AND ANGLING SONGS. 269 



then, however, the cubs, sometimes the old dodgers themselves, 

 got entangled in his cairn-nets, and his mode of dealing with 

 them on these occasions was, as may be imagined, pretty sum- 

 mary. 



Our Grand Master, for I consider Rob to have been so in the 

 art of salmon-fishing, among the strange happenings which befel 

 him, used to descant upon the capture of a couple of otter cubs 

 which had been decoyed by the glitter of some struggling fish, 

 into one of his inset nets. No sooner had he drawn them to 

 bank and taken hold of them, than, as if by magic, up shot from 

 the depths of the Kill-mouth the bereaved mother. In a moment 

 she clambered up the rocks, and Kerss had barely time, with his 

 disengaged hand, the other grasping the cubs, to seize hold of a 

 leister- shank, which fortunately lay within his reach, before she 

 was close upon him, snapping with fury at his legs, and showing 

 every determination to rescue her offspring. For a few moments 

 Rob succeeded in warding her off, and was beginning to antici- 

 pate a safe retreat with his prize, when she laid hold of the pole 

 with her teeth, and actually managed to wrest, it from his grasp. 

 The guard thus broken, our old friend's best policy, so he thought, 

 in order to save his legs, was to come to terms with the animal 

 by dropping one of her cubs, which he accordingly did, and a 

 most compromising effect it produced, for no sooner had he quit- 

 ted hold of the juvenile, than the amphibious dame, snatching it 

 up, retraced her steps to the edge of the rock, over which she 

 slid, and instantaneously disappeared with her recovered charge. 

 ' I could easy hae managed them baith,' quoth Rob, 'by rinnin' awa 

 frae the limmer, but faith I tuk a kind o' likin' to the auld besom, 

 she stuck to me wi' sic freedom, and seemed sae unco wae aboot 

 the bit craturs, I couldna help pleasin' her.' 



