Spirit of the wild water

I was sheltering in the dunes on a Hebridean beach, reading this book, when I happened to glance up and see an otter galumphing out of the machair and down onto the sand, 20 yards off. Long, hump-backed and shiny, it was the first wild otter I had ever seen. Such is the talismanic power of this book that I suppose Miriam Darlington must have summoned him for me. Here she is, evoking her own first encounter:

I get a flash of the bristling vibrissae, the otter’s extravagant whiskers, and in a split second he catches my scent. He runs and makes a direct gallop for the shoreline. He moves quickly, but with the lumbering gait that, I learn later, otters always have on land. His body arches into a small hummock as he runs, but when he disappears back into the water, he does so without a sound.

Quite unlike me.