Page:Tarka the Otter.djvu/227

The Kelt Pool The otters caught eels in the shallow edges of the pool, watched by the hungry herons, whose harsh continuous cries told their anger. When the cubs had eaten enough they played on the sand, running on and on until they were behind the six birds, on the ridge of gravel where snags were part buried. Curlewsthe unmated birds which had not gone to the moorsflew off the glidders, and away up the tidal reaches of the river.

Hu-ee-ic!

Tarquol, playing with the rotten crown of an old bowler hatfishermen always kept their bait in old Sunday chapel-going hatsheard the whistle, and dashed back to the pool. Krark! cried Old Nog, flying up before him, his toes on the water. ''Kak! Kack! Kack! Kack! Kack!'' as his mate and youngsters followed. Old Nog flew over the bridge, but seeing and hearing the tide flowing up, he wheeled and beat up the Yeo valley. The five herons followed him, but he dived at them, screaming ''Gark! Gark!'' Old Nog was weary after many weeks of hunger, of disgorging nearly all he caught into the greedy maws of four grown fledglings, and often, the greedy maw of his mate. Krark! a cry of satisfaction. Old Nog flew alone.

Every night for a week the otters came to the pool at low water, until the tides, ebbing later and later, and so into daylight, stopped the fishing. One evening, when the Peal Rock in the river below Canal Bridge was just awash after a thunderstorm, Tarka and White-tip and the four cubs followed a run of peal as far as the weir-pool,