimed him. His gaunt carcass, still beautiful with its marblings of olive and gold, rose to the surface, and the west wind wafted it to the strand, where the terror of one generation became the sport of the next.
The otter, however, soon tired of toyingwith the skull and, leaving it where he found it, he made along the rocks towards the spot where the precipice rises almost sheer from the tarn, and began to scour the face of the cliff. He seemed as surefooted as a marten, and never once slipped or stumbled as he dropped from shelf to shelf whose scanty width in places all but denied foothold. Three times he made the descent, leaping from ledge to ledge like the overflow rushing down the hillside; but, unlike the stream, he leaped in silence, save for the muffled thud of his spongy feet as they struck the rock on landing. The last time he dived, rose at the end of a long swim by the boulder flanking the outlet, climbed to the top, and lay down at full length. The water ran from his unshaken coat, leaving it smooth and refulgent in the moonlight, as he reposed there gazing at the windings of the river on the plain below. Soon however the restless creature rose and plunged again into the tarn, where he gambolled, partly on the surface, but chiefly beneath amongst the currents that well up from the unfathomed depths. And so the hours sped till, when the moon had set and the stars wellnigh paled, he gave over disporting himself and swam towards his lair. On the way thither, forgettingthat he was alone, he uttered the dawn cry, and the next moment rounded the point and gained the reeds. In the grey light, thebuzzard winging his way to the moorland saw him curled up there, holding one of his pads in his mouth,—asleep, as he knew by the slow, regular rise and fall of his flank.
But what creature is that astir near the outlet? It must be some other wildling come to share the primal solitude of the hilltop. Yet its movements are not those of a four-footed beast. Surely, surely it is a—is it possible? Yes, it is a man! He is clear of the rocks now, and is picking his way across the current. Now he has landed, and look, look how he hurries up the strand, and how suddenly he drops to the ground on the crest! Strange conduct in this lone place and at such an hour! He must be under the ban of his fellows, a fugitive, maybe, from hue and cry, and fearful of discovery.
Nothing of the kind. That man is Grylls theharbourer, from the deer forest; but otter, not stag, has drawn him here this morning, and eagerness to examine the ground below is the reason of his haste. Already, glass to eye, he follows the course of the tributary on his left, hopeful every second of seeing an otter makingits way to the clitter near the stream. How carefully he scans the banks, and what a time he dwells on the pile of hoary rocks yet spectral in the uncertain light! ‘No luck, no luck,’ he mutters, as he turns the glass to the tributary zigzagging across the western moor. Yet he is all expectation, and great will be his joy if only he can get a glimpse of the long, dark creature hieing to some holt. Away up to the boggy gathering ground he traces the narrowing water, surveys in vain the pools amidst thatcurlew-haunted waste, then with quick movement, redirects the glass to the clitter, already much less dim and mysterious. Little wonder that that particular refuge attracts him so strongly, that he scrutinizes the approaches so carefully. It was there that he once marked an otter enter; and the memory of the sport it gave has drawn him year after year to the hilltop in the hope of harbouring another. Again and again he surveys first one stream, then the other, but with no better result; then he hurriedly examines the river from the foot of the hill to Moor Pool, where the hounds will presently meet. ‘Nothin’ movin’, nothin’ at all, and day close handy. You may as well shut up the glass.’ Soon the fleecy clouds crowding the vault are tinged withrose, pool and stream catch the foreglow, the reflection in the tarn is like an almond grove in bloom, and the sun shows below the crimson streaks that had heralded it. At the sight Grylls returns the glass to his pocket and, feeling chilled, jumps to his feet and walks briskly up and down on the rim of the great basin to warm himself.
