250 SALMON FISHING IN THE TWEED 



ground with their plaids thrown athwart their 

 bodies, and the other of the heroes who were to 

 figure in the grand operation : these latter were 

 sitting on the boats, and on the masses of rock 

 beside them on the water edge. 



All being now ready, a light was struck ; and 

 the spark being applied to rags steeped in pitch, 

 and to fragments of tar-barrels, they blazed up at 

 once amid the gloom, like the sudden flash from 

 the crater of a volcano. The ruddy light glared on 

 the rough features and dark dresses of the leisterers 

 in cutting flames directly met by black shadows, 

 an effect which those will best understand who in 

 the Eternal City have seen the statues in the 

 Vatican by torch - light. Extending itself, it 

 reddened the shelving rocks above, and glanced 

 upon the blasted arms of the trees, slowly perishing 

 in their struggle for existence amongst the stony 

 crevices ; it glowed upon the hanging wood, on fir, 

 birch, broom, and bracken, half veiled, or half 

 revealed, as they were more or less prominent. 

 The form of things remote from the concentrated 

 light was dark and dubious ; even the trees on the 

 summit of the brae sank in obscurity. 



The principals now sprang into the boats. 

 Harry Otter stood at the head, and Charlie 

 Purdie at the stern. These men regulated the 

 course of the craft with their leisters ; the auxilia- 

 ries were stationed between them, and the light 

 was in the centre by the boat side. The logs, 

 steeped as they were in pitch, crackled and burned 

 fiercely, sending up a column of black smoke. As 

 the rude forms of the men rose up in their dark attire, 



