THE SQUIRE DISAPPOINTED 105 



moorman have all come on his footprints and 

 given such reports of their size that interest has 

 become widespread and people have flocked from 

 far and near to the meets in the hope of seeing 

 him found and hunted. 



No one was more interested than the squire, 

 but he succeeded in concealing the excitement he 

 felt, unless, perhaps, it showed in his very caustic 

 language to the field at the least tendency to 

 press the hounds ; and when the season ended 

 without the otter being accounted for, no one 

 save his wife and the old butler knew his disap- 

 pointment. But disappointed he was ; and indeed 

 it was almost inexplicable that the hounds should 

 not have chanced on the otter, for he kept to the 

 usual trails and kennelled in the well-known 

 holts. Once they followed his line to the creek, 

 but there, owing to the rising tide, the pursuit 

 had to be abandoned. At another time they 

 actually drew over him where he lay far in under 

 the bank out of mark. 



Yet if he bore a charmed life to hunter and 

 hound, he was not fortunate enough to keep 

 quite clear of the other perils that beset him. 

 After having long avoided traps set here and 

 there on his path, he was caught when about 

 fourteen months old by a gin laid in a shallow, 



14 



