J. C. Tregarthen

“ Nothing escapes the vigilant eyes of the Earthstopper behind the furze screen, and his ears are strained to catch any tell-tale sound along the course of the stream. As yet there is no sign of the otter, and every minute that goes by lessens the chance of its appearing, for it is nearly midnight now and dawn is but a few hours off. Wearying a little from the strain of his vigil and his cramped quarters the old man begins to fear that the poacher may not be coming, and again it makes him as “vexed as fire” to remember the iris and the huge print on the silt. ”

“ The sun had sunk below the hill, and Golden Valley lay in shadow and repose. Zekiah, the miller, his work done at last, sat smoking his pipe on the bench by the door; the mill-wheel was at rest, and the stream was slowly refilling the nearly emptied pond where, from time to time, a wave in the shallows betrayed the movement of a trout. Overhead a few swifts yet wheeled: but yellow-hammer, whinchat, blackcap, whitethroat, and long-tailed tit had sought roosting-places in the furze, and the magpie that haunted the mill had withdrawn to his perch in the hawthorn. ”

“ She might have slept for two hours when the clamour of sea-fowl awakened her and brought her in haste to the edge of the clitter, where the otter was already on his feet gazing at a flock of gulls, whose excited movements showed they were over fish. Whilst they looked the shoal disappeared, and the gulls dispersed—like the wonderful scouts they are—to watch for its return to the surface. The instant the birds congregated over an agitated patch of water between the clitter and the Seal Rock the eager otters slipped into the sea. ”

“ All the way across the heather to his cottage, Andrew thought of what the Squire had said, but reflection did not shake the confidence he felt in his plan. More than once, when he had lain hidden on the bank of the stream, an otter had swum past within a few feet of him without betraying the least alarm. Of course, he had kept as still as death. Almost in the twinkling of an eye the Earthstopper can become as rigid as a rock, and so disarm the suspicion of the shyest of wild creatures, provided they don’t get wind of him. ”

“ But the moment the squire cheers the hounds on to his line he knows that he has been seen, instantly abandons his slinking tactics and breaks into a gallop, his head pointed straight for his native hills.
It was an exhilarating moment for Sir Tudor, and as he settled down to ride, what with the pleasant undulations of his horse, what with the freshness of the morning and the wildness of the country, above all with the thought that his little companions in a hundred hunts were chiming on the scent of their first Cornish hare, he would not have changed seats with King George. ”

“ Indeed, they were yet two miles away when the ridges above them were touched by the risen sun. To add to their troubles a magpie espied them, and though they were strange to him as to the terrier, he knew they were nightlings with no right to be abroad after sunrise, and mobbed them as he would have mobbed a leash of foxes. Under the brambles and osmunda ferns they were hidden from the pest, but in the open he had them at his mercy and, now fluttering just beyond their reach, now hopping from branch to branch of rowan or alder or wild-cherry, he annoyed them with impunity. ”

“ Luckily for her, Andrew has got over a fit of sneezing, and she passes the bush unconscious of his presence. When her footsteps die away, night and its shy denizens claim the earth for their own. A rabbit runs along the space between the wheel-ruts and pauses for a moment on the further bright space. To the Earthstopper its ears are in a line with a big stone that holds the gate leading into a rough meadow bordering the stream. The rabbit has scarcely passed out of sight before a stoat follows, like a murderer on the trail of his victim, and is lost to view in the shadow of a hedgerow. ”

“ He had hardly settled down when the otter and her cubs hurried by along the opposite bank, on their way to a reedy marsh a mile above. Then all was quiet till, at peep of day, a kingfisher came and fished from a branch of the alder overhanging the inflow; the tinkle of the water as she struck it made a pretty sound in the silent dawn. Later, just as the smoke rose from the miller’s chimney, a moorhen led out her brood as if to teach them the geography of the pool, for she kept taking them from creeklet to creeklet till the miller came to raise the hatch and drove them all away. ”

“ That day a fiery sun beat down upon the country-side and exhausted toiler and sportsman abroad in the sweltering heat. The mower sweated and panted behind the scythe, the otter-hunters crossing the moor longed for the cool woods they had left, and the boy on the smack at the end of the creek gobbled up his pasty to spend the dinner-hour in the pool beneath the bridge. Not only man and boy suffered from the heat; beast and bird too sought the shade, abandoning their haunts to the insect hosts that revelled in the scorching rays. ”

