Tarquol, playing with the rotten crown of an old bowler hat--fishermen always kept their bait in old Sunday chapel-going hats--heard the whistle, and dashed back to the pool. _Krark!_ cried Old Nog, flying up before him, his toes on the water. _Kak! Kack! Kack! Kack! Kack!_ as his mate and youngsters followed. Old Nog flew over the bridge, but seeing and hearing the tide flowing up, he wheeled and beat up the Yeo valley. The five herons followed him, but he dived at them, screaming _Gark! Gark!_ Old Nog was weary after many weeks of hunger, of disgorging nearly all he caught into the greedy maws of four grown fledglings, and often, the greedy maw of his mate. _Krark!_ a cry of satisfaction. Old Nog flew alone. Every night for a week the otters came to the pool at low water, until the tides, ebbing later and later, and so into daylight, stopped the fishing. One evening, when the Peal Rock in the river below Canal Bridge was just awash after a thunderstorm, Tarka and White-tip and the four cubs followed a run of peal as far as the weir-pool, staying out until after sunrise, when several fish were taken in the water, then low and clear again. The Twin-Ash Holt was far behind them, so they slept in a holt under an oak, which was entered by an opening two feet below the water-level. The next night they went on up the river, catching and eating fish on the scours and shoals, then hastening back to water again. Tarquol swam near Tarka; the cub was lithe and swift as his parent, and sometimes snatched fish from his mouth. They rolled and romped together, clutching rudders and heads and pretending to bite; their joyful whistles went far down the river, heard by Old Nog as he sailed by in the wasting moonlight. Paler the moon rose, and at dawn White-tip went down with the cubs and Tarka wandered on alone; but he turned back again, calling her to Canal Bridge to play one last game. _Hu-ee-ic!_ They played the old bridge game of the West Country otters, which was played before the Romans came. They played around the upper and lower cutwater of the middle pier, while the lesser stars were drowned in the heavenly tide flowing up the eastern sky, and the trees of the hill-line grew dark, and larks were flying with song. _Hu-ee-ic!_ Tarquol followed Tarka out of the river and along the otter-path across the bend, heedless of his mother's call. He followed up the river and across another bend; but, scared of the light, returned to water and sought a holt under a sycamore. Tarka went on alone, up three miles of river, to a holt in a weir-pool shadowed by trees, where peal were leaping. The sun looked over the hills, the moon was as a feather dropped by the owls flying home, and Tarka slept, while the water flowed, and he dreamed of a journey with Tarquol down to a strange sea, where they were never hungry, and never hunted. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN