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. It was well, perhaps, that he lived in days when
water-bailiffs were neither so numerous, nor so strict in the execution
of their duties, as they now are, for nothing could cure him of the
habit, when he saw a fish struggling up a shallow stream, of dashing in,
seizing that salmon in his teeth, and laying it at the feet of his
embarrassed master, who, far from being connected with the poaching
fraternity, was, indeed, a magistrate, to whom the gift of a salmon in
such circumstances brought only confusion.
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