the earthstopper, having snatched a little sleep in his arm-chair, has returned to the lake to await the hounds. there he is, sitting on the fallen tree over which the otter passed three hours ago. its footprints are marked on the sand between the lines of drift that tell of dwindling springs on the moorland, and of the winds that ruffled the sinking lake. in shape, the three acres of water resemble the shadow of a hand with outstretched fingers. the rhododendrons cover the triangle of ground between the narrow channel of the inflow and the creek next it; the fingers of stagnant water are fringed with reeds. the old man is wondering where the otter, if it has not returned to the cliffs, may be lying up. his eyes wander to the likely places; to the island, to the hollow banks, to the clump of bushes, to the reed-bed over which a mist hangs, half veiling the blush of morning on the stems of the pines beyond. he does not waste a glance on the bare bank opposite, or its solitary willow whose tender green foliage stands out against the sombre hillside. turning his head he sees the hounds coming down the hill below the cairn. they are not very wide of the line taken by the otter at dawn. only a small field is out. with sir bevil, who carries the horn, are the parson, the doctor, and half a dozen others, keen sportsmen all of them. following in their wake are old sir lopes and nute the huntsman. let me introduce the pack to you. those rough-haired hounds are taffy and gellert; the foxhounds are troubadour, merlin, cunoval, vivien, dawnsman, padzepaw, sweetlips, jollyboy, bucca, and dozmary. better hounds never drew for an otter; but the terriers are the wonder of this little pack. the one running alongside dozmary is vixen, who never finds a drain too long or too wet. what battles she has fought underground, her scarred head testifies. then there is venom. she is in her usual place at sir bevil’s heels. a treasure she is, for she can dive and enter the submerged mouth of a drain, and many an otter has she thus dislodged from its holt.
“well, andrew,” said sir bevil, “did the otter come up?”
“yes, sir.”
“did you manage to keep him up?” this with a smile, for he too had heard the midnight tooting. “i hope so, but there’s no knowin’, he’s bin heere,” said he, pointing to the tracks on the sand.
at that moment jollyboy hits the line of the otter, throws his tongue and, jumping the fallen tree, takes to the water. the rest of the pack follows, sir bevil cheering them on. swimming close to the bank, they make for the head of the lake, the valley resounding with their music as they pick up the scent left by the otter in his night’s fishing. they are a pretty sight as they skirt the wall of pale green reeds fringing the nearest creek and leave the water to enter the yielding cover. evidently the varmint has not been there, for excepting the sing-song voices of the welsh hounds, the pack is silent. leaving the reed-bed they cross the furthest creek and are lost to sight under the dense rhododendron bushes. from there the few otters found at the lake have been “put down,” and the field is on the tiptoe of expectation. but expectations are seldom realised in otter-hunting. not a sound comes from the dark green thicket except the cheery voice of sir bevil, for even taffy and gelert throw their babbling tongues no longer. andrew’s heart sinks within him as the hounds issue from the tenantless bushes and make across the inflow towards the opposite strand. but why dwell on his disappointment, now that the united pack—for troubadour and jollyboy have swum over from the island and joined the others—are only a good stone’s throw from the willow? to all appearance, they might nearly as well expect to find an otter on an open beach. true, there are a few bits of hollow bank, but the eye can safely pronounce them blank at a glance, and as for the tree, it looks as solid as an oak. “terribly slow this,” says one of the field to his neighbour; may be it is so for him; but it is an anxious moment for the listening varmint, whose forepaws, the water, disturbed by the approaching pack, is beginning to lap. he is not kept long in suspense. dawnsman’s bell-like note proclaims the find, and the next moment the frantic pack is baying round the willow. unable to get at the quarry, the hounds swarm round the half-submerged trunk, pawing the bark in their helplessness; but the otter does not budge. it is not fear that holds him there. he is bristling with rage and ready to do battle for his life, but only by compulsion will he leave his sanctuary. not one of the field is up to thunder at his walls with an otter-pole; but venom, ever at hand, dives and at last finds the entrance, more than a foot below the surface. the otter sees the head of the terrier as it fills the hole, sees it rising through the dark water. “yap, yap,” followed by a short, sharp scuffle; and the next moment the parson, who has hurried to the spot, views the chain of bubbles which betrays the escape of the game. a loud hew-gaze—what lungs the parson must have!