“ THE EARTHSTOPPER UNDER THE STARS It was an hour after midnight when the Earthstopper of the Penwith Hunt left his cottage on the outskirts of Madron. He carried a lantern and a rough terrier followed at his heels. His track led, by lanes in the heather, over a cairn to the furze-clad downs overlooking the lake.
To the West, sombre hills rose against the jewelled vault where the stars in the depths of the frosty sky kept watch over the slumbering earth. Half-way over the downs, beneath the roots of a stunted pine, was a fox-earth. The old man knelt down and stopped it with faggots of furze. ”

“ To satisfy himself that he was mistaken he kept raising his head and looking round until, unable to endure the misery any longer, he stole from the seat and hurried back to the highest part of the farm, where a hedge had taken his fancy as he had crossed from the barley to the oats.
There, amongst the coarse grasses, beneath the fronds of a solitary brake-fern, he sat with his face to the dawn-wind, which played with his whiskers, swayed the ears of the barley, and buffeted the smoke rising from the chimney of the homestead. ”

“ Then mother and cubs joined in play, disporting themselves at times on the surface, but more often in the depths. Presently they would rise, locked together as if in deadly struggle, and roll over and over like a water-logged ball in a current. All at once, and frequently whilst immersed, they would break up, land, and make the circuit of the banks, passing one another as though they were utter strangers, and then suddenly, as if by signal, take to the water again and resume their mimic warfare. Once whilst they were thus engaged the whistle of an otter reached them from the river. ”

“ Only by a miracle can the slow-footed creature cover the two miles to it, before he is overtaken. Look at him as he hurries along under the shelter of that stone wall, as he threads his way among the furze bushes, as he glides like a monster eel through the coarse grasses, where the dew lies heavy. You are conscious of the great effort he is making to save his life. That dark spot below the high bank is the rock he is making for, and it is the silver thread of the stream surrounding it that you see sparkling here and there at the foot of the rugged slope. ”

“ Intent on their quarry, the weasels gave no heed, but the owl looked out of its hole to learn what ailed its exemplary neighbour, and the marten peered over the edge of the nest to ascertain, if possible, the cause of the disturbance. She saw nothing of rabbit or weasels, for the trees hid them from sight, but she had an uninterrupted view of the hare, and at once was all excitement at the prospect of an unexpected feast. Though she had tasted hare once and only once, the memory of the delicious flavour remained, and she had often longed to taste it again. ”

“ Thus he lay and made his comments whilst the party approached Moor Pool, but no sooner did they reach the bank than his demeanour changed and he sprang to his feet as though an adder had stung him. And no wonder, for the hounds at once struck the line of the otter, and made down-river at full cry. ‘Well now, Grylls,’ said he, ‘is it go or stay? Why, stay, of coorse; sure as you’re alive they’ll be back again.’ So he stood watching and watching and watching till hounds and men became blurred by distance, and at last disappeared into the wood. ”

“ There was no pool of water there, no spring, as far as I could see; and a small cave at the foot of the high bank was dry, for, boylike, I peeped in over the drift that half-filled its mouth.
Leaving the field, we made for Trevean farmhouse. The snow in the unfrequented lane that we followed was unmarked by any footprint except the track of a hare. Soon we could smell the reek of burning furze, and as we came in sight of the high stone chimney, we heard the mooing of the cattle that had been driven in from the wild moors around. ”

“ On the other hand, not a bird was to be found on the hills: Sancreed Beacon, Caer Bran, Bartinney, were deserted by every living thing save hibernating adder, slow-worm, and newt; the old toad and the hare were the sole tenants of Chapel Carn Brea.
Protected by his thick winter coat the hare was able to withstand the nipping frosts that blackened all but the hardiest and most unpalatable herbage, to which he was for the most part now driven for support. He fed on furze and lichens and no longer looked forward to the joys of pasturing time. ”

“ She could not find a hover quite to her liking, but in lack of a better, she chose a ledge where, in an angle of the stream that drained the bog, the bank furnished a screen from the biting wind which blew up the valley and soughed over the uplands. After enlarging the ledge into a shelf, she shaped the excavation for the nest, which she fashioned out of dead rushes and withered grasses, and which she lined with the softest products that Nature offered her—tattered reed-plumes and seed-down of the bulrush. ”

“ The valley is awakening. The sunbeams that slant over the lichened cairn now bright as with outcropping gold, bathe stem, leaf and petal, and dance on the rippled surface of the lake. Hushed, indeed, are the weird voices of night; but from spinney and brake come the songs of finch and warbler, moor-hens call amongst the reeds, doves coo in the pines, and a robin sings on a branch of the willow. Even the midges, inspired by the joy that moves all creatures at the return of brightsome day, have resumed their gambols around the gladdening ray up in the turret of the otter’s lair. ”