Leistering. 223 



time" for them, was not so strict as it now is, and 

 when men were more regardless of law, and salmon 

 poaching was largely practised, it was common for the 

 poachers to do a good stroke at the pools at the foot of 

 these falls. A number of men went out at night with 

 torches in their hands, and others with leisters or three 

 and four pronged fork-like implements, with which on 

 seeing a fish near them, they settled it by driving the 

 leister into it, fixing it to the bottom and then seizing 

 it — a most cruel and wasteful process, with which the 

 law now deals very severely, for the fish thus killed 

 were of course on their way up to spawn, and in 

 course of time the rivers by this system were greatly 

 depopulated. 



On this point Sir Thomas Dick Lauder well says — 

 " Like many other things that are very nefarious in 

 practice, there is much in the most destructive of prac- 

 tices that is productive of romantic and picturesque 

 effect — the darkness of the night, the blaze of torches 

 upon the water, the flash of the foam from the bare 

 limbs of the men who are wading through the shallows, 

 with their long poles and many pointed and barbed 

 iron heads, or glancing from the prow of the boat, 

 moving slowly over the deeper water, with its strange 

 unearthly figures in it." * 



The Till beats the Eden both for depth and for 

 rapidity. Scott calls it "the sullen Till," but it can 

 rush and sparkle too. It is not safe for the fisherman 

 to wade it. People attempting to cross it even at what 

 seemed the shallower parts have had to retrace their 

 steps. 



" Tweed said to Till, 

 ' What gars ye rin sae still ?' 



' Scottish Rivers," p. 45. 



