into the water and stealing away; but it was well he refrained, for presently the stag broke its bay and made off down the river, drawing the pack after it.
Then, though calm returned to the pool from which it had been so ruthlessly banished, it brought no peace to the otter. A peel leaped where the stag had stood, trout rose where the hounds had clustered, pigeons 'roohooed' overhead, and a squirrel came down and drank at the water, yet the otter was still perturbed. His faith in the holt was gone, and he longed for dusk that he might leave it and get away from the taint of hound that drowned the scent of moss and fern and poisoned the sweet, fresh breath of the river. He did not await the fall of night, for a faint glow yet lighted the spaces between the boles when he left, and as he came out upon the moor, the sky was still red with the embers of sunset. Far ahead loomed the familiar outline of the solitary hill, as yet unvisited; and now at last he determined to follow the stream that veined it to the summit, and there find the refuge that the specious ravine denied.
At a good pace he moved over the heather and bog till, a furlong or so beyond some stacks
