I found only fresh woods and pastures new that were
like the old; other lanes leading to other farm-houses, each
in its familiar pretty setting of orchard and garden; and,
finally, other ancient villages, each with its ivy-grown grey
church tower looking down on a green graveyard and scattered
cottages, mostly mud-built and thatched with straw. Finding
no outlook on any side I went back to the streams, oftenest to
the Otter, where, lying by the hour on the bank, I watched the
speckled trout below me and the dark-plumaged dipper with
shining white breast standing solitary and curtseying on a,
stone in the middle of the current. Sometimes a kingfisher
would flash by, and occasionally I came upon a lonely grey
heron; but no mammal bigger than a watervole appeared,
although I waited and watched for the much bigger beast that
gives the river its name. Still it was good to know that he
was there, and had his den somewhere in the steep rocky bank
under the rough tangle of ivy and bramble and roots of
overhanging trees. One was shot by a farmer during my stay,
but my desire was for the living, not a dead otter.
Consequently, when the otter-hunt came with blaze of scarlet
coats and blowing of brass horns and noise of barking hounds
and shouts of excited people, it had no sooner got half a mile
above Ottery St. Mary, where I had joined the straggling
procession, than, falling behind, the hunting fury died out of
me and I was relieved to hear that no quarry had been found.
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