on the otter. He reached her just as she gained the top of the
wall that, on a level with the garden, formed a barrier against the
river-floods. Lutra felt a sharp nip on her flank, and was bowled over
by the impetuous rush of her foe; but she regained her feet in an
instant, and jumped without hesitation into the water. The river was
shallow where she fell; the dog followed her; and for a moment she was
in deadly peril. But before the sheep-dog recovered from his sudden
plunge, Lutra swam into the deep water and dived straight for home,
leaving the plucky mongrel standing in the ripples, with a look of
almost human disgust and astonishment on his intelligent face. He may
have reasoned thus: "Surely I caught that otter. But stay, I must have
been dreaming. 'Tis queer, though: I'm in the river instead of on the
road to the farm." This, for Lutra, was perhaps the only noteworthy
episode of her early life.

The otter-cub was about nine months old when spring came to the valley.
The water-weed grew in long filaments from the gravelly shallows. 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. Instead of seeking how to construct a perfect dwelling place,
these slipshod builders spent most of their hours in courtship.
Sometimes, owing to the carelessness of the lackadaisical doves, a dry
stick released by bill or claw would fall pattering among the branches,
and drop, with a plash, into the river, where it would be borne by the
current past the otter's lair. From every bush and brake along the
sparkling stream the carols of joyous birds floated on the morning
mists. The first green leaves of the bean peeped in the gardens; the
first broods of the year's ducklings launched forth, like heartstrong
adventurers, into the shallows by the cottage walls. In the sunny glades
the big, fleshy buds of the chestnut and the light-green, tapering
sprouts of the sycamore expanded under the influence of increasing
warmth. Finches and sparrows, on the lookout for flies, hovered above
the ankle-deep drifts of leaf-mould in the lane below the trees, or
crossed and re-crossed between the budding boughs. Only a few of these
many signs were observed by Lutra, it is true, for she spent the day in
hiding.