d that the hands of the
clock must be drawing near to midnight, Tam arose, and, rousing a farm
boy to bear the light for him as he struck, with "clodding waster" in
hand set off for the river. Now this clodding waster (or leister) was a
possession of which Tam was inordinately proud; amongst his friends its
temper and penetrating power were proverbial. It had been made for him
by the Runcimans of Yarrowford, smiths celebrated far and wide for the
marvellous qualities they imparted to all weapons made by them. As
Purdie said: "I could hae thrawn mine off the head o' a scaur, and if
she had strucken a whinstane rock she wad hae been nae mair blunted than
if I had thrawn her on a haystalk." Yet when anon he came to cast this
leister at the muckle kipper, "the 14 lb. waster stottit off his back as
if he had been a bag o' wool." That was proof enough, if any were
needed, that a fish so awesome big must be something uncanny and beyond
nature. In a cold sweat, Tam and the boy fled from the waterside and
cast themselves shivering into their beds over the byre at home. But as
he lay awake, unable to close an eye, Purdie's courage crept back to
him, and again he resolved that have that fish he would, muckle black
de'il or no. So again he roused his now reluctant torch-bearer, and
having with difficulty convinced him that the fish was actually a fish,
and not the devil let loose on them for their sin in having broken the
Sabbath--"Irr ye _sure_, Tam, it wasna the de'il?" the boy
quavered--before daylight they again found the spot where the great
kipper lay. And whether it was that this time, knowing that it really
was Monday morning, Purdie threw with easier conscience and consequently
with surer aim, or to what other cause who may say, but certain it is
that the man and the boy, soaked to the skin and chilled to the marrow,
triumphantly bore home that morning to the mill, where Purdie's father
then lived, a most monstrous heavy fish.

The leister used in "sunning" or in "burning the water" differed
somewhat in shape from the weapon with which Tam Purdie secured his big
kipper. It, too, had five single-barbed prongs, but these were all of
equal length, and the wooden handle of this implement was straight, and
very much longer than that of the throwing leister; sixteen feet was no
unusual length for the handle of the former weapon.

Burning the water, as its name implies, was a sport indulged in at night
by torchlight. Sunning, on