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I have known a black-fishing expedition stopped because a "yellow yite," or yellowhammer, hovered round the gang when they were setting out. Still more ominous was the "peat" when it appeared with one or three companions. An old rhyme about this bird runs "One is joy, two is grief, three's a bridal, four is death."
And so, ae morning, siccan a fright as I got! Twa unlucky red-coats were up for black-fishing, or some siccan ploy for the neb o' them's never out o' mischief and they just got a glisk o' his Honour as he gaed into the wood, and banged aff a gun at him, I out like a jer-falcon, and cried, "Wad they shoot an honest woman's poor innocent bairn?"
ALANE, alone. AN, if. ANE, one. ARRAY, annoy, trouble. AULD, old. AWEEL, well. AYE, always. BAILIE, a city magistrate in Scotland. BAN, curse. BAWTY, sly, cunning. BAXTER, a baker. BEES, in the, stupefied, bewildered. BELIVE, belyve, by and by. BEN, in, inside. BENT, an open field. BHAIRD, a bard. BLACK-FISHING, fishing by torchlight poaching. BLINKED, glanced. BLUDE, braid, blood.
Their great place of congregating is still some country smiddy, which is also their frequent meeting-place when bent on black-fishing. The flare of the black-fisher's torch still attracts salmon to their death in the rivers near Thrums; and you may hear in the glens on a dark night the rattle of the spears on the wet stones. Twenty or thirty years ago, however, the sport was much more common.
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