AT THE CREEK
The otter was awakened about noon by the patter and drip of the rain
that had silenced the birds in the woods outside, but the cubs slept
through it all. The downpour, which lasted off and on for hours, ceased
towards sundown, and at star-peep the sky had cleared of clouds, save
where a black pall hung over the uplands. The otters then stole from the
cave, coming singly through the mouth and, keeping within the shadow of
the rocky wall, landed on the beach beyond.
After shaking their coats, they made down the creek over the rain-pitted
sand until nearly abreast of a rock showing above the surface, and there
took to the water. For awhile it looked as if they meant to cross to the
opposite shore, but on reaching mid-stream they dived, and the next
minute were busy detaching mussels from the bed of the channel. The
bubbles which kept rising showed the position of the animals, which
presently came up with their mouths full of shell-fish and swam swiftly
to land. There the otter dropped the mussels she carried, seized one
between her paws, bit off the end of the shell and devoured the fish.
Scarcely had she swallowed it before the cubs were busy breaking the
brittle shells and feasting on the succulent contents; and the crackling
noise that broke the silence would have puzzled any chance visitor to
the wood, but was no unfamiliar sound to the birds that roosted in the
overhanging oaks. The otters made several journeys to and from the
mussel-bed, till they had eaten their fill; then fell to gambolling on
the edge of the tideway, to the annoyance of a heron, which soon took
wing for a station higher up the creek. Two or three hours they there
spent in play, varied by excursions into the wood, where they startled a
hare and put the brooding pheasants in a fever. Once they penetrated to
the craggy summit, climbed the rocks, lapped the water in the highest of
the basins, and, before jumping down, gazed across the intervening
country to where the estuary glimmered between its dusky shores.
The beach was almost covered by the advancing tide when the otters took
to the water and drifted up with the flood. Their outstretched limbs
being flush with the surface, they looked like floating skins as the
current bore them along; but soon after passing the heron, spectral in
the uncertain light, they began swimming, and so entered the cave, where
they shook their coats and lay down in the places they had occupied the
day before. The lapping of the tide was their slumber-song, and the
happy creatures were sound asleep before the last of the bats came
flitting in to roost.
That day a fiery sun beat down upon the country-side and exhausted
toiler and sportsman abroad in the sweltering heat. The mower sweated
and panted behind the scythe, the otter-hunters crossing the moor longed
for the cool woods they had left, and the boy on the smack at the end of
the creek gobbled up his pasty to spend the dinner-hour in the pool
beneath the bridge. Not only man and boy suffered from the heat; beast
and bird too sought the shade, abandoning their haunts to the insect
hosts that revelled in the scorching rays. The flower-gay selvage
margining the far shore of the creek and the tangle of honeysuckle and
wild-rose that curtained the portals of the otters’ lair, hummed with
the noise of countless wings. Honey-bees were there, green-bodied flies
and blue, and, preying on them, dragon-flies that darted to and fro,
casting sharp shadows on yellow sand-bank and sapphire pool. But,
glaring and dazzling as was the light, no ray penetrated the gloom that
shrouded the otters, who never moved until near their usual
stirring-time. Then they rose, but only to stretch themselves, for they
lay down again, listened to the fading voices of the mowers, and watched
the afterglow pale upon the face of the water.
At length, when all was still and the light sombre, they slipped
noiselessly into the current, raising scarce a ripple as they passed
from pool to pool on their way down the creek. They landed at the turn
below the mussel-bed to quench their thirst, then took to the water
again, and were soon busy disporting themselves in Deadman’s Pool. On
leaving it, they moved forward, climbing every rock, and resting there
as if they enjoyed the warmth till, two miles beyond the pool, they came
to where the creek broadens between marshy flats given over to
wild-fowl. As it was in this reach that the otter intended to hunt when
the coming tide had brought up the fish that came there to feed, she and
the cubs landed and played about on the bank to while away the time of
waiting. Presently they entered the fen, where they disturbed some
wild-duck and set the moorhens calling in notes of alarm which were
taken up by the fowl on the other side of the creek, but subsided the
instant the intruders’ gambols showed they had no murderous intentions.
