Page:Tarka the Otter.djvu/76

Stikkersee's Wood iclack of a sprung gin, so she had no fear. But the rabbits told their fear by thumping their hindlegs, and those which did not bolt into the open ran to their buries and sat there quivering, with ears laid over shoulders. The otters followed them to where they crouched, inert in terror, their faces pressed into the earth where the tunnels stopped. Twelve were dragged out squealing, and killed; three being skinned by the bitch. While they were feeding, a harsh chattering came from one of the holes, with two pricks of greenish light. Here stood Stikkersee the weasel, who was in a rage because the water-fitches were in his wood. Stikkersee was about half as long as the otter’s rudder, but he was not afraid of her. He came within a yard of her nose and raved so persistently at the smell of so much blood that she turned away from the little beast’s racket and went back to the river.

When the moon had come to its full round shine, Tarka was hunting his own food in the pools and necks of the clear water running round the bend above Canal Bridge, which rod-and-line men declare to be the best fishing stretch of the Two Rivers. One August night, after play under the oaken fender that took the leat away from the pool, he had left his mother but a short while and was running along the bank, when a raucous cry in the darkness made him halt. His paw was raised. His nostrils twitched. The cry had come from the meadow, where tufts of rush-grass and sedge were left uncropped by cattle. It was followed by othersslurred and throaty notes which rose slowly into the air and ended in

66