ver
silvery, already floundering high and dry, far from its native element;
in shallow, broken water, two or three others vainly struggled to gain
higher latitudes.

"Oh-h! _mother!_" cried the daughter excitedly.

And said the elder lady with little hesitation:

"Get them out, Jim; get them out. We'll kipper them." Then, after a
thoughtful pause: "I think I'd like to catch one myself."

So into the water she plunged, and the three--the lady and her daughter
and the stable-boy--were so busily and excitedly plowtering in the burn,
engaged in this most nefarious and illegal capture of fish, that they
failed to hear or to see that hounds and a full field had swept over the
hill in front, and had checked, in full view of them, at a small strip
of wood in their immediate neighbourhood; in fact, there was little
doubt these poachers must, a few minutes before, have headed the fox.
Most embarrassing of all, however, was the fact that amongst the riders
was one in immaculate pink, whose face flushed a deeper shade than his
coat as he pulled up not a hundred yards distant. For what must be the
feelings of a Justice of the Peace, of strictest principles, who,
without warning, lights upon the wife of his bosom, his innocent
daughter, and one of his servants, all engaged in the most barefaced
poaching?

"Good _Gedd!_" he was heard to say--if indeed the words were no
stronger--as, mercifully, the hounds picked up the scent again at that
moment, and the chase swept on.

There are none so blind as those who will not see, however, and nothing
more was ever heard of this episode. But report has it that the lord of
that manor has no great partiality for kippered salmon.

But salmon-poaching is perhaps not entirely confined to the human
species. There have been instances known where dogs have been the most
accomplished of poachers--generally, it must be said, in conjunction
with a two-legged companion. The lurching, vagabond hound that one sees
not infrequently in certain parts of the country, following
suspicious-looking characters clad in coats with suspiciously roomy
pockets, might, no doubt, be easily trained to take salmon from burns,
or from the shallow water into which, in the autumn, the fish often run.
And, to the present writer's mind, a black curly-coated retriever
recalls himself as a poacher of extreme ability. A most lovable dog was
"Nero," but--at least as regards salmon--he was a most immoral breaker
of the law. I