So for hours the unhappy Preventive officer toiled up and down that rickety ladder, carrying to the loft again all the hay he had so lately thrown down, and putting the whole house as far as possible again in the state in which it had been when he began his search.  And all the while Stokoe sat comfortably smoking in his big chair by the fire, saying never a word.

At length the task was ended, and the gauger stood dripping with perspiration and weary to the sole of his foot and the foot of his soul, for all this unwonted work came on top of an already long day’s duty.  Then: 

“Sit doon!” commanded Stokoe, an order that the poor man obeyed with alacrity and thankfulness.  Stokoe slipped behind the box-bed, was absent a few minutes, and then returned, bringing with him a keg of brandy.  Setting that upon the table, he was not long in drawing from it in a “rummer” a quantity of spirit that four fingers would never half conceal.  “Now, drink that,” he said, handing the raw spirit to his involuntary guest.  Then when the liquor had all disappeared, said he:  “You are the first that has ever searched my house.  See you be the last!  Ye’re a stranger i’ thae parts, so we’ll say nae mair aboot it this nicht.  But mind you this—­if ever ye come again, see that ye be measured for your coffin before ye start.”

Tradition has no record of Jack Stokoe having ever again been disturbed.

SALMON AND SALMON-POACHERS IN THE BORDER

What is it that causes a salmon to be so irresistible a temptation to the average Borderer?  He knows that it is illegal to take “a fish” from the water at certain seasons, and at other times except under certain circumstances.  Yet at any season and under any circumstances the sight of a fish in river or burn draws him like a magnet, and take it he must, if by any means it may be done outside the ken of the Tweed Commissioners and their minions.  Even if he be a rigid observer of the law, a disciplinarian of Puritan fervour, in his heart he takes that salmon, and his pulse goes many beats faster as, standing on the bank, he watches the “bow wave” made by a moving fish in thin water, or sees it struggle up a cauld.

One can remember the case of a middle-aged gentleman, the most strict of Presbyterians, a church-goer almost fanatical in his attendance, one who would have suffered martyrdom rather than be compelled to forego long family prayers morning and evening; a man ordinarily rigid in his observance of the law to its last letter, unforgiving of those who even in the mildest manner stepped an inch beyond the line.  Yet that old man, returning after long years to the scenes of his boyhood from a far land, where like Jacob of old he had “increased exceedingly, and had much cattle,” when in remote Border waters one day he was tempted by the Evil One with a salmon, fell almost without a struggle.  To secure that salmon the old gentleman