The Shepherd’s Record Salmon. 
"He that views the ancient ecclesiastical 
canons, shall find hunting to be forbidden to 
churchmen, as being a turbulent, toilsome, per¬ 
plexing recreation; and shall find angling 
allowed to clergymen, as being a harmless 
recreation—a recreation that invites them to 
contemplation and quietness.”—Piscator in the 
Compleat Angler. 
“Shepherd loq.—Cruelty to the dumb creation 
is practically blasphemy, and will not go un¬ 
punished. 
“North.—You hear people talk of angling as 
cruel. 
“Shepherd.—Fools, fools—waur than fools. 
It’s a maist innocent, poetical, moral, and re¬ 
ligious amusement. Gin I saw a fisher gruppin’ 
creelfu’ after creelfu’ o’ trouts, and then 
fiingin’ them a’ awa among the heather and 
the bracken on his way hame, I might begin to 
suspec’ that the idiot was by nature rather a 
savage. But, as for me, I send presents to my 
freen’s and devour dizzens on dizzens every 
week in the family—maistly dune in the pan, 
wi’ plenty o’ fresh butter and roun’ meal. Sae 
that jrrevents the possibility o’ cruelty in my 
fishin’ and in the fishin’ o’ a’ reasonable 
creatures.”—Noctes Ambrosianae. 
When the glorious summer days are over, 
with the brilliant sunshine, the pleasant shades; 
with the life-quickening breezes, refreshing 
showers and music of running waters; and when 
the chilling blasts of winter have changed the 
face of all creation and the “clouds from their 
still skirts have shaken down on earth the 
feathery snow and all is white,” why is it, as we 
advance in years, that no matter how well 
equipped we may be from the standpoint of 
physical robustness, or worldly comfort, to 
combat and conquer the inclemency of the sea¬ 
son, when all nature lies prone, wrapped in the 
cerements of death, that reason as we will and 
struggle as we may, we are forced to admit and 
confess the all-compelling truth, that each suc¬ 
ceeding winter is indeed the winter of our dis¬ 
content. 
Perhaps our blood flows more sluggishly, and 
the fires of our early hopes and ambitions glow 
with ever-lessening flame; perhaps with our 
broader experience of life and its trials, our 
capacity for enjoyment has decreased, with our 
advancing years, and we have ceased chasing 
the will-o’-the-wisps that lured us onward when 
our blood was hot, or perhaps—and there is, I 
fear, too much truth in this supposition—that 
though the summer days are gone, whether we 
be here or there, they will return again, but 
the glorious days of our bounding youth when 
passed, are gone from us forever. 
Communing with Kit North, the Ettrick 
Shepherd and Tickler et al. always make me 
introspective. These old topers with their jibes 
and their jokes and their profound philosophy 
delivered in their broad Doric, flavored with 
.-\ttic seasoning, while sipping their “jug o’ 
Glenleevet,” scintillate rays of wit and wisdom, 
and illumine all subjects of human knowledge 
from the philosopher’s stone to angling for 
trout and salmon. It relieves somewhat the 
tedium and discontent of winter to be able to 
travel back in memory to the golden days, 
when “all sordid care was alien,” and we played 
and lazed, or worked or rested as we listed, be¬ 
side the bank of some teeming sea trout or 
salmon pool. 
And when one wearies of this, there is al¬ 
ways the Noctes Ambrosianae, or the gentle 
Izaak, or other goodly company which one can 
always command at will, and enjoy their con¬ 
genial companionship without the least feeling 
of intrusion. The Shepherd’s account of his 
killing the “saumon” is a classic, and is en¬ 
joyable on that account; but it also opens up 
the well-springs of memory in the angler, and 
while reading the Shepherd’s graphic descrip¬ 
tion and seeing in the mind’s eye the actual 
struggle as he details it, he immediately reverts 
to a salmon experience of his own, and revives 
through an ever-deepening vista, memories of 
many happy summer days. 
Scene, the Snuggery; time, five o’clock; 
actors. North,-Tickler, and the Shepherd; oc¬ 
cupation, dinner. Tickler takes forty winks 
after making a hearty meal. 
North.-—By the by, who won the salmon 
medal this season on the Tweed? 
Shepherd.—Wha’ think ye, could it be, ye 
coof, but mysel’P I beat them a’ by twa stane 
wecht. Oh! Mr. North, but it wad hae done 
your heart glide to hae daunered alang the 
banks wi’ me on the 25th and seen the slauchter. 