Had he seen an otter he would by this be crossing the moor to meet the squire and tell, instead of pacing to and fro waiting for the hounds and glancing down now and again towards the spot where he expects to see them. It is full day by this, and river and tributary stream stretch across the purple moorland like golden threads. ‘Grand mornin’. Ah! if we can only find!’ he sighed, as the uncertainty of the sport flashed across his mind. ‘If! But there, man, ’tes no use iffin’. Wait and hope for the best.’ All at once the harbourer stopped and, screwing up his eyes, looked steadily towards the solitary clump of pines to which from time to time he had directed his gaze. ‘Here they come, and a good few with ’em. Ah! ah! and there’s one, two, three, four comin’ up-river, and Matthey—it caan’t be anybody else—crossing the foord. There’ll be a brave little meet toend the season.’ Then he lay down again on the heather, raised the glass to his eye, and turned it on the party with the hounds. ‘The squire and the passun, of coorse. Wonder if church moosic or hound cry do stir un most. “Everything in its season, Grylls,” that would be his answer, and said kindly. He is a good sort, is the passun, and dearly loves a kill. And theere’s Doctor Jim, in his white hat. Lor’! he ain’t missed theMoor Pool meet for seven-and-thirty year. Iss, seven-and-thirty year, Grylls, and it’s seven-and-thirty times you’ve sat where you’re sittin’ now to the hour, and wellnigh to the day, and’—counting the notches on his stick—‘it’s nine otters you’ve seen killed on the moor. Who can they be with the Doctor? Strainyers, I reckon, stayin’ at the big house most like. Ah! theere’s Black Geordie, and the keeper, and the landlord, and Tom “Burn the Reed” walkin’ with the bailiff hisself as large as life and as brazen as Sally Strout at the christenin’. Well, he’s got a face, and no mistake! Wonder how many salmin he’s took out this turn.’
Thus he lay and made his comments whilst the party approached Moor Pool, but no sooner did they reach the bank than his demeanourchanged and he sprang to his feet as though an adder had stung him. And no wonder, for thehounds at once struck the line of the otter, and made down-river at full cry. ‘Well now, Grylls,’ said he, ‘is it go or stay? Why, stay, of coorse; sure as you’re alive they’ll be back again.’ So he stood watching and watching and watching till hounds and men became blurred by distance, and at last disappeared into the wood. ‘You’re out of it, git chucklehead!’ said he, as he lowered the glass. ‘Why didn’t ’ee go down to the meet as you always do? You’re gettin’ lazy. You’re out of it, out of it, and come fifteen mile for nothin’! Pick up the pony and shog home along; there’s nothin’ else for ’ee to do.’ In his rage he kicked the loose rock at his feet, and sent it bounding down the face of the hill. Nevertheless, it was not many seconds before he was again scrutinizing the spot where the river falls to the ravine, and before long he exclaimed, ‘Halloo! what’s that? Ah, theere ’tes again and again; the glint of the horn, I’ll be bound.’ He was all excitement now, and watching as he had never watched before in his life. ‘What’s that—eh, eh? It’s they, it’s they! See, thee’re crossin’ the bend of Zingey Pool.’ Though the hounds were scarcely discerniblehe was right: they were returning and becoming more and more distinct every minute. ‘Hoorah,’ he shouted in his exultation; ‘the otter must have come up-water laast night; wheere’s he lyin’, wonder.’ His eyes, almost starting from his head, followed the pack as it drew nearer and nearer to Moor Pool. They reached it; then he was all anxiety to see whether they would take up the tributary or keep to the river. Like a man toeing the line for a foot-race he stood ready to start, and if they had gone up the stream he would have descended the hill at breakneck speed; but they did not: they came on. ‘Niver such a bit of luck in all my born days,’ said he, his weather-beaten face beaming with delight. Presently, as the deep bay, like the bay of bloodhounds, reached his ears: ‘What moosic! how wild and savage and grand it is! eh, and what a sight for one pair of eyes! The squire’d give gold to be in my shoes.’ Not for a single instant did the harbourer divert his gaze from the pack. ‘Pretty, pretty,’ he kept saying as the hounds, time after time, recovered the line momentarily lost. ‘They’re travellin’ fast. It’s time to be going down. I’ll lay a groat the otter’s in the Kieve.’ With a bound he was off and, following the overflow, had just reached the big boulderfrom which the buzzard sometimes watched the moor, when, to his surprise, he saw Dosmary and Tuneful just beginning the ascent of the hill.
‘Niver lyin’ up round the tarn! ’Tes ten year agone since they found theere. However, here they come, here the beauties come.’
There was a strange tenderness in his voice, but the light that leapt to his eyes told still more plainly how he was stirred. He watched them for a few moments, so that the whole pack was in sight before he began retracing his steps, and quickly as his sinewy legs carried him up the steep, the hounds had passed him when he gained the crest. Quivering with excitement, he stood again for a moment with his eyes on them as they streamed along the strand; then he tore along in their wake.
