his silver was a good deal lighter, and that of the
watcher a good deal heavier, when the twain parted. And therein the old
gentleman sinned doubly; for himself he broke the law, and he put
temptation in the way of the watcher, and caused him also to sin and to
be guilty of grave dereliction of duty. Yet there it was! The most rigid
of his kind in pursuit of virtue and in observance of the law, saw "a
fish"--and straightway, irresistibly the old Adam moved within him. Nay!
Under certain circumstances hardly would one trust even a black-coated
Border minister if a salmon provoked him too sorely.

In former days, many were the ways whereby a fish might be induced to
quit his native element. Now, it is different; though even now possibly
his end might not in every case endure too close scrutiny. But in the
days when our grandsires and great-grandsires were young, salmon were
regarded as of small value; they sold possibly at _2d._ the pound, and
servants in Tweedside homes were wont to bargain that they should not be
forced to eat salmon every day of the week. Then, practically no method
of capture was illegal; you might take him almost when, where, and how
you pleased. Indeed, one reads that at St. Boswells in 1794 the
neighbourhood was "seldom at a loss for a small salmon, which proves a
great conveniency to families." It was not as if such a thing as a close
season had never been known. Five hundred years before the date above
mentioned there were laws in existence regulating the capture of salmon,
and in the reign of James I of Scotland the law was most stringent. In
1424 it was enacted that "Quha sa ever be convict of Slauchter of
Salmonde in tyme forbidden be the Law, he shall pay fourtie shillings
for the unlaw, and at the third tyme gif he be convict of sik Trespasse
he shall tyne his life." But the law had fallen into disuse--was, in
fact, a dead letter; practically there was no "tyme forbidden," or at
least the close season was as much honoured in the breach as in the
observance, and, especially in the upper waters of Tweed and her
tributaries, countless numbers of spawning fish were annually
destroyed.

But as the salmon fisheries of Great Britain grew in value, so were
various destructive methods of capturing the fish declared to be
illegal, and many a practice that in earlier days was regarded as
"sport" may now be indulged in not at all. Some of those practices were
picturesque enough in themselves, and brimm