Below the island the river widened, smooth with the sky. Tarka swam down slowly, bleeding from many wounds. Sometimes he paddled with three legs, sometimes with one, in the water darkening so strangely before his eyes. Not always did he hear the hounds baying around him. At the beginning of the tenth hour he passed the banks faced with stone to keep the sea from the village, and drifted into deeper water, whereon sticks and froth were floating. Hounds were called off by the horn, for the tide was at flood.
But as they were about to leave, Tarka was seen again, moving with the tide, his mouth open. The flow took him near the bank; he kicked feebly, and rolled over.
Tally Ho!
Deadlock saw the small brown head, and bayed in triumph as he jumped down the bank. He bit the head, and lifted the otter high, flung him about and fell into the water with him. They saw the broken head look up beside Deadlock, heard the cry of Ic-yang! as Tarka bit into his throat, and then the hound was sinking with the otter into the deep water. Oak-leaves, black and rotting in the mud of the unseen bed, arose and swirled and sank again. And the tide slowed still, and began to move back, and they waited and watched, until the body of Deadlock arose, drowned and heavy, and floated away amidst the froth on the waters.
They pulled the body out of the river and carried it to the bank, laying it on the grass, and looking down at the dead hound in sad wonder. And while they stood there silently, a great bubble rose out of the depths, and broke, and as they watched, another bubble shook the surface, and broke; and there was a third bubble in the sea-going waters, and nothing more.
HERE ENDS TARKA THE OTTER BY HENRY
WILLIAMSON, BEGUN IN JUNE 1923 AND
FINISHED IN FEBRUARY 1927 IN THE
VILLAGE OF HAM IN DEVON
Glossary
Ackymal An onomatopoeic word from the call of the blue and great titmouse
Aerymouse Common British bat
Ammil Frost
Appledrane A wasp buzzing inside a ripe apple
Belving The note of a deep-chested hound
Brock Badger
Bubbles-a-vent An obsolescent otter-hunting cry
Channered Wandering tracks in the salt turf which look as though they were made by great worms
Clitter Pile of rocks
Crackey Common wren
Dimity Twilight
Fitchey or fitch Stoat
Oolypuggers Bulrushes
Pill Esturial creek
Pollywiggle Tadpole
Quapping The sound made by a duck with its bill when feeding
Ragrowster To enjoy boisterously
Ram-cat Tom cat
Ream A wave
Ruddock Robin
Shillets Flat stones of the river bed deposited by flood waters
Shippen or shippon A roofed shed with one side open for cattle to shelter in
Spurring Following the track of a wild animal
Stag-bird A cock among domestic hens
Sterlings (Pronounced starlings) The stone piling round the base of a bridge
Tacker Small child, usually a boy
Twired Slow and shallow flow of river water moving past a heron’s legs
Vair Weasel
Vuz-peg Hedgehog
Yinny-yikker Noisily aggressive
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First published 1927
Published in Penguin Books 1937
Reprinted in Puffin Books 1949
Reprinted with revisions by the author 1962
Reprinted with map 1963
This edition reissued 2014
Text copyright © The Henry Williamson Literary Estate, 1927
Illustrations copyright © Annabel Large, 1995
Afterword copyright © Eleanor Graham, 1949
Cover illustration by Darren Booth
All rights reserved
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Typeset by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes
ISBN: 978-0-141-35928-1
* Taw, Tavy, Teign, Torridge, Dart.