OTTER-HUNTING 245 



to me directly. Just the same was his remembrance of Mrs. 

 Berkeley, though it was some years longer since he had seen 

 her ; and he even knew the sight of the little basin in which in 

 former days she used to sop his bread when he came round to 

 the drawing-room window at Harrold. The first day I went 

 out with the three couples of old foxhounds, and three or four 

 of my white terriers, luckily I obtained a live otter just caught 

 by Mr. Farr's man before alluded to, and put him fresh from 

 the river into a little stream in Holmesley Walk, by which 

 there is a considerable pond, and then drew for him. The 

 hounds entered at once, and soon killed the otter, for, of all 

 bag animals, an otter in that way affords less sport than any 

 other. The next day that I went out saw me on the stream 

 near Lyndhurst, that runs not far from Dinney Ridge. It was 

 a beautiful summer's day, and, supposing no otter to have been 

 on the water, the scene was worth walking through, were it but 

 for its wildness and beauty. Deep beds of the golden willow or 

 bog myrtle in places flanked the stream, tangled with the 

 peculiar grasses of the bogs, and occasionally in the drier places 

 matted with brambles and the shoots of the alder. We were 

 near what was once a decoy for fowl, but now grown up into 

 cover, and giving the hounds the wind I was stepping from hag 

 to hag in a myrtle bog, curiously examining the banks of the 

 stream, and coaxing the old foxhounds to forsake a wider draw 

 in drier places for a fox, and to hang on the river with me. 

 They had begun to do this, and were evidently thinking that I 

 was in search of some drain where a fox was gone to ground, for 

 they leant over the sides of the stream, and tried the hollow 

 roots, as they saw me do, when all at once old Harrogate fixed 

 my attention. He was about ten yards in front of me, and 

 rather more than that space I think from the river, when all at 

 once he winded up in the air, raising himself on his hinder-legs, 

 amid the tangled cover, sprung a yard or two nearer, over all 

 impediments, and again did the same. His countenance wore a 

 doubtful but an excited expression, and I knew at once he had 

 found some vermin. I called softly to those near me " to make 