He might have covered twoscore yards, during which the pack had swept round the end of the tarn to the rocks, when a crash of music proclaimed the find, and brought him up in his stride. Soon the white-and-tan heads of the leading hounds showed as they rounded the point. One glance he gave them—only one: then his eyes were all for the otter. Whilst he watched the water well in front of the pack,the otter rose, shook his head, rested until his pursuers were within a few yards of him, and dived, showing his back and rudder. ‘Takin’ things quietly, are ’ee?’ said the harbourer in high glee; and then, presently, on observing the hounds lick up the scent as they swam, ‘They’re tonguing the ream brave.’ Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, when up came the otter within a few yards of him. The excited ‘Tally-ho!’ with which he greeted him made the welkin ring.
Thesquire would always have it that he heard the penetrating scream; but however that may be, it was a good half-hour before he appeared on the summit, and by that time the otter had given the pack the slip and set the harbourer wondering what had become of it. He was amongst the reeds and hidden by the rocks when the squire came up near the overflow, but his cries, as he cheered the pack, betrayed his whereabouts, and presently the squire hailed him across the tarn: ‘Have you viewed the otter, my man?’ ‘Iss, sir, over and over again, but he’s creapt away somewheere out of mark.’ The hounds raised their heads on hearing their master’s voice, and when he sang out, ‘Seek him, my lads! wind him, my lads!’ they bustledabout, searching along the foot of the cliff as if they meant to find; and very soon they did find, but in a place where neither hounds nor terrier could reach the quarry. The doctor, who was nearest, at once made his way to the spot where the hounds were clamouring and, lying flat on the ledge, succeeded in dislodging the game from its retreat by means of the pole he carried. Thus driven from his only refuge, the otter got no rest. As a good scent guided the hounds, the hunted creature’s only chance lay in wearying out his pursuers. And what endurance he showed! He dived hither and thither for over three hours and never landed once; but all in vain, the pack showed no signs of tiring.
At last, in desperation, he slipped over the fall into the pool below and passed down the stream, searching for a hiding-place as he went. Soon he reached the boulder from which the harbourer had watched the hounds and, sighting the crevice at its base, swam through the narrow opening to the hollowed space within. Scarcely was he ensconced when he heard the cry of his pursuers, and a minute later the maddened creatures were roaring at the mouth of his retreat. Squire and followers came tearing down the hill, and when the whipper-in had succeeded in calling off thehounds, Venom, the terrier, was sent in to drive the otter out. ‘He’ll soon have un out,’ said a man in a blue guernsey who knew his worth. But hard and game as the terrier was, the otter was his match. So the squire must have thought, for he determined to send Vic to his assistance. As soon as she was released, the eager little thing swam whining along the passage and joined in the fight; but, owing to the cramped quarters, instead of assisting her mate she hampered him. Once the tip of the otter’s rudder showed momentarily, raising the excitement to fever-pitch; but this was followed by a long spell during which not a hair of either terrier or otter was visible.
‘They’ll never drive un, squire,’ thewoodman ventured to say. ‘Why not flood the varmint out? Theere’s a good head of water.’
‘Too good a head, I fear; but we’ll try. The terriers have had about enough. Get ’em out if you can.’
Watching his opportunity, the woodman managed to pull Vic out almost at once, and Venom after a while. Both were terribly cut up. The sight of their wounds angered the squire, who at once called out: ‘Now, men, build a dam, and look lively; that otter shan’tlive another hour.’ All set to work. Except the whipper-in, who had as much as he could do to look after the hounds, every man lent a hand. Some brought big stones, others armfuls of heather, others stone-crop stripped from the rocks, whilst Geordie the gipsy, the parson, the miller and the water-bailiff constructed the dam. Under their eager hands the wall rose steadily across the tail of the pool, and before long the impounded stream began to creep inch by inch up the face of the rock. In half an hour the mouth of the holt was covered; soon, too, the stone which had provided a resting-place for the otter; so that he now was compelled to plant his fore-feet against the wall to keep his head above water. Still the water rose, and but for the presence of the imprisoned air the hollow would have been filled and the beast forced to leave and meet its fate in the open. Yet, contracted though the space became, there was a small interval between the water and the roof, and there the otter’s nostrils still found relief.
