COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK. 187 



once more, and they finished it. On another occa- 

 sion, when he was not in full costume, an otter fairly- 

 pinned him by the heel, and he never even felt it had 

 hold of him till it tore his trousers right up to the 

 knee. 



After meditating on it all the winter of ^63-64, 

 and being assured by his friends that he never could 

 do it, he succeeded in taking an otter alive ! It was 

 bolted from under a tree root, on the banks of the 

 Ale, with Teddy hanging to its throat. The Doctor 

 took his resolve in an instant, and plunged the pair 

 beneath water to hide the otter from the hounds, 

 and drown Teddy off. Just as he took hold of the 

 otter hy its neck with the left hand, it caught hold 

 of him, and pinned him like an English bull-dog for 

 some minutes. The pain seemed nothing in that 

 hour of victory. He shouted to Walter to strip off his 

 coat. Walter was in the water and his shirt- sleeves 

 in an instant, and after delivering his " one, two^^ in 

 the regular Grant style, on the heads of three old 

 hounds, he wrapped the eoat round and round the 

 otter in his master's arms, and the deed was done at 

 last. It was a very pretty dog otter of ISlbs. weight, 

 and offered battle for a time whenever they looked 

 into the box. On the seventh day it took fish from 

 the hand, but it died soon after, the victim of its ap- 

 petite. The Doctor's fingers were rather numbed 

 and powerless after the bone-mill process, and he 

 was tremendously bitten in other parts ; but what 

 was that to such a long-coveted trophy, fairly 



