THE OTTER HOUNDS
Grace's tweed dress was wet and rather muddy when she stood with Gerald
on a gravel bank at the head of a pool, where the beck from the tarn
joined a larger stream that flowed through a neighboring dale. There had
been some rain and the water was stained a warm claret-color by the peat.
Bright sunshine pierced the tossing alder branches, and the rapid close
by sparkled between belts of moving shade. Large white dogs with black
and yellow spots swam uncertainly about the pool and searched the bank; a
group of men stood in the rapid, while another group watched the tail of
the pool. Somewhere between them a hard-pressed otter hid.
A few of the men wore red coats and belonged to the hunt; the rest were
shepherds and farmers whom custom entitled to join in the sport. All
carried long iron-pointed poles and waited with keen expectation the
reappearance of the otter. Grace was perhaps the only one to feel a touch
of pity for the exhausted animal and she wondered whether this was not a
sentimental weakness. There was not much to be said for the otter's right
to live; it was stealthy, cruel, and horribly destructive, killing many
more fish and moorhens than it could eat. Indeed, before she went to
school, she had followed the hunt with pleasant excitement, and was now
rather surprised to find the sport had lost its zest.
The odds against the otter were too great, although it had for some hours
baffled men who knew the river, and well-trained dogs. It had stolen up
shallow rapids, slipping between the watchers' legs, dived under swimming
dogs, made bold dashes along the bank, and hidden in belts of reeds. Its
capture had often looked certain and yet it had escaped. At first Grace
had noticed the animal's confidence, beauty of form, and strength; but it
had gradually got slack, hesitating, and limp. Now, when it lurked,
half-drowned, in the depths of the pool while its pitiless enemies waited
for it to come up to breathe, she began to wish it would get away.
Thorn, the master of the hounds, was talking to his huntsman not far
off. He was a friend of Osborn's, and Grace had once thought him a
dashing and accomplished man of the world, but had recently, for no
obvious reason, felt antagonistic. Alan was not as clever as she had
imagined; he was smart, sometimes cheaply smart, which was another
thing. Then he was beginning to get fat, and she vaguely shrank from the
way he now and then looked at her. On the whole, it was a relief to note
that he was occupied.
For a few moments Grace let her eyes wander up the dale to the crags
where the force leaped down from the red moor at Malton Head. Belts of
dry bent-grass shone like gold and mossy patches glimmered luminously
green. The fall looked like white lace drawn across the stones. A streak
of mist touched the lofty crag, and above it a soft white cloud trailed
across the sky. Then she turned as her brother spoke.
"Alan has given us a good hunt and means to make a kill. He's rather a
selfish beast and a bit too sure of himself; but he runs the pack well
and knows how to get the best out of life. No Woolwich and sweating as a
snubbed subaltern for him! He stopped at home, saw his tenants farmed
well, and shot his game. That's my notion of a country gentleman!"
"Father can look after Tarnside and a duty goes with owning land,"
Grace remarked. "A landlord who need not work ought to serve the State.
That idea was perhaps the best thing in the feudal system and it's not
altogether forgotten yet. Father was right when he decided to make you
a soldier."
"He can send me to Woolwich, but after all that's as far as he can go.
You're not at your best when you're improving," Gerald rejoined; and
added with a grin, "You don't like old Alan, do you? I thought you
snubbed him half an hour since."
Grace colored, but did not answer. She had hurt her foot by falling from
a mossy boulder and Thorn had come to help as she floundered across a
shallow pool. She was draggled and her hair was loose, and Thorn's faint
amusement annoyed her. Somehow it hinted at familiarity. She would not
have resented it once, for they had been friends; but when she came home
and he had tried to renew the friendship she had noted a subtle
difference. Alan was forty, but now she had left school the disparity of
their ages was, in a sense, much less marked. Then a shout roused her and
she looked round.
Where the smooth, brown water ran past the alder roots, a very small,
dark object moved in advance of a faint, widening ripple. Grace knew it
was the point of the otter's head; the animal's lungs were empty since
it remained up so long. Next moment plunging dogs churned the pool into
foam, the object vanished, and men ran along the bank to the lower
rapid, while those already there beat the shallow with their poles. The
dogs bunched together and began to swim up stream; Gerald and one or two
more plunged into the water, and for a few moments the otter showed
itself again.
It looked like a fish and not an animal as it broke the surface, rising
in graceful leaps. Then it went down, with the dogs swimming hard close
behind, and Grace thought it must be caught. It was being steadily driven
to the lower end of the stopped rapid, where the water was scarcely a
foot deep. The animal reappeared, plunging in and out among the shallows
but forging up stream, and the men who meant to turn it back closed up.