Meanwhile the men at the dam had all they could do to hold the stream back; and presently, despite their frantic efforts, the obstruction gave way, and the whole mass rushed roaring down the hill.
‘Don’t much matter, squire; the otter’s drownded before this.’
‘May be; but will you put your hand in and draw him out?’
‘No, thank ’ee,’ replied themiller amidst the loud laughter of the crowd. ‘Geordie’s the man for that job.’
‘I don’t mind trying, sir,’ said the gipsy, who unhesitatingly approached the rock, knelt in the water, put in his hand to the full length of his arm, and began feeling blindly about the inside. He had worked round three sides and reached the corner to the right when the otter gripped him by the ball of the thumb. His face, which was half turned to the onlookers, must have betrayed the pain he felt, for the woodman called out: ‘Have ’ee got un, Geordie?’
‘I don’t know about that,’ replied Geordie, ‘but he’s got me.’
Slowly he drew the resisting creature towards the aperture, but on being brought to the light it let go, and allowed the man to rise to his feet.
‘Rather a nasty wound, Geordie,’ said the squire, putting half a sovereign in the bleeding palm.
‘Thank you, sir; ’tes only a scratch to some I’ve had. I’ll have another try if you like, sir.’
‘No, no, my man, not on any account. The otter deserves his life. We’ll leave him for another season, and I hope we may meet again.’
Little did he dream that the game beast which had baffled his best efforts was to become the talk of the country-side, and would for many a day disappoint his hopes and flout his plans.
CHAPTER VIII
THE OTTER AND HIS MATE
Rather more than a year has passed since the hunt. The vegetation then in flower, after blooming again, has lost its glory, and is now withering and dying. In themarsh the reeds are sapless, the flags stained by decay, the tall-stemmed flowering plants shrivelled to skeletons, disarray and discoloration appear everywhere, save perhaps in the velvet spikes of the mace-reed, whose hue yet rivals in its rich umber the pelt of the otter curled up below them on the spot where he lay in the days of rebellious cubhood. But what a huge fellow he has grown! Fine whelp though he was, he has developed beyond all promise, and there is not an otter on his rounds that can compare with him. He is inches longer and pounds heavier even than his father, and it is little wonder that he should have attracted the notice of sportsmen and become the talk of the country-side. For though since he reached his prime no one has caught more than a glimpse of him, yet keeper, bailiff andmoorman have all come on his footprints and given such reports of their size that interest has become widespread and people have flocked from far and near to the meets in the hope of seeing him found and hunted.
No one was more interested than thesquire, but he succeeded in concealing the excitement he felt, unless, perhaps, it showed in his very caustic language to the field at the least tendency to press the hounds; and when the season ended without the otter being accounted for, no one save his wife and the old butler knew his disappointment. But disappointed he was; and indeed it was almost inexplicable that the hounds should not have chanced on the otter, for he kept to the usual trails and kennelled in the well-known holts. Once they followed his line to the creek, but there, owing to the rising tide, the pursuit had to be abandoned. At another time they actually drew over him where he lay far in under the bank out of mark.
Yet if he bore a charmed life to hunter and hound, he was not fortunate enough to keep quite clear of the other perils that beset him. After having long avoidedtraps set here and there on his path, he was caught when about fourteen months old by a gin laid in a shallow,and he carried the cruel engine about with him for three days before the chain became so entangled in an alder-root that he was able to wrench himself free. Soon after he was shot at by old Ikey, the wild-fowler, in the channel connecting the Big and the Little Liddens. His quickness in diving at the flash alone saved him, for the man was a dead shot. One night he came on a gang ofpoachers‘burning the reed’ in the pool below the morass, and stood to watch them, fascinated by the flare that lit up the excited faces bending over the water. But though scared by the sight of his enemies, he went only a short distance out of his way to avoid them, and soon after was chasing a salmon inMoor Pool, killing in time to make a hurried meal and reach the tarn before dawn.
Long, arduous and generally vain was his pursuit of the fresh-run fish; but, mighty hunter that he was, he was successful now and then, and enjoyed a hard-earned feast.
