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 a badger 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 hunted stag and turned into a pandemonium.
[Illustration:
THE OTTER.
_Reproduced by kind permission of Mr. J. G. Millais._
To face p. 84.]
Not by mere chance, after rounding the base of Lone 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 slipping into 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. A peel 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 stacks of 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, swimming Moor 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 as the 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 giant pike.
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
clambered over 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 a buzzard 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, which he 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, of cormorant, 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 toying with 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, forgetting that he was alone, he uttered the
dawn cry, and the next moment rounded the point and gained the reeds. In
the grey light, the buzzard 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 the harbourer, 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 making its 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 that
curlew-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 with rose, 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 to end 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 the Moor 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 demeanour changed and he
sprang to his feet as though an adder had stung him. And no wonder, for
the hounds 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 discernible he 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 boulder from
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.
The squire 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 bustled about, 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 the hounds, 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,’ the woodman 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’t live 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 the miller 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.