444 THE MOOR AND THE LOCE. 



a-month, the sea-trout rush up the sound in great numbers. 

 Garmony Bay, the farthest, being best fished at high water, 

 or, as they say, with a full tide, and Scalastal at half-tide, 

 there is always time to reach the latter at the most propitious 

 moment, after scringing Garmony. 



It was on a September evening, when the harvest moon 

 rose queen-like from a bank of clouds, that we left the snug 

 tea-table for Scalastal Bay, distant only a few hundred yards 

 from the house. In crossing the little grass-field which skirts 

 the shore, knots of moor-plover were picking up the night- 

 worms brought out by the heavy dew. They showed no 

 alarm, although by the moonlight we distinctly saw them 

 within a few yards, and heard their low murmur of content 

 at the plentiful supply. The scream of the heron, disturbed 

 from her night-feed by the fishermen, warned us that they 

 were already shipping the net preparatory to a haul. A 

 group of goblin figures on the beach were presided over by 

 my manager, Sandy, who was summarily sending two farm 

 lads home to their beds, as a punishment for keeping late 

 hours in the morning. " Ou ay, plenty mens withoot them," 

 says the old weaver, who always makes sure work of plural ; 

 thus deer are "deers," sheep "sheeps," &c. The yellow cheeks 

 and meagre form of " Shemish Weaver " are strong enough 

 warrant for his sedentary life. Who, therefore, could guess that 

 this dried mummy was as hardy on the hills as a Highland 

 stot ; or that, in the coldest scringing-night, he was equally 

 independent of salt water as a sea-otter ? 



In solitary dry-shod dignity, Sandy holds the rope on the 

 shore, while the weaver carelessly pays it out of the boat with 

 his left hand ; with his right he directs the boatman, flourish- 

 ing a huge pinch of snuff, with which he fortifies himself be- 

 fore beginning to toss out the net. Having been used to it 

 from a boy, I rather plume myself on net-setting, but fairly 

 succumb to old Shemish, whose smooth delivery and perfect 

 semicircle of draught I always admire. In the present in- 



