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He was anxious that the hounds, which, on the previous day, had arrived at the village, should enjoy good sport during their stay in the neighbourhood. But he saw nothing of the animals he had come to watch; as soon as they detected his whereabouts they retreated hastily to the pond at the upper end of the garden, gained the river, and, like Lutra, swam homewards around the bend.
Her eyes, peculiarly fitted for watching objects immediately above, quickly detected the almost motionless fish. The eyes of the salmon were also formed for looking upwards, and so Lutra remained unnoticed by her prey.
As yet Lutra had never seen the hounds, nor, till the following summer, was she to know the import of her instinctive timidity.
The angler, who had ceased to frequent the riverside at the approach of winter, returned to the pool, but only by day, and then Lutra dozed in her retreat. In the pines on the margin of the river the blue ringdoves were busy constructing the rude makeshift that was to serve the purpose of a nest.
Lutra soon baffled our inexpert hounds, and gained refuge in a "strong place" well behind a fringe of alder-roots, whence Bob, notwithstanding his most strenuous efforts, failed to "bolt" her.
Once, in despair, the otter actually tried to break through the human chain; but a hunter "tailed" him for a moment, and then dropped him into the deeper water beyond the ford. The sound of horn, the shouts of men, the deep-toned notes of great hounds, the shrill yapping of eager terriers, and the splashing and the plunging on every side, almost bewildered Lutra.
Fearing to move from her shelter, she floated in the deep basin of the hidden pool beside the cataract, till at last the commotion gradually subsided, and hounds and hunters passed out of sight down-stream. Lutra awaited her mate's return, but in vain. Not till night did she venture from her hiding place.
If he had to flee from the big trout, or from the otter, when the stream rushed madly past his open doorway, he found that an interval, which, however brief, was sufficient to imperil his life, must necessarily elapse before he could secure a foothold in his doorway and lift himself into the dark recess beyond. Lutra had almost caught him after his adventure with the owl.
Lutra sometimes noticed, while she drifted with the current, that the scent of her kindred lay strong at the surface not far from her "holt." One still, moonlit night the scent indicated that several full-grown otters had at intervals come from the trout-reaches down-stream, and had landed in a reed-bed at the lower end of the pool.
He heard quick, uneven footsteps, and, now and then, a voice; and was aware of an unmistakable scent, such as he had already often noticed in the shallows and amid the grass. On several occasions, at dusk, Brighteye, like Lutra the otter, had seen a trout splashing and twisting convulsively in terror and pain.
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