COLDSTREAM TO HAWICK, 195 



Indian dance of some foot people, who had gone ter- 

 ribly forward and got the hounds^ heads up, told that 

 the otter was away. " He^s over ! Lift 'em — lift 

 'em I" was the cry from the infantry. " Lift them, 

 indeed !'' said the Doctor, who had kept his patience 

 wonderfully, and only made one address, and that in 

 the quietest tones, from the centre of the stream — 

 '^ Leave my old dog ivhen he's swimming the drag all 

 by himself — not for fifty otters!'' "You ivon't kill 

 them tuhen you can," was the excited retort ; but the 

 Doctor is far too fair by dog and otter to do such 

 unsportsmanlike things, and the foxhunters were 

 quite with him on the point. 



It was lucky for his credit that he was so firm, as 

 the sport would have been in another minute quite 

 a burlesque on a fox-chase, and he would have fairly 

 split up his otter in the open. The otter saw that 

 he was headed, and short of water ; and crawling out 

 at that point, he went through a bolt-hole in the 

 hedge, and away over the oats. In a few minutes^ 

 Hassenden Bank Haughs were all alive with the 

 melody, Walter and the Doctor riding to points, and 

 Sandy lobbing away close by the tail hounds, cheek- 

 by-jole with old Shammy, who shambled along like 

 a young'un in his glee. The riug was fully a mile^ 

 but the white crops and the glen- were no protection 

 to him, with three foxhounds running the drag. It 

 was no use facing the open any more ; so he worked 

 back to the Teviot at Spittal Ford, swam another half- 

 mile, and was out of it again, and cut off a corner 



2 o 2 



