98 THE SCOTTISH ANGLER. 



chafing her banks, is listened to by the eager band who 

 are assembled outside the Gordon Arms, some armed 

 with leisters, others waving red and gleaming torches, 

 which cast their far reflections into the core of twilight. 

 At length the order to march is given by the Ettrick 

 Shepherd, and in the space of five minutes, our gallant 

 group of Borderers are waist-deep in the bridge pool, 

 on the look-out for a salmon. 



One who has not witnessed it, will be surprised at 

 the effect of a torch held over a stream during a dark 

 night. Without being magical, it is astonishing : every 

 pebble is revealed, every fish rendered visible in places 

 even where the water is some fathoms deep. None 

 of these, however, occur in Yarrow ; in its most un- 

 fordable parts, you will seldom meet with any very 

 profound or dangerous abysses. It is one of those 

 rarely wrought waters which blend harmony with va- 

 riety ; an almost uniform depth of channel, with a 

 pleasant mutability in the aspect and formation of its 

 banks. 



But, ho ! a salmon is discovered ; and the rapid 

 plunge of a leister from the arm of a brawny shepherd, 

 followed by an exclamation of disappointment, indi- 

 cates that it has escaped his too eager and agitated 

 aim ; yet its fate is fixed there is cooler blood, and a 

 more practised hand, present, than that of this untried 

 youth : for there stands Thorburn, his nicely poised 

 leister directed, as if from his eye, upon the broad flank 

 of the silvery fish, as it rushes, arrow-like, up the cur- 

 rent. A shout, not loud, but joyous, proclaims the 

 success of the blow, and, fast pinned by the unerring 

 spear, writhes a fine new-run grilse in four feet water, 

 unable to break from the firm hold of its relentless cap- 

 tor, who soon drags it ashore and completes its destruc- 

 tion. 