—sends a thrill through the field, who have already posted themselves at different points around the lake. not an eye is turned on the hounds, now following the game, not an ear heeds their music; no, every one, even old nute himself, who loves the hounds and has come out to see them work, is watching the rippled surface ahead to get a view of the wily varmint when he vents. as if disdaining the shelter of the banks, the otter comes up in mid-lake and floats there like a log, the water flush with his long back and his beadlike eyes gleaming in the morning light. “a grand beast,” says the doctor without taking his eyes off it. yes, he is in the full pride of his great strength and without the help of the field; the pack, good as it is, would never tire him out. his back is towards the clamorous hounds, and surely they will seize him; but no, just as dawnsman draws near, he dives, leaving a swirl behind him. when he comes up again he is not thirty yards from the fall. it were tedious to relate every detail of the hunt which went on for the next four hours, during which the hounds, aided by the hew-gazes of the field, never give the quarry any rest. at the end of that time the otter, somewhat exhausted by repeated dives, which have been getting shorter and shorter, lands on the island. little respite does he get, for padzepaw and jollyboy, finding him there, make him take to the water again, but at the expense of frightful wounds. then it is that andrew gets a good view of the creature as he seeks the shallows and swims close to the sandy bottom. with his forepaws lying against his body he is propelling himself with his hind feet. his movements are too rapid for the earthstopper to see this, and like a fleeting shadow the graceful creature is lost in the dark water. it next lands on the muddy margin of the near creek and rests on a mass of drift lying there. old nute is looking down at the fine beast over the reeds. the pack is nearly on him before he dives, but by swimming down the lake and doubling he succeeds in throwing off the hounds and gaining the shelter of the rhododendrons unobserved. a few minutes’ breathing-space only does he get before merlin, dozmary and vivien discover his whereabouts. smarting from their wounds, for all three of them have been gripped by the otter and taken to the bottom of the lake, they hesitate to attack the infuriated beast as he crouches there, grinning and showing his blood-stained teeth. not so vixen; the moment she arrives she flies at him and, the hounds closing in at the same time, a terrible conflict ensues. badly mauled though he is, the formidable beast fights his way through his foes, gains the water and dives with vixen fastened to him. the terrier comes up after a time, but the otter disappears as if by magic. baffled of their quarry, the maddened hounds draw nearly every hover, except the insignificant one near the willow where the otter is resting with just his nostrils out of water. old sir lopes sees him there; but he keeps the secret, though with some misgiving, to himself. forty years ago he would have shouted himself hoarse; but somehow he cannot give the hunted beast away this morning. knowing how it must end if he keeps to the lake, the otter resolves to try and steal away across country to the newlyn stream. it is a desperate way out of the straits he is in, for it will probably mean death in the open; but there is just the chance that he may reach the safe drain below buryas bridge if he can only slip away unnoticed. but how is this possible? the space between him and the gulley that seams the steep rise by the ice-house is covered with turf that rabbits have nibbled close. uninviting avenue of escape this under the very eye of the parson now posted near the willow, and with merlin and dawnsman swimming at last towards the spot where he rests, his eyes watching the hounds’ white legs through the clouded water. yet at this critical moment, when renewed hue and cry seem imminent, fortune favours the hunted creature. a tally-ho—by whom given andrew was never able to find out—comes distinct and thrilling from the reed-bed at the head of the remotest creek, and draws away most of the field and all the hounds. the tremor of the bank caused by the hurrying feet at first fills the otter with fresh alarm, but in the quiet that succeeds he raises his head and listens.