It was after such an achievement that thebailiff stood a-stare at his tracks, and shouted to the miller to come down to him. ‘What do ’ee think of it?’ he asked. ‘Think of it?’ said the miller, who had noticed only the remains of the otter’s banquet, ‘think of it? You didn’t holloalike that for an old fish, did ’ee? I thought somebody was drow——’ Before he could finish the word he saw and, understanding, added in a changed tone: ‘Well, well, they prents beat all I ever did see. I’d give a sack of bests to clap eyes on the varmint as left ’em. Where’s a lyin’, wonder. Anywheres handy, do ’ee think?’
‘It’s a safe offer you’re making, William Richard. You’ll nae see the canny vagabond the day. He’s no couching near the kill, I’m thinking, but miles and miles awa’—at Lone Tarn, maybe, or by the Leeddens. That print’—and he pointed to a footmark half in and half out of the water—‘seems to say he was travelling up-water.’
Photo W. S. Berridge, F.Z.S.To face p. 108.ON HIS WAY UP THE CREEK.
Photo W. S. Berridge, F.Z.S.To face p. 108.ON HIS WAY UP THE CREEK.
The bailiff was right in supposing that the otter had sought a distant couch, but wrong as to the direction it took and its whereabouts. At that moment the animal was curled up asleep in Rundle’s oak coppice overhanging the estuary, ten miles away as the river winds. The next day he was in the bat-cave, but he had not come to stay. At night he was off again, nor did he arrest his steps save to fish and call along the lonely reaches which led to the swamp he was bound for, a good league beyond the bridge. Indeed, he was always on the move, seeming to think it unsafeto sleep two successive days in the same hover. In one fastness, however, he was content to linger—theheadland between the Gull Rock and theShark’s Fin. There he would stay for days together, held by the drear solitude, the supply of fish, and the snug lying in the caves that honeycombed the cliff, where man never came, and where, whether the wind blew from the east or from the west, the otter, who disliked exposure to it as much as any fox, could always find a recess on the lee side to shelter in. He took no notice of the tolling of the bell that marked the reef on which he often landed, and the only thing that drove him away was the flooding of his hovers by tempestuous seas. This at last made him seek the drain in the island of the squire’s pond the day before he came to the marsh, sharing it with two other dog-otters, refugees like himself. At dusk he foraged along-shore despite the heavy ground seas, and at peep of day returned to his old couch at the foot of the reeds.
To see him lying there no one would dream that he lived in fear of his life. His breathing is placid, his limbs are quiet; no whimper, telling of disturbing dreams, escapes his lips; the very lapdog on the hearth might be more troubled than he. Nor does he seem to be the ferociousbeast he is till he raises his head and peers suspiciously through the stems; then the fierce, restless eyes proclaim him a savage and an outlaw as he scans bar and cliff and creek. On the bare patch on the hillside his glance rests a moment—one would say the removal of the furze was a matter of concern to him; but soon, apparently satisfied, he falls to grooming the glossy coat which is his pride. He bestows much care on the massive fore-limbs and on the huge, splayed feet whose prints have stirred the imagination of the neighbourhood. A bit of fur on his grey waistcoat not being all he would have it, he licks it again and again; and so the afternoon passes, till the starlings come flying in to roost, the shadows creep over the furze, and the mists gather on the mere.
When night had quite closed in, he rose, slipped into the water and, coming up a good gunshot away, swam rapidly towards the beach. In the shallows he turned his mask as if to make sure the mist harboured no enemy, and then took across the bar, spurning the pebbles and seaweed as he ran. At the edge of the tide he looked back again, but as nothing met his eyes save the ridge and the stars that shone above it, he moved leisurely down the shelving strand, plunged intothe curl of the wave, came up in the rough water beyond, made straight for the fishing-ground some two furlongs from the shore, dived, and began scouring the sand and the rocks that chequered it. He looked more like aconger than a beast of prey; yet the fish were quick to recognize their dreaded enemy, and darted from his path. Of sand-eels and flat-fish he took no heed, but gave chase to a bass, pursuing it till it was lost to sight in the depths beyond; then, his lungs being exhausted, he shot up through the seven fathoms of water and lay awhile on the surface, now in the trough, now in the crest of the wave, with his face towards the moon, which had risen clear of the headland. He seemed to be listening, perhaps to the booming in the caves or to the tolling of the bell on the Shark’s Fin, but more probably to the surf about theSeal Rock, for presently he swam towards this favourite landing-place. Within a stone’s throw of it, however, he dived, and made his way in a spiral down and down until he reached the mouth of a cave in the base of the great pyramid of which the rock is the peak.
