vt LEISTERING SALMON 67 



into the spirit of it; they soon treated me with all consideration 

 and as one of themselves. I happened to know one or two of 

 the men ; and after it was over, and we were drying our 

 drenched clothes in a neighbouring bothy, it occurred to me to 

 think of the river bailiffs and watchers, several of whom I knew 

 were employed on that part of the stream, and I asked where 

 they were, that they did not interfere with the somewhat 

 irregular proceeding in which we had all been engaged. 

 " 'Deed ay, sir, there are no less than twelve bailies and 

 offishers on the water here, but they are mostly douce-like lads, 

 and don't interfere much with us, as we only come once or 

 twice in the season. Besides which, they ken well that if they 

 did they might get a wild ducking amongst us all, and they 

 would na ken us again, as we all come from beyont the braes 

 yonder. Not that we would wish to hurt the puir chiels," 

 continued my informer, as he took off a glass of whisky, " as 

 they would be but doing their duty. They would as lave, 

 however, I am thinking, be taking a quiet dram at Sandy Roy's 

 down yonder as getting a ducking in the river ; and they are 

 wise enough not to run the risk of it." Not bad reasonir^ 

 either, thought I ; nor can I wonder that the poor water-bailiffs 

 would prefer a quiet bowl of toddy to a row with a party of wild 

 Badenoch poachers, who, though good-natured enough on the 

 whole, were determined to have their night's fun out in spite of 

 all opposition. There are worse poachers, too, than these said 

 Highlanders, who only come down now and then more for the 

 amusement than the profit of the thing ; and whom it is generally 

 better policy to keep friends with than to make enemies of.^ 



The ponderous lexicographer, who describes a fishing-rod 

 as a stick with a fool at one end, and a worm at the other, 

 displays in this saying more wit than wisdom. Not that I 

 quite go the whole length of my quaint and amiable old friend, 

 Isaac Walton, who implies in every page of his paragon of a 

 book, that the art of angling is the summum bonum of happi- 

 ness, and that an angler must needs be the best of men. I do 

 believe, however, that no determined angler can be naturally a 

 bad or vicious man. No man who enters into the silent com- 

 munings with Nature, whose beauties he must be constantly 



' For d delightful account of a "leistering" expedition on the Tweed in which Sir 

 Walter Scott's old keeper, Tom Purdie took part, we refer our readers to the last chapter 

 of Mr. Serope's well-known Days and Nights of Salmon Fishing. 



