302 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



Others got into the water, and struck with their spear 

 at every wave or bubble that came by them. One of 

 them, and one of the most excited, as well as the 

 first in the water, was ray cousin, the present Lord 

 Albemarle. He struck at the passing otter, and broke 

 his spear on the gravelly bed of the stream. Now 

 the lower shallow re-echoed with similar cries to the 

 one above, and then some tenant of a slippery bough 

 would see the otter beneath his foot, and, forgetting 

 that there would not be much to bring him up if he 

 unbalanced himself, strike impetuously, and, hitting 

 nothing, fall headlong in, as if he meant to catch the 

 otter in his mouth, amidst a cheer from me of " Well 

 done, old boy ; but try again ! " After this had con- 

 tinued some time, the hounds and terriers putting 

 the otter down whenever he rose to vent, a terrible 

 row was heard on the lower shallow, for some 

 countryman with a stick had hit the otter in view 

 of one of the hounds, and together they killed him. 

 Having harangued the country people, and told them, 

 if any one ever struck an otter again that I was 

 hunting, I would undoubtedly strike the offender, we 

 called a counsel as to which way we should draw. 

 Among those around me was the old keeper Primmer, 

 in care of that walk, who had been a keeper at 

 Berkeley Castle under my father ; Mr. George St. 

 Barbe of Lymington, Colonel Keppel, Mr. Stone, and 

 many more, when the late Colonel Thornhill, who 

 was also there, came up and said he wished I would 

 return to the spot where we had killed the otter, 

 for that Sraike, my terrier, afterwards so famous 

 in otter-hunting, would not leave a holt that had not 

 been dug. I took the hounds to the place. They 

 backed the terrier with their tongues, " An otter 



