246 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



in on a shallow above and below, for that we were about to find, 

 or I was much mistaken," and in an undertone to Harrogate 

 I cheerfully cried, "You do't, old boy." Each jump with a 

 flourishing stem brought him nearer, till at last he paused on 

 the rivers brink, directing his glance and his nose to an old 

 root under the dark alders on the opposite side. He stood an 

 instant and then sprang in and swam across to the holt, his 

 bristles up, his stern waving from side to side, and with a 

 peculiar fling of his head giving promise of his well-remembered 

 tongue. It needed but the cheer from me, and the old hound 

 spoke, seizing and tearing the root above him with his teeth. 

 In an instant hounds and terriers were " together," and all in 

 full cry, rending the root and earth around the holt as if they 

 were mad. The instant Harrogate touched the root, I cried, 

 " An otter down ! " and then the fun began. The shallow 

 above first resounded with the " Talliho ! look back," the 

 hounds and terriers raged on either side the river, and the 

 former made short casts to assure themselves he had not gone 

 away. Pickaxe and spade now thundered over the holts, and 

 men were manning the alder and willow boughs where one 

 would bear them that lay upon the stream, while 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 my 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 continued 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 



