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 the marsh 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 and
moorman 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 the squire, 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 avoided traps 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 of poachers ‘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 in Moor 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 the bailiff 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 holloa
like 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.’
[Illustration: _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 unsafe to sleep two successive days in the same hover. In one
fastness, however, he was content to linger—the headland between the
Gull Rock and the Shark’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 ferocious
beast 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 into the 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 a conger 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 the Seal 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 the object 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 a pollack 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, catching wrasse 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 to return 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 the stranger 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 they
fought 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
succeeded the 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 great quagmire 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 dry
couches 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 their
coats, 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 the seals have
their dwelling in vast caverns hollowed by the Atlantic. Swimming
through the turmoil of water at the narrow mouth of the nearest cave,
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, fell asleep, 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 the shags 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 the Pillar 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 towards the 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 a place 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.