Note Number Two. Additional.—Yes, there is one other danger. A great one.
Here it is:—
We have been walking miles along the banks of a stream, crossing difficult stepping-stones, climbing over banks eight feet high [thank goodness, impossible for horses], with drops on the other side, and occasional jumpings down, which shake your teeth, but still you land on your own legs, and if you fall you haven't got a brute on the top of you, or rolling over you, or kicking out your brains with his hind hoofs. We number about sixty in the Field. The shaggy, rough hounds are working up-stream, swimming and trotting, and stopping to examine the surface of any boulder which strikes their noses as having been lately the temporary resting-place of an otter. A few people on horseback are proceeding, slowly in single file, along the bank. Difficult work for them. Ladies, too, are on foot, and all going along as pleasantly as possible. Suddenly a cry—a large dog is seen shaking its head wildly, and rubbing his front paws over his ears—another dog is rolling on the bank—another plunges into the river furiously, also shaking his head as if he was objecting to everything generally, and would rather drown than change his opinions.
Another cry.
Horses plunging—one almost into the river—shrieks of ladies—exclamations from pedestrians—the field is scattered—some attempt to ford the river—some jump right in—some on horseback cross it shouting—some plunge into the plantation on the left—some are running back upon us! A panic.
Mad bull, perhaps—if so—with admirable presence of mind I jump into the water up to my waist, and am making for the opposite side, when a man, running and smoking a short pipe, answers my question as to the bull with—
"No! Wasps! Wasps' nest!!" In a second I see them. At me. Pursuing me. I dive my head under water. Wet through! Scramble up bank. One wasp is after me. One pertinaciously. My foot catches in a root, I am down. Wasp down too, close at my ear. A minute more I am up. Wasp up too, by my right ear.
An Inspiration.—It flashes across me that wasps hate mud. Don't know where I heard it. Think it was in some child's educational book. No time for thinking. Jump—squish—into the mud! Over my knees—boots nearly off. The last thing I see of Pendell is holding on his spectacles with his left hand, and fighting a wasp with his stick in his right. Squish—flop—flosh!... Up against a stump—down in a morass. Wasp at me. Close to my ear as if he wanted to tell me a secret. I won't hear it! Now I understand why the dog shook his head. Through a bramble bush (like the Man in the Nursery Rhyme, who scratched both his eyes out and in again by a similar operation), and come out torn and scratched, but dry as a pen after being dragged through a patent wiper of erect bristles. No wasp. Gone. I am free. But still I keep on.
That's the only great danger in Otter-Hunting. At least, that I know of at present.
I pick up the man with pipe. Kindest creature in the world. He has two pipes, and he fills and gives me one. He says, "Wasps won't attack a smoker."