He knew the place well, for he had been worsted there by a conger some months before, and he had come now in quest of the same fish.His head was scarcely through the weeds that half screened the entrance when he sighted his enemy, who on the instant retreated to its stronghold in the wall of the cave. There, quicker than it takes to tell, each fastened on the other. Matched in weight and strength as they were, it is doubtful whether the otter would have got the mastery even in the open: in the conger’s own retreat the attempt was hopeless. But the otter did not realize that, and made frantic efforts to drag the fish from its den. Despite them all he failed to move it a single inch, and the only result of his struggles was to free himself from the conger’s jaws. When his breath was all but exhausted he relinquished his hold and turned to go. Thereupon the conger, taking the offensive, made a grab at him; it tried to seize him again near the mouth of the cave to which it pursued him, but in both cases it failed to get a grip of the slippery skin, and the next minute the otter was at the surface.
He had not done with his antagonist. As soon as his lungs were refilled, he dived again, and in a trice was back in the cave, face to face with his enemy, this time with tactics sobered by experience. Instead of laying hold of the fish, he kept making feints at it and retreating, with theobject of enticing it into the open; but the wily conger never budged.
Then the otter examined the wall of the cave in the hope of getting at the fish from behind, where the powerful tail gripped the rock. There was no way in, however, and again the baulked marauder had to ascend to take breath. Three times more he made his way down to the mouth of the den, dodging to and fro within a foot of the dull green motionless eyes; but in the end he gave up hope and left.
As he rose to the surface the last time he seized apollack with such eagerness that his teeth met through it, and this he took to the rock and devoured. Then, swimming towards the shore, he fished along the cliffs, catchingwrasse which he left uneaten on the weed-covered ledges where he landed, till at length, tired of wanton destruction, he entered the clitter, and after a long interval came out on the topmost boulder, gained the crest of the cliff, and so crossed to the creek. There he cruised restlessly from bank to bank, raising himself at times half out of the water and looking round as if in search of something. Presently he took to the furze brake that mantles the slope and, traversing the bare patch, passed up the misty valley, only toreturn to the sand-hills beyond the cottage, where, like an embodied spirit of unrest, he wandered from dune to dune, repeating at times the shrill whistle he had already sounded from the Seal Rock and the bends of the stream that winds along the valley, and standing with raised head pointed now this way, now that, to listen. Once he thought he heard an answering call, but presently discovered his error, and from that moment gave over calling.
Thus he spent the hours of the long night before returning to his lair, where he busied himself in cleansing his lips and whiskers of the slime that adhered to them and smoothing the patches of his coat, disarranged by the conger’s jaws. He was long over his toilet, but longer still in falling asleep: the recollection of his defeat kept him awake and caused the hair to rise on his neck as it had risen on the neck of his father at the thought of the pike of Lone Tarn, so that the sun had climbed to half its height before he drowsed and forgot his troubles. Consequently it was late when he bestirred himself and took to the mere, where another dog-otter was already fishing. For a long time each was ignorant of the other’s presence, but at last chance brought them together, and as thestranger flashed by, the otter saw that both ears were torn and that he was otherwise scarred by fighting. Later the two animals passed and repassed one another on the surface, and towards dawn, when the otter made for his couch, the new-comer crossed the beach towards the cliffs.
That night the otter, whilst calling from the Seal Rock, heard a rival call from far away across the water in the direction of the Shark’s Fin. Later the cry came from the cliffs below Cold Comfort Farm, and close on cockcrow from the clitter where he himself had called an hour before. Every minute he expected the stranger to round the bluff and cross the bar, and presently he saw him come over the pebble ridge and slip into the mere. It was the otter of the night before, who passed down the creek, landed opposite the island, and lay up under the furze.