There was one at every yard across the belt of sparkling foam. They had
spiked poles to beat the water and it seemed impossible that their victim
could get past.
Yet the otter vanished, and for a minute or two there was silence, until
the dogs rushed up the bank. Then somebody shouted, the huntsman blew his
horn, and a small, wedge-shaped ripple trailed, very slowly across the
next pool. The otter had somehow stolen past the watchers' legs and
reached deep water, but its slowness told that its strength had gone. The
dogs took the water with a splash, and Grace turned her head. She felt
pitiful and did not want to see the end. The animal had made a gallant
fight, and she shrank from the butchery.
The clatter of heavy boots on stones suddenly stopped; there was a
curious pause, and Grace looked up as somebody shouted: "'Gone to holt!
Ca' off your hounds. Wheer's t' terrier?"
The hunt swept up the bank, smashed through a hedge, and spread along
the margin of the neighboring pool. A few big alders grew beside its
edge, sending down their roots into deep water; but for the most part
the bank was supported by timbers driven into the soil, and freshly laid
with neatly-bedded turf. Grace knew this had been done to protect the
meadow, because the stream is thrown against the concave side when a
pool lies in a bend.
As she stopped at the broken hedge a man ran past carrying a small wet
terrier, and two or three more came up with spades. The otter could not
escape now, since the hounds would watch the underwater entrance to the
cave among the alder roots, while the terrier would crawl down from the
other side. If a hole could not be found, the men would dig. They were
interrupted soon after they began, for somebody said, "Put down your
spade, Tom. Hold the terrier."
Grace studied the man who had interfered. He was young and on the whole
attractive. His face was honest and sunburned; he carried himself well,
and was dressed rather neatly in knickerbockers and shooting jacket. She
knew Christopher Askew was the son of a neighboring farmer, who owned his
land. Then, as the men stopped digging, Thorn pushed past.
"What's this?" he asked haughtily. "Why have you meddled?"
Askew looked hard at him, but answered in a quiet voice, "It cost us some
trouble to mend the bank, and if you dig out the otter the stream will
soon make an ugly gap."
"Then it's a matter of the cost!" said Thorn. "How much?"
"Not altogether," Askew replied, coloring. "It's a matter of the damage
the next flood may do. We had an awkward job to strengthen the bank and
I'm not going to have it cut."
"Noo, Kit, dinna spoil sport," the old huntsman urged. "It's none a trick
for a canny lad to cheat the hounds."
"Put terrier in an' niver mind him!" shouted another, and there were
cries of approval.
"Stop digging, Tom," Askew said with quiet firmness. "Pick up the dog."
"We are wasting time," Thorn remarked. "I don't like bargaining; you had
better state your price."
Grace, looking on across the broken hedge, sympathized with the farmer.
For one thing, she wanted the otter to escape; besides, she approved the
man's resolute quietness. He had pluck, since it was plain that he was
taking an unpopular line, and he used some self-control, because Thorn's
tone was strongly provocative. In fact, she thought Thorn was not at his
best; he was not entitled to suggest that the other was trying to extort
as much money as he could.
"No more do I like bargaining," Askew replied. "There will be no digging
here. You have smashed the hedge, and that's enough. Call off your dogs."
"So you mean to spoil sport, even if the damage costs you nothing? I know
your kind; it's getting common."
"Oh, no," said Askew. "I won't have the bank cut down, but that is all.
If you like, you can look for another otter on our part of the stream."
Thorn gave him a searching glance, and then, seeing he was resolute,
shrugged contemptuously. The huntsman blew his horn, the dogs were drawn
off, and Gerald followed the others across the field. Grace, however, sat
down on a fallen tree to rest her foot and for a minute or two thought
herself alone. Then she rose as Askew came through the gap in the hedge.
He began to pull about the broken rails and thorns, but saw her when he
looked up.
"They have left you behind, Miss Osborn," he remarked with a smile.
"I think I had enough; besides, I hurt my foot."
"Badly?"
"No," said Grace. "I have only begun to feel it hurt, but I wish it
wasn't quite so far to the bridge."
Askew looked at the water, measuring its height. "The stepping stones are
not far off. One or two may be covered, but perhaps I could help you
across and it would save you a mile."
Grace went on with him and they presently stopped beneath the alder
branches by a sparkling shallow. Tall brush grew up the shady bank and
briars trailed in the stream. A row of flat-topped stones ran across, but
there were gaps where the current foamed over some that were lower than
the rest. Grace's foot was getting worse, and sitting down on a slab of
the slate stile, she glanced at her companion.
