BRITISH SPORT PAST AND PRESENT 



vicinity that could be imagined. The cause of it I give in liis 

 own words. He said " he heard me call out that we were about 

 to find, and at the same moment Smike, followed at some 

 distance by a single hound, came running down the side of the 

 stream, evidently on a drag directly towards him." About 

 fifty yards from where he stood, and about four or five paces 

 from the edge of the water, in a swampy spot in the meadow, 

 was a small mass of tangled reeds, briars and bushes, perhaps 

 twenty yards in circumference, or not so much. Right into 

 this little thicket Smike's drag took him, and, to my groom's 

 amazement, out on the grass rolled three otters and Smike 

 all fighting, Smike yelling with fury and pain at the treatment 

 he met with, and the young or three-parts grown otter, whom 

 he had fixed on, screaming in concert, to all of which Newman 

 added his view-halloo and whoop. The row had not lasted a 

 second when hand over hand raced up the old hound, and with 

 a rush knocked Smike and the three otters into the water, 

 but seizing and assisting to kill the one Smike maintained his 

 hold on. Having worried the first otter, I took up the chase 

 of the other two, finding them both, and changing from one to 

 the other occasionally, but at last settling to the old bitch 

 otter. Than the work she cvit out for us, I never saw anything 

 more beautiful. About the water meadows there are several 

 streams or rather one stream divided into several ; one of 

 these, a very swift but shallow one, ran by the side of a bank, 

 on which was a " plashed " and double-laid blackthorn hedge, 

 and up this stream the otter took her course, with scarce water 

 enough at times to hide her. When the water shoaled too 

 much she crept into the hedge, in which alone the terriers 

 could follow her, and then it was perfect to see the hounds 

 splashing up the water as, gazing into the hedge, they en- 

 deavoured to head and nick in upon the otter. When the 

 hounds dashed on to the top of the blackthorns down the otter 

 went again into the stream, and so on till other streams and 

 deeper water were for a time regained. The chase with this 

 old otter, hard at it, lasted an hour and three-quarters, in as 



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