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24 shinin sae clear that the deepness o' the pool was a great cheat. Geordie bait his lip for perfect eagerness, an' his een war stelled in his head—he thought he had him safe i' the pat; but whenever be put the grains o' the leister into the water, I could speak nae mair, I kend sae weel what was comin; for I kend the depth to an inch.—Weel, he airches an' he vizies for a good while, an' at length made a push down at him wi' his whole might. Tut!—the leister didna gang to the grund by an ell—an' Geordie gaed into the deepest part o' Pool-Midnight wi' his head foremost! My sennins turned as suple as a dockan, an' I just fell down i' the bit wi' lauchin—ye might hae bund me wi' a strae. He wad hae drowned for aught that I could do; for when I saw his heels flinging up aboon the water as he had been dancin a hornpipe, I lost a' power thegither; but Mathew Ford harled him into the shallow wi' his leister.

"Weel, after that we cloddit the pool wi' great stanes, an' aff went the fish down the gullots, shinin like a rainbow. Then he ran, and he ran! an' it was wha to be first in him. Geordie got the first chance, an' I thought it was a' owre; but just when he thought he was sure o' him, down cam Mathew full drive, smashed his grains out through Geordie's and gart him miss. It was my chance next; an' I took him neatly through the gills, though he gaed as fast as a shell-drake.

"But the sport grew aye better.—Geordie was sae mad at Mathew for taigling him, an' garring him tine the fish (for he's a greedy dirt), that they had gane to grips in a moment; an' when I lookit back, they war just fightin like twae tarriers in the mids o' the water. The witters o' the twa leisters were fankit in ane anither, an' they couldna get them sindrie, else there had been a vast o' blude shed; but they were knevillin, an' tryin to drown ane anither a' that they could; an' if they hadna been clean forefoughen they wad hae done't; for they were aye gaun out o' sight an' comin howdin up again. Yet after a', when I gaed back to redd them, they were sae inveterate that they wadna part till I was forced to haud them down through the water and drown them baith."

"But I hope you have not indeed drowned the men," said I. "Ou na, only keepit them down till I took the power fairly frae them—till the bullers gae owre coming up; then. I carried them to different sides o' the water, an' laid them down agroof wi' their heads at the inwith; an' after gluthering an' spurring a wee while, they cam to again. We dinna count muckle o' a bit drowning match, us fishers. I wish I could get Geordie as weel doukit ilka day; it wad tak the smeddum frae him—for, O, he is a greedy thing! But I fear it will be a while or I see sic glorious sport again."

Mr Grumple remarked, that he thought, by his account, it could not be very good sport to all parties; and that, though he always encouraged these vigorous and healthful exercises among his parishioners, yet he regretted that they could so seldom be concluded in perfect good humour.

"They're nae the waur o' a wee bit splore," said Peter; "they wad turn unco milk-an'-water things, an' dee away a'thegither wantin a broolzie. Ye might as weel think to keep a ale-vat working wantin barm."

"But, Peter, I hope you have not been breaking the laws of the country by your sport to-day?"

"Na, troth hae we no, man—close-time disna come in till the day after the morn; but atween you an' me, close-time's nae ill time for us. It merely ties up the grit folk's hands, an' thraws a' the sport into our's thegither. Na, na, we's never complain o' close-time; if it warena for it there wad few fish fa' to poor folk's share."

This was a light in which I had never viewed the laws of the fishing association before; but as this honest hind spoke from experience, I have no doubt that the statement is founded in truth, and that the sole effect of close- time, in all the branches of the principal river, is merely to tie up the hands of every respectable man, and throw the fishing into the hands of poachers. He told me, that in all the rivers of the extensive parish of Woolenhorn, the fish generally run up during one flood, and went away the next; and as the gentlemen and farmers of those parts had no interest in the preservation of the breeding salmon themselves, nor cared a farthing about the fishing associations in the great river, whom they viewed as monopolizers of that to which they had no