e water became more sinuous and easy, she tired less
rapidly when fishing.

Autumn passed on towards winter, the nights were long, the great harvest
of the leaves fell thickly on the meadow and the stream, the mountain
springs were loosed in muddy torrents, and the river roared, swollen and
turbid, past the "holt" under the trailing alder-twigs. The moorhens
came back from the ponds where they had nested in April and May; the
wild duck and the teal flew south from oversea, and in the night
descended circling to the pool; a dabchick from the wild gorge
down-river took up his abode in the sedges.

The quick jerk of the dabchick's oar-like wings caused much wonder to
Lutra, when, walking on the river-bed, she looked up towards the moonlit
sky, and saw the little grebe dive like a dark phantom into the deep
hole beneath the rocky ledges of Penpwll. Once the otter-cub, acting
under an irresistible impulse, swam towards the bird and tried to seize
him. She managed to grip one of his feet, as they trailed behind him
while he dived, but the grebe escaped, leaving in the assailant's mouth
only a morsel of flesh torn from a claw.

In the warm evenings of late summer and the first weeks of autumn, the
angler usually visited the shingle opposite the water-pipe, and waded
up-stream casting for trout. The otter-cubs, grown wiser than when the
angler saw them near the sycamore, discreetly stayed at home, for they
had been taught to regard this strange being, Man, known by his peculiar
footfall and upright walk, as a dreaded enemy scarcely less formidable
than the hounds and the terriers that at intervals accompanied him for
the express purpose of hunting such river-folk as otters and rats.

As yet Lutra had never seen the hounds, nor, till the following summer,
was she to know the import of her instinctive timidity. Roaming, hungry,
and venturesome, she had chanced at nightfall to catch a glimpse, during
an occasional gleam of moonlight, of a large trout struggling
frantically on the surface of the water not far from the angler, had
heard the click of the reel and the swish of the landing net, and had
concluded that these mysterious proceedings gave cause for fear.

The end of October drew nigh; and, when the last golden leaves began to
fall from the beeches, the angler ceased to frequent the riverside.
Henceforward, except when a sportsman passed with his gun, the otters'
haunt remained in peace.

Always at break of day, howeve