The Life Story of an Otter

by J. C. Tregarthen

For a while he kept to the headland and the cliffs near the Gull Rock: then, tiring of these haunts, he crossed to the wild coast opposite, where he lingered week after week, until the breath of spring quickened his roving instincts and set him longing for the old trails. So he retraced his steps from the point of the promontory to which he had penetrated, and on the night of the full moon drifted up the estuary to Tide End. There, after fishing, he sought the shelter of a pile of faggots before the villagers were astir. He slept soundly, despite the near neighbourhood of man, and when dusk fell swam past the lighted cottages towards the wood. Landing there and striking straight through the trees, he held on without a stop till he reached the rude wall at the upper end, on which he stood to listen to the croakings proceeding from the marshy flat beyond. Presently he stole towards the biggest of the pools that silvered the rushy waste; but when about midway he must have been heard or seen, for the frogs there ceased their chorus, and forthwith the marsh became as silent as when in the grip of the frost. On gaining the water’s edge he dived, and in a twinkling was back with a frog, which he skinned and devoured. This was the first of some half a score that he caught and ate before repairing to a ditch-like piece of water, dark from the shadowing alders, where he long remained feasting. At length he had had enough and, leaving the marsh, made for the river, which he followed mile after mile till he reached the morass and laid up in the hollow bank in which he was born.

Meanwhile otter-hunting had begun, and all the country-side over men were on the lookout for his tracks. Not since the mysterious disappearance of the bob-tailed fox had so keen an interest been taken in any wild creature. Through the winter he had been the topic of conversation in the chimney-corner of cotter and crofter, and a very frequent intruder on the thoughts of the squire. The slightest association was enough to recall the creature to his mind: the sound of running water, the appearance of a salmon-poacher in court, even the sight of the short-legged animal carved on the screen of the parish church—indeed, his preoccupation showed itself in many acts of his daily life.

Whilst the snow lasted he went every morning to the pond to look for tracks, and as soon as the first daffodils bloomed he began to dip his hand in the streams to try their temperature, longing for the time when the water would be warm enough for the hounds to draw them. In the meantime he busied himself with the various duties of a master of otter hounds. He visited the kennels every day to make sure that the hounds got road exercise to harden their feet. He succeeded after much trouble in inducing the keepers on neighbouring estates to remove the traps which had been the bane of the Hunt. A fortnight before the opening meet he rode round to see the water-bailiff, the miller, the moorman, old Ikey, and the marshman, asked them to keep a lookout for the otter, and parted from each of them with the words, ‘Now don’t forget, my man. Morning, noon, or night, bring me word if you strike his trail.’ It is not true, as alleged by the gossips of the port, that he offered a reward of ten pounds for information that should lead to the finding and death of the otter, though had there been an offer of twice that sum the trackers could not have shown greater keenness than they did. There was evidence of it even before the search began, for every man from far and near who meant to take a part turned up at the hour fixed for the allotment of the waters, determined to get his rights. This unusual procedure had been adopted at the instance of the squire, in order to avoid the disputes and bad blood which he foresaw would arise unless the beats were formally assigned before the season opened.

Raftra, in his ‘Annals of our Village,’ gives a very full account of the meeting. It took place at the Druid’s Arms, with Reuben Gribble, the landlord, in the chair. Between him and the red-bearded water-bailiff sat the venerable tenant of the Home Farm, called in ostensibly on account of his wide knowledge of the streams, but really because of his well-known powers of conciliation, which were needed as soon as the business of the evening began. The chief difficulty was with Sandy, the bailiff, who claimed by virtue of his office the whole length of the river, from Tide End to Lone Tarn. Though he was one against a score, counting the men in the doorway, he seemed bent on maintaining the unreasonable position he had taken up. When the miller and the moorman asked him for the reaches which they preferred and which every man round the table thought they were entitled to, he brushed their requests aside as if they were nobodies. As Raftra says, a Lord High Ranger couldn’t have treated vagrom men with more contempt. This haughty demeanour enraged everyone; in fact, it was all Geordie and the wilder spirits could do to keep their clenched fists off the bailiff’s person. As it was, angry words passed, but when a fight between the gipsy and the Scot seemed imminent, the old reeve rose, lifted his thin hands to command silence, and said:

‘Don’t quarrel, my friends—don’t quarrel; better the otter never came anist us if it’s to lead to blows. And yet, as an old tracker, it does my heart good to see how eager every man of ’ee is to get a good beat. For what else does it mean but this, that the love of sport among us is as strong as ever it was? It makes me long to be one of ’ee, it do; to be young again, abroad at peep o’ day, when the sun is touchin’ the cairns and the wakin’ world is fresh and sweet, to feel once more the joy of comin’ on the wild rover’s prents. This minit in my mind’s eye I can see the five round toe marks and the seal of the otter I spurred beside the Kieve. You’ve heard of the sport he gave. An old man’s tongue will run away with him—run riot, I ought to call it. Your indulgence, my friends, and your further patience while I touch on the matter that brought me to my feet. And let me say by way of preliminary and to all alike, don’t be overreachin’; don’t, simply to keep others out, claim more water than you can search. “Live and let live” is a good motto for a sportsman, be he Englishman or Scot; and this I’m sure of, that my friend beside me will look at things as a big-minded man always do, and prove himself the good neighbour we’ve taken him for.

‘Mr. Macpherson, we’ve treated ’ee like one of ourselves since the coach dropped ’ee at the crossroads now three year back; the more so, maybe, since we’ve got to understand your mouthspeech. True, there was a little soreness because Zachy Kelynack didn’t get the job, but only for a month or two; and we did our best to hide it, agreein’ among ourselves that if the Duchy slighted our own man, ’twas no fault of yourn, and no case for pitchin’ and featherin’, or even for the pump. Come to look back upon it, for a rough-and-ready sort of people, whose parish is their world, we met thee handsomely, though I say it, as I hope we shall every strainyer who looks us straight in the eyes and does his duty without fear or favour. Now, is it askin’ ’ee too much to show a friendly spirit in return and a little consideration for local feelin’?’ Here the speaker paused; but, as the bailiff showed no sign of giving in, he went on: ‘Come, come, Sandy, only try and see the matter as we do. William Rechard and Matthew Henry were born and reared upon the moor, and have known the river all their lives. Right or no right, do ’ee wonder they think theirselves entitled to a reach or two? No, you cannot, you do not. Be strong, my friend, and give way.’

Now, it was not so much what the old man said as the way he said it that made the appeal seem irresistible to all but the bailiff. And truly the voice and manner of the speaker, mellow as the rich light that flooded the low-raftered room, would have gone home to men even less emotional than his countrymen; but the dour Scot seemed to be not the least affected till the landlord, who had hurriedly disappeared through a side-door, returned with a double-handled jug of old cider, and by the influence of the seductive liquid brought him to reason. At the fourth cup he gave in with a good grace, yielding to the miller the three miles of water above the mill. At the sixth he granted the reach above Moor Pool to the moorman, who also got the stream near his cot; old Ikey got the Liddens, as was only fair, since the pools were on his holding; the marshman, the marsh; and the poachers shared the waters that remained, the order of choice being decided by the length of straw, drawn from the landlord’s closed hand. Geordie and Tom, who as leaders of their profession had first and second choice, to their chagrin got the shortest straws.

Now for rivercraft or marshcraft the fourteen men that daily gave at least an hour or two to the search could not, perhaps, have been matched outside that most ancient terrain of the otter-hunter, the Principality of Wales. Yet though the otter followed the usual trails over the moor, the trackers never once came on a sign of him. The reason is not far to seek. The beds of the river and the streams are for the most part rocky, the shallows and landing-places pebbly, and spits of sand are few and far between. It was on these last that the trackers relied to find the footprints, and at dawn they might have been seen bending over them, plying their craft as eagerly as men seeking gold or precious stones. They found nothing, for the otter had never set foot there. Once, indeed, he left his tracks within a bowshot of Moor Pool—tracks so plain that they seemed to cry out; but before the bailiff reached the spot the river rose and obliterated them, and the bailiff never knew how near he had been to discovery.

After the quest had gone on for nearly a month, when men and squire were beginning to fear that the otter had abandoned the district or that his skin was adorning the bedroom floor of some keeper who had trapped him, by the merest chance the moorman happened on the prints near the boundary of his little holding. He was struck all of a heap, as he said, at the unexpected sight; but on recovering himself he remembered the squire’s words and the look in his eyes, so, though the sun was only a few handbreaths above the moor, he left the peat where he had dropped it and set off at a brisk pace for the Big House. In his excitement he forgot the hounds were out until he reached the wood; but there, to the amazement of the watching woodman, who had wondered at his haste, he suddenly turned, late as it was, and made for the cross-roads, hoping to intercept the squire and save himself a very long journey.

By good luck the moorman reached the top of the hill just in time to hail the squire as he rode by, and ran down breathless to where he had drawn rein.