“wind him, my boys.” it is the squire’s voice he can hear in the distance. thinking the moment propitious he steals from the water, dashes across the sward, and presses up the gulley at the top of his speed. his immediate point is a hover beneath a big rock below skimiel’s bridge. the stream swirls round it, but a dry holt within is known to all the wandering tribe of otters. only by a miracle can the slow-footed creature cover the two miles to it, before he is overtaken. look at him as he hurries along under the shelter of that stone wall, as he threads his way among the furze bushes, as he glides like a monster eel through the coarse grasses, where the dew lies heavy. you are conscious of the great effort he is making to save his life. that dark spot below the high bank is the rock he is making for, and it is the silver thread of the stream surrounding it that you see sparkling here and there at the foot of the rugged slope. till now he has taken nearly a bee-line, but will he dare to pass before the door of the farmhouse he is heading for, where an old woman is feeding the geese and a black pig blocks the narrow way. do not wonder that this shyest of creatures recked not of the shaking of the old woman’s apron, that he paid no heed to the pig which ran him neck and neck for twenty yards before going off at a tangent. with the lake now more than a mile behind, a posse of constables should not make him deviate from his line. but hark! faint though the cry be, the otter hears it. full well he knows that his escape has been discovered, that at every stride the hounds are gaining, and that there is no twist or turn on his hot trail to check them; but he cannot add to his best pace. look, he has left the furze and bracken that hid his movements and is about to enter the reedy swamp which separates him from the stream. on landing he does not, like the fox, dwell to listen. no, some twenty yards below the rock he dives, nor does he come to the surface until he has gained its shelter. to his dismay he finds an otter in possession, one with whom he has mated. the cubs, awakened out of their sleep, hiss at the hunted creature as his head shows above the gurgling water. only for an instant does he stay to lick the bitch’s face with his hot tongue, then, after swimming down stream for some distance he lands and, reckless for the moment of his own safety, runs along the open bank in full view of the miller from nancothan, who has tottered up the valley to raise the flushet of the mill stream. see! the old man is waving his white hat to attract the approaching hounds: he is shouting too at the top of his feeble voice; but the gallant beast keeps to the open bank, and not until he is past the shallows where the moorland cattle stand on sweltering days does he dive, fleeing like a shadow below the surface, more determined than ever to gain the safe drain he set out to reach. on reaching the stream most of the hounds take to the water, and just as venom is getting dangerously near the rock cunoval hits the downward line. rallying to his cry, the pack flash along the bank and rapidly lessen the distance separating them from their distressed quarry.
seeing the direction they are taking, the field, by a short cut, come up with them by the mill, where they have met with a check. across the chord of a bend the hounds recover the line, and taking to the bed of the stream pass under nancothan bridge. the otter hears them coming, but another check gives him a slight advantage, and surely now he will reach the drain. vain hope! between him and his objective, in the narrow passage between two rocks that contract the stream, stands the earthstopper. on finding that the otter had stolen away from the lake he guessed it would make for the sea, and has hurried across country to intercept it. breathless after his long run, he has hardly taken up his position before he sees the otter coming towards him, breaking the water in its frantic hurry. bang up against his legs it comes, and as it retreats up stream, the excited hounds come round the bend and swim over it. nearly exhausted by its efforts, the beast takes shelter under a bank facing its old path to the lake, and when sir bevil has rushed past, it dives, crosses the stream, glides between the flags, and following the track it knows so well, presses up the hill as best it can towards the plantation where the earthstopper had found its tracks.
“se—seen the otter, andrew?” gasps sir bevil.
“yes, sir, he’s gone up strame, he’s touchin’.”
a haunt of the otter. [face page 82.
the horn recalls the reluctant hounds, revelling in the scent that the stream carries down. there they come past the earthstopper. see how eagerly they are drawing the banks, how impatient the check makes them. gellert, who has the best nose of the pack, is getting close to the clump of iris; the next moment his tell-tale tongue warns the pack that he has discovered the line of the quarry, and with triumphant clamour they breast the hillside on its hot trail. the game varmint has nearly gained the crest, but he can scarcely hope to reach the adjacent valley. he seems to be standing still, in comparison with the hounds, which, with hackles up, are now racing for his blood. he is not half-way down the plantation when they stream over the wall that bounds it. troubadour, ever to the fore, gets a view of the beaten creature struggling on; but above the ominous whimpers of the pack the otter hears the roar of the fall, and this braces him to a final effort. troubadour is all but on him as he springs from the high bank, and the next instant the spray flies from the pool as otter and hound strike the water.
without showing himself the hunted beast seeks refuge behind the roots of the big elm which, a week before, had attracted the eye of the earthstopper. the otter is in sore plight, but little does he fear the infuriated pack now. they may bay outside his stronghold to their heart’s content. but he’s not done with yet. venom and vixen have just disappeared between the coils of the roots and are making for a ledge within, where the creature is resting and breathing heavily. then sir bevil, the parson, the doctor, and the earthstopper come rushing down between the trees. the next moment andrew is lying at full length and listening. with his ear close to the ground, he can hear the terriers yapping six or eight feet below.
“they caan’t get at un, sir,” says he, rising to his feet after a time, his voice scarcely audible above the clamour of the hounds and the roar of the fall.
“then we’ll leave him, we won’t dig. he’s a grand beast and deserves his life. you look disappointed, andrew?”
“no, sir, should only a’ liked to a’ seed the pad of un.”
with some difficulty the hounds are called off and the terriers induced to come out. the otter lived some years after, but andrew never spurred him again.