Close on midnight, when the tide was about half flood, the otter, with
the cubs at her side, re-entered the creek in search of flat-fish. Her
quest was no easy one, for she had crossed the sandy bottom but once
before the fish, becoming aware of the presence of their dreaded
enemies, gave up feeding, and buried themselves in the sand. A pair of
eyes dotted here and there about the wide bed was all that showed, and
it was for this sign of the fish’s presence that the otter searched,
jerking her head this way and that to scan the ground on each side of
her course. At the fourth dive she suddenly sighted prey, as suddenly
ceased propelling herself, and stopped within a foot of the spot where
the restless eyes were watching her, while the cubs, who had shot past,
turned, full of wonder, and rejoined their mother. Then the otter
stretched out a fore-leg, touched the plaice through the thin layer of
sand and put it to flight. The cubs, taken aback by the unexpected
appearance of the fish, did not move till it had got some yards away,
but once in pursuit the male cub soon recovered the lost ground, seized
the prey, rose to the surface, and swam ashore. Two more plaice were
captured within the hour, one by the cubs without assistance, and from
that moment their mother let them quarter the sand alone. They propelled
themselves by their hind-legs as their mother did, the fore-legs being
pressed against the side, except when used for sudden turning movements;
but on rising to the surface all four limbs came into play, while the
massive tail alone did the steering. When their hunger was appeased they
made up the creek, ducking their heads as they went, until a stone fell
from the crumbling cliff above Deadman’s Pool and scared them; they then
gave over their bobbing, but redoubled their speed, passing the flotsam
at a rapid pace, and all the way to the cave they scanned the banks as
if they dreaded an ambush, though they had never once been waylaid.
That day, whilst awaiting the dusk, the otter resolved to make a journey
up the creek after the school bass. The tide did not serve before
midnight; then the rain, which had threatened, began to fall and, as the
animals drifted by the herons’ island, was coming down in torrents, but
under it the current bore them rapidly along the reaches without sign of
man’s neighbourhood, save a disused limekiln, until the last bend
brought them within sight of a bridge and of the hamlet that straggles
down the hillside to a wharf on the water’s edge. When they were abreast
of it the bass began to rise, and drew them in pursuit. Shooting up from
below, the hunters seized the unsuspecting fish, and soon were busy
eating their take, the cubs on buoys, the otter on a projecting stone of
one of the buttresses of the bridge. Once all three landed under the
farthest arch and dropped their prey in affright at the unexpected
presence of the parish constable, who was sheltering there and was
almost as much scared himself.
Soon the crowing of the village cocks warned the otter that she ought to
withdraw; but it was not until the smoke began to rise from the galley
of the smack by the wharf that she at last gave up fishing and made for
the drain hard by, where she had twice laid up before. Against a strong
head of water they forced their way up the tunnel till they came to the
rude ledges of masonry in it, and there curled up as best they could for
the day. The cubs had never hovered in such scant quarters before, but
their discomfort was as nothing in comparison with the terror which the
rumbling of a van over their heads occasioned them. In the course of the
morning, towards noon, things were still worse. A sheep-dog with a nose
for otters winded them, and came and sniffed at the grating within a
couple of yards of where they lay. In his excitement he kept pawing the
iron bars and whimpering until the cry of ‘Shep, boy!’ recalled him to
the flock, the patter of whose feet had set the otters on the alert
before the dog darkened the twilight of their hiding-place. These were
the great alarms of the day—indeed, the only alarms, for the otters
took little notice of the bell which rang each time a customer entered
the grocer’s shop, and scarcely more of the voices of the children
abroad when the rain ceased.
The street was deserted and the windows aglow when the otters made their
way down the drain and, after listening at the mouth, stole out into the
moonlight. They ran some danger of being seen as they approached the
smack, and again after passing it, but fortune favoured them; they
escaped observation, and got clear away.
They kept to the margin of the creek till near the limekiln. Then the
otter struck inland, with stealthy motion threading the tufts that
covered the rising ground. Half-way up the slope she suddenly turned and
looked at the cubs as if a careless step had annoyed her, but at once
resumed her stalk. Presently her nostrils twitched; she had scented a
rabbit that was feeding just over the brow. Coming within sight of the
unsuspecting creature she gathered herself for a spring, and a fox could
scarcely have launched itself more swiftly than did the otter. A timely
movement, however, saved the rabbit, which, with others feeding there,
gained the shelter of the bank. Balked of her prey, the otter stood for
a moment where the unavailing leap had taken her, but as soon as the
cubs came up she made for the biggest of the holes, and through it all
three disappeared. Rabbits popping out here and there along the bank
showed how quickly the otters traversed the set, and presently the male
cub, looking with its arched back like a big ferret, issued from the
hole out of which a rabbit had come and, following the scent with great
eagerness, entered another hole into which it had darted. The mother
otter, meanwhile, had been more successful, for a squeal underground
heralded her appearance with a dead rabbit in her mouth, closely
followed by the cubs. When she had bitten off the head and the pads, she
removed the skin as if it had been a glove, and broke up the carcass.
Except for a few moorhen, it was the first warm prey the cubs had eaten,
and they devoured it greedily, as they did their share of another rabbit
surprised in the furze beyond the burrow. This ended the night’s
hunting, and leaving the out-turned skins on the turf, the otters went
back to the creek across the dewy grass which they marked with a clearly
visible track.
