COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 175 



anxiety was to see him well bitten^ and lie quite 

 grudged him all his narrow escapes. Indeed, the 

 principal clause in the Grant articles of war ran 

 thus : '' If the otter breaks your arm, Walter, you 

 are not to let him go/^ 



It has not been our fate, as yet, to see the Doctor 

 engaged in one of these great water wrestles ; but 

 we have a keen recollection of him in a stirring: 

 tableau on a certain February night, holding up his 

 badger by the tail, and casting the gleams of the 

 lantern on its aldermanic paunch, to show the happy 

 results of a three years^ captivity. Its condition and 

 knowledge of " the noble art of self-defence^^ are 

 undoubted ; but still the doctor considers it, intellec- 

 tually speaking, quite a dull-witted brute. He has 

 tried hard to touch, one by one, the finer chords in 

 its nature; but it won^t have him at any price. 

 Perhaps it has learned to suspect him and his 

 honeyed words, and knows his mission far too svell, 

 as he goes bending almost double into its cell. Hence 

 it burrows day after day in the straw-tub, eats en- 

 ormous rations of bread, meat, and milk, and sternly 

 refuses to reciprocate on any terms whatever. 



The voice of the charmer has never failed before. 

 He attributes this remarkable cynicism to his 

 badger^s advanced age when it was dug out, and he 

 secured one of tenderer years. They are the first 

 creatures he ever failed to educate. As for his fer- 

 rets, he taught them nothing but affection; but his 

 ^' performing rats^^ got quite a step beyond that, and 



