The Life Story of an Otter

by J. C. Tregarthen

‘Last night’s.’

‘Rouse the men, Hicks; we shall need every hand we can muster.’

Before he had got through the plantation on his way to the kennels the clang of the fire-alarm broke on the still morning air, and when he returned from his round, squire, whipper-in and hounds were making their way through the park with a small retinue of servants in their train. At the hamlet they were joined by the parson, the parish clerk, the landlord, two sawyers, and six or seven others, and between the pound and the river by a few crofters, whom the church bell had summoned from outlying homesteads.

They crossed the water below the pool, the squire examined the tracks, the hounds were laid on, and the rocky gorge with all the wood about it immediately resounded with their wild music, while the squire and every man behind him thrilled at the prospect of at last coming up with the creature whose movements had so long baffled them. The ground was very rough, and in parts swampy, yet not a man turned back. That active, hard-conditioned followers made light of the obstacles and the pace was, of course, not surprising; but that the landlord, the clerk, and the chef—short-legged, eleven-score men every one of them—should scramble over rocks and fallen timber, flounder through thickets and boggy places, and still hold on, bedraggled and breathless though they were, testified to the fascination the pursuit of the giant otter had for them.

Some two miles above Longen Pool the squire caught sight of spraints on a boulder in the middle of the river, and knew at once from their position at its upper end that the otter which had dropped them was travelling down-water. At once he recalled the hounds and began drawing anew the reaches he had passed. He tried every holt he came to, but without result.

‘Do you think he’s gone down?’ shouted the squire to the miller across the river.

‘I don’t, sir. I didn’t find a trace from the ford up, and, as you know, the hounds didn’t give a sign.’

‘Well, there’s no holding worth the name between here and Longen. Where can he be?’

The puzzling question was answered by the deep note of Dosmary from an overgrown watercourse that served to drain the morass. No need was there for the squire to cry out, ‘Hark to Dosmary’; for the hounds, on hearing the summons they knew so well, flew to her where she threaded the reed-bed before taking the steep leading to the moor. Then up the all but bare face the twenty couple made their way in a long winding line. Close after the hindmost pressed the squire, the parson and five others, all sound of wind and limb, capable of holding on to the end of the promontory, if need be. Not a word passed until the hounds had crossed the stream where it was thought the otter might have laid up, and then only ‘Liddens, men,’ and ‘Ay, sir!’ from the moorman in response. Even the sight of the otter’s footprints in the next hollow drew no remark; though it caused an unconscious quickening of the step up the long, heathery slope, from whose brow the sea showed beyond the hazy outline of the land. Wide on either hand rose grim piles of rock, where down this avenue of cairns the seven, comrades on many a trail, sped in the wake of the pack towards the Liddens, shimmering in the distance.

But if the seven were elated as never before, there was one on the far side of the moor who was suffering a bitter disappointment. It was the old marshman. He too had discovered the tracks of the otter and, full of his tidings, had driven to the mansion as fast as his Neddy could cover the ground, only to learn from the butler that squire and hounds had already been summoned and gone off to the river. Staggering though the blow was, he bore up till beyond the gates; but on the open moor he broke down, said it was a judgment on him for tracking the varmint in the snow, and let the donkey find the way home as best it could. When they reached the cottage he set the animal loose, tried in vain to shake off his trouble by overhauling the trimmers, and finally sat down on a bench, with his back to the mud wall and his face to the marsh. It was green and gold with the swords and banners of the iris; the air was drowsy with the hum of bees and the sea murmured on the bar; yet the old man noted nothing of it. His thoughts, too, were all of the otter; he was busy trying to reconcile the seemingly contradictory discovery of the tracks in two places so far apart. ‘’Tes a job to piece ’em together with leagues—iss, leagues—of moor between. Why, look here. ’Tes all eight miles from the revur to the Liddens, and a good three as the hern flies from the Liddens to the ma’sh; a long journey, an unaccountable long journey for a crittur that edn framed for travellin’. On a midsummer night, too, and he more afeard of the glim o’ day than a cheeld of the dark. And then to turn his back on the salmin for the pike, and they poor as can be from spawnin’. Why, the thing edn in reason. But, theere, what’s the use of wastin’ breeth when he’s done it? For the prents are hisn and none other, and nawthin’ could be fresher.’