"I imagine it needed some pluck to stop the hunt," she said. "For one
thing, you were alone; nobody agreed with you."
Askew smiled. "Opposition sometimes makes one obstinate. But do you think
it's hard to stand alone?"
"Yes," said Grace, impulsively. "I know it's hard. Yet, of course, if you
feel you are taking the proper line, you oughtn't to be daunted by what
others think."
She stopped, remembering that the man was a stranger; and then resumed in
a different tone, "But why did you really stop the hunt? Are you one of
the people who don't believe in sport?"
"No," said Askew good humoredly. "It's curious that Mr. Thorn hinted
something like that. Anyhow, I'm not a champion of the otter's right to
destroy useful fish. I think they ought to be shot."
"Oh!" said Grace with a touch of indignation; "you would shoot an otter?
Well, I suppose they must be killed; but to use a gun!"
"It's better for the otter. Which do you imagine it would choose--a
mercifully sudden end, or two or three hours of agony, with men and dogs
close behind, until the half-drowned, exhausted animal is torn to pieces
or mangled by the poles?"
"I suppose one must answer as you expect."
"You're honest," Askew remarked. "I imagine it cost you something
to agree!"
"It did," Grace admitted. "After all, you know our traditions, and many
people, not cruel people, like the sport."
"That is so; but let's take the hunt to-day, for an example. There were
three or four men without an occupation, and no doubt they find following
the hounds healthy exercise. The others had left work that ought to be
done; in fact, if you think, you'll own that some were men we have not
much use for in the dale."
"Yes," said Grace, with some reluctance; "I know the men you mean. All
the same, it is really not our business to decide if they ought to
work or hunt."
Askew looked amused and she liked his twinkle. He was obviously
intelligent, and on the whole she approved his unconventional point of
view. Conventional insincerities were the rule at Tarnside. Besides,
although it was possible she ought not to talk to the man with such
freedom, her foot hurt and the stile made a comfortable seat. She liked
to watch the shadows quiver on the stream and hear the current brawl
among the stones. This was an excuse for stopping, since she would not
acknowledge that the young farmer's society had some charm.
After a moment or two he resumed: "It is not my business, anyhow, and I
don't want to argue if otter-hunting is a proper sport; it's an
advantage, so to speak, to stick to the point. All I objected to was the
hunt's breaking down the mended bank. There are not many good meadows at
the dale-head, and grass land is too valuable to be destroyed. Don't you
think this justifies my opposition?"
"I suppose it does," Grace agreed, and then decided that she had talked
to him enough. "Well, I must go on," she added with a doubtful glance at
the stream. "But it doesn't look as if one could get across."
"You can try," Askew replied, and jumping down stood in the water,
holding out his hand. "Come on; there's not much risk of a slip."
Since it was too late to refuse, Grace took his hand and he waded across,
steadying her, while the current rippled round his legs. Some of the
stones were covered, but with his support she sprang across the gaps and
the effort did not hurt her foot as much as she had thought. He was not
awkward. She liked his firm grasp, and his care that she did not fall;
particularly since she saw he was satisfied to give her the help she
needed and knew when to stop. After she got across she thanked him and
let him go.
When she crossed the field Askew went home in a thoughtful mood, though
he was conscious of a pleasant thrill. He had felt the girl's charm
strongly as he stood near her at the stile, and now tried to recapture
the scene; the dark alder branches moving overhead, the sparkle of the
water, and the light and shadow that touched his companion. Her face was
attractive; although he was not a judge of female beauty, he knew its
molding was good. Mouth, nose, and chin were finely but firmly lined; her
color was delicate pink and white, and she had rather grave blue eyes.
Her figure was marked by a touch of patrician grace. Askew smiled as he
admitted that patrician was a word he disliked, but he could not think of
another that quite expressed what he meant. Anyhow the girl's charm was
strong; she was plucky and frank, perhaps because she knew her value and
need not to pretend to dignity. In a sense, this was patrician, too.
All the same, Askew, though young and romantic, was not a fool. He had
had a good education and had then spent two years at an agricultural
college; but he was a farmer's son and he knew where he stood, from the
Osborns' point of view. He had been of help, but this was no reason Miss
Osborn should recognize him when they next met; yet he somehow thought
she would. In the meantime, it was rash to think about her much, although
his thoughts returned to the stile beneath the alders where he had
watched the sun and shadow play about her face.