At nightfall both otters, apparently on good terms, were fishing near the inflow, when the shrill summons of a female reached their ears and set them aflame with passion. They swam as fast as their legs could propel them to the spot whence the call proceeded, and as soon as the otter had landed and licked the face of the skittish little creature awaiting the rivals, he turned to face his enemy. Like two furies theyfought in the shallows churned with their incessant movements.As they struggled they got into deeper water, where, locked together, they sank beneath the surface, and so long did they remain immersed that it seemed as though both must be drowned. But the eddies by some decaying lilies told that the fight was still going on, and at last the beasts came up, it might be a yard apart. Quick as lightning they closed again and, rolling over and over, passed from sight a second time in the convulsed water. Then they half rose, and lashing the water with their powerful tails, kept snapping at each other with a viciousness that nothing could exceed, their savage snarls mingling with the clash of their teeth when they failed to get home. For over an hour the conflict raged, now above, now below the surface, till in the end, the old otter, unable to continue the battle, dived to escape further mauling from his victorious foe. But the wild creature’s jealousy is never appeased unless its rival is utterly worsted; and a relentless pursuit followed. The bitch otter, now all ears as she had been all eyes, heard the landing, first of the fugitive, then of his enraged pursuer, and soon the crashing of the stems that told of further conflict. At length, in the silence that succeededthe noise of strife, she saw the victor emerge from the mist as he swam towards the spot where she awaited him. Thus, by the discomfiture of the tyrant who had been the terror of every young dog-otter on his rounds, the otter won the little mate who was to share his lot.
Happier than they were, two otters could not be. Their close companionship proved it. Where one was, there was the other. They fished in company, they hovered together, and when they journeyed to fresh fishing-grounds they travelled side by side. A fortnight after they had paired they made their way up the valley of the stream that supplies the mere, and laid up in holts known to the female otter. Three nights’ fishing and roaming brought them to the greatquagmire where the stream rises, which in summer is but a thread of water winding through the waste of cotton grasses that nod over it. All day they lay asleep on drycouches in the heart of the mire, and at dusk the female led over the high ridge to the watershed that slopes to the northern cliffs where she had been reared. The stream they followed empties itself near a hamlet, and there in the cove under the very windows they fished until daybreak drove them to the cave where they intended to hover. Shaking theircoats, they entered—to find an otter already in possession. The instant he raised his mask they saw it was he of the scarred face, but before they advanced a yard he had risen to his feet and was in full flight towards another outlet. The influence of the fight was still on him, and he preferred retreat, even by daylight, to risk of another mauling. They never saw him again.
The otters stayed in the neighbourhood of the hamlet over a week, and during their sojourn nothing disturbed them, nothing even made them prick their ears, except the creaking of the oars as the fishermen rowed past their quarters. On leaving they moved westwards, and beyond two wild headlands came at dawn to the beetling cliffs where theseals have their dwelling in vast caverns hollowed by the Atlantic. Swimming through the turmoil of water at the narrow mouth of the nearestcave, they landed half-way in, climbed to a ledge, from that to another higher still, and there lay down on the bare rock and licked themselves, pausing now and again to look at the seals reclining on the beach of white sand that loomed in the darkness shrouding the inmost part of the cave. When they had completed their toilet they curled up on the smooth slab and, being weary after their long swim, fellasleep, despite the incessant cries of the seals and the ceaseless roar of the waves. They did not awake till the last rays of the sun illumined the surf at the cave’s mouth; but when theshags came flying in to roost, they bestirred themselves, and presently sallied out to fish on the edge of the tide-race and gambol in the swirls of the boiling eddies.
They used the cave for nearly a week, until tempted by the very fine weather to lie out. Then for three days they hovered in the basin at the summit of thePillar Rock, about a furlong from the cliffs, their presence known only to the gulls and gannets that sailed overhead. On resuming their round, they came, after four hours’ journeying, to the beach of the Gulf Stream fronting the west, and there they fished and frolicked amongst the waves that broke on the shelly strand, and sought couches amongst the sea-rushes that tuft the dunes. They lingered there week after week till the weather changed, but on the night of a lurid sunset, rounded the grim promontory which marks the end of all the land, and set their faces towardsthe marsh. On the way thither the female otter kept biting off the rushes and carrying them in her mouth, and when she reached the mere she at once chose aplace in the heart of the reed-bed to make a nest. From it soon proceeded the faint squeals of four baby otters, the rearing of which, as it proved, was to try the resources of herself and her mate to the utmost.