On gaining the shore they burst into a gallop from sheer high spirits,
spurning the sand as they hurried along the lone reach in a silence
unbroken save by the sob of the restless tide that was mounting along
their path. Within a mile of the heronry they crossed the flood and
sported in the great eddy there; at times they landed on the cone-shaped
rock that rose amidst the swirl and cast its inky shadow on the silvery
surface. The playful creatures seemed to have set aside their fears and
lingered till sunrise, when the shout of a farm-boy to a neighbour
caused them to dive and make for the cave. Time after time they rose to
breathe, always in the slack water, and at last, when the brimming tide
was all ablush and every songster pouring out its greetings to the sun,
they gained their sanctuary beyond the reach of danger.
Thus day followed day and week succeeded week, until they had got to
know the creek as they knew the morass. By the beginning of August there
was not an inlet left unexplored nor a stream unvisited. The biggest of
the streams they followed to its source among the hills, within easy
reach of the sea, and laid up there, but partly retraced their steps the
next night, and curled up at dawn beneath the roots of a sycamore that
overhung a mill-pool. That day very heavy rain fell, and continued till
a late hour, soaking the country-side and causing even the cave to drip,
to the discomfort of the otters, who repaired there on the morrow. This
decided the otter to make without further delay for the sea, and that
night, after a big feast on the mussels, she led the cubs along the
widening reaches to the estuary and couched on an island at the meeting
of the waters. A barge drifted by at sunrise; later a peel leaped within
a few feet of them; but the otters heeded neither the one nor the other,
nor, indeed, did they raise their heads until a boy, blowing a penny
may-horn, came to fetch the geese from the moor opposite, and startled
them not a little. But by this time the sun was dipping below the pines
near the homestead; it was almost time to be afoot, and as soon as the
stars were bright, the otters took to the water and began the descent of
the estuary.
The river, in spate after the rains, bore them swiftly along, now
between long spits of sand, now close to the shadowed banks, dotted here
and there with glow-worms. The surroundings were as peaceful as the
drifting was easy; yet safe as the way seemed there was danger ahead,
and a mile or so down they came on one of the worst enemies of their
kind. They saw him the instant they rounded the bend; and little wonder,
for the burly figure was clearly outlined against the latticed window of
the keeper’s cottage. Had he moved, they would merely have sunk out of
sight; had he coughed or sneezed, they would have dived, to reappear a
furlong below. But to scare them was the last thing he wished, and,
excited though he was, he never moved a muscle. He had set a trap for
the otters, which he knew would follow the peel; and since dusk he had
been all ears for the rattle of the chain that would tell of a capture.
As soon as they were gone by, he rose and tiptoed along the bank,
wondering, as he picked his way, what made them go down when the peel
were running. By the trunk of a dead ash he stopped to listen.
The otters, on coming to the loop where the estuary wellnigh returns
upon itself, landed, as the keeper knew they would, and passed through a
belt of young larch to a glade in which the still air was heavy with the
scent of flower and fern, and a night-jar was busy among the moths. When
nearly across it, the otter swerved from the trail to avoid the coppice
where her mate had been trapped. It was not likely she could mistake the
spot, for she had stood by him till at dawn the footfall of the keeper
had driven her away. She had even returned the two following nights, and
called and called and called before going off alone to prepare a nest
for her unborn cubs. And now another trouble beset her: the male cub
persisted in following the trail, and, owing to his great strength,
succeeded, despite all her efforts, in getting amongst the bushes where
the trap was set. He was on the point of putting his pad on the plate,
when, in desperation, she bit him and made him turn. As he did so she
closed with him, for she would rather kill him than suffer him to fall a
victim to man; but when, at the sound of the struggle, the keeper came
crashing through the undergrowth, the otter made off, and the cub
followed her.
They struck the estuary near a jetty piled with bundles of oak-bark,
floundered through the mud, and reached the river. The tedious bend, of
which the otters had crossed the neck, now lay behind, and in front
stretched the long reach marked by broad sand-banks that the tide was
beginning to crawl over. So otter and cubs, after passing two branch
creeks, musical with the whistlings of night-feeding birds, came to the
deeper water, where hulks rode at their last anchorage, and, farther on,
to the landlocked haven in which tall-masted vessels swung to their
moorings, and the lights of a little seaport and fishing village winked
at one another across the salt waters. On viewing the uncanny lights and
hearing the shouts of a drunken sailor the male cub sidled up to his
mother; and great was his relief when she rounded the rocky promontory
that projects into the harbour, and entered the tranquil creek, whose
waters reflected only the friendly moon.