At the third thraw the snout o’ a famous fish 
sook it in ma flee—and—clap—clap—at the same 
instant played a couple o’ cushats frae and aik 
aboon my head, at the purr o’ the prin, that let 
out, in a twinkling, a hunner yards o’ Mr. Phin’s 
best, Strang aneuch to hand a bull or a rhin¬ 
oceros. 
North.—Incomparable tackle. 
Shepherd.-—Far, far awa’ doun the flood, see 
till him, sir—see till him—loup—loup—loupin’ 
intil the air describin’ in the spray the rinnin’ 
rainbows! Scarcely could I believe, at sic a 
distance, that he was the same fish. He seemed 
a saumon divertin’ himsel’, without ony con¬ 
nection in this warld wi’ the Shepherd. But 
we were linked thegither, sir, by the invessible 
gut o’ destiny—and I chasteesed him in his 
hastime wi’ the rod o’ affliction. Windin’ up 
—windin’ up, faster than ever ye grunded 
coffee—I keep it closin’ in upon him, till the 
whalebone was a’maist perpendicular out ower 
him, as he stoppit to take breath in a deep 
plum. Easin’ the line ever so little, till it just 
moved slich by like a gossamer in a breath o’ 
wund—I haif persuaded him that he had gotten 
aff; but na, na, man, ye ken little about the 
Kirby-bends, gin ye think the peacock’s harl 
and the tinsy hae slipped frae your jaws! 
Snoorin’ up the stream he goes, hither and 
thither, but still keeping well in the middle—and 
noo stretch and steddy as a bridegroom ridin’ 
to the kirk. 
North.—Tak tent James. Be wary or he will 
escape. 
Shepherd.—Never fear, sir. He’ll no pit me 
aff my guard by keepin’ the croon o’ the causey 
in that gait, I ken what he’s ettlin’ at—and it’s 
naething mair nor less yon island. Thinks he 
to himsel’, wi’ his tail, “gin I get abreist o’ the 
broone. I’ll roun’ the rocks, doun the rapids, 
and break the Shepherd.” I was just in time to, 
let him easy ower the Fa’, and heaven save us, 
he turned up as he played wallop, a side like 
a house! Fie foun’ noo that he was in the 
hauns o’ his maister, and began to lose heart; 
for naething cows the better pairt o’ man, brute, 
fool or fish like a sense o’ inferiority. Some¬ 
times in a large party it suddenly strikes me 
dumb- 
North.—But never in the snuggery, James; 
never in the sanctum-- 
Shepherd. — Na, na, na; never in the snuggery, 
never i’ the sanctum, my dear auld man 1 For 
there we’re a’ brithers and keep bletherin’ with- 
outen ony sens? o’ propriety—I ax pardon—o’ 
inferiority — bein’ a’ on a level, and that licht- 
some, like the parallel roads in Glenroy, where 
the sunshine pours upon them frae the top o’ 
Ben Nevis. 
North. — But we forget the fish. 
Shepherd.- — No me. I’ll remember him on my 
death bed. In body the same, he was entirely 
anither fish in sowl. I began first to pity and 
then to despise him, for fra a fish o’ his appear¬ 
ance I expeck it that nae ack o’ his life wad 
hae sae graced him as the closin’ ane—and I 
was pairtly wae and pairtly wrathfu’ to see him 
dee saft! Yet, to do him justice, it’s no im¬ 
possible, but that he may hae a-run his snout 
again’ a stane and got dazed—and we a’ ken 
by experience that’s there naething mair likely 
to calm courage than a brainin’ knock on the 
heid. His organ o’ locality had gotten a clout, 
for he lost a’ judgment atween wat and dry 
and came floatin’, belly upmost, in among the 
bit snail-bucky-shells on the sand around my 
feet and lay there as still as if he had been 
gutted on the kitchen dresser—an enormous fish. 
North.—What may have been his caliber? 
Shepherd.—On puttin’ him intil the scales at 
nicht, he just turned three stane trou. 
Tickler (stretching himself out to an incredi¬ 
ble extent).—Alas 1 ’twas but a dream ! 
Shepherd.—Was ye dreamin’, sir, o’ bein’ 
hanged ? 
Tickler (recovering his first position).—Eh! 
Isn’t that delicious? Is there anything in the 
language to beat it? 
What a privilege it would be to have been 
permitted to sit and smoke and sip Glenlivet 
while listening to the wit and wisdom of these 
old toping philosophers. 
The first blizzard of unkindly winter is now 
raging outdoors. The blazing fire is cheerful. 
