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HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

LIBRARY

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MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY
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THE

BORDER ATsGLER

MAT

OF THE

Z)iu»n iJ:n/ini\id for
rsr BOBBER .ANGLER '

BY J.GELIATLY. EDINBUJOH.

THE

BORDER AIS^GLER:

A GUIDE-BOOK TO

THE TWEED AND ITS TRIBUTARIES

AND THE OTHER STREAMS

COMMANDED BY

THE NORTH BRITISH RAILWAY.

AN ACCURATE MAP OF THE DISTRICT.

EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM P. NIMMO, 2 SOUTH ST. DAVID STREET.

LONDON : W. KENT & Co., PATERNOSTER ROW.

1858.

Let itlier anglers choose their ain,

And ither waters tak the lead ;
O'Hielan' streams we covet nane.
But gie to us the boniiie Tweed !
And gie to us the cheerfu' burn
That steals into its valley fair ;
he streamlets that at ilka turn
Sae saftly meet and mingle there.
The lanesome Tala and the Lyne,

And Manor wi' its mountain rills,
And Etterick, whose waters twine
Wi' Yarrow frae the forest hills;
And Gala too, and Teviot bright,

And mony a stream o' playfu' speed ;
Their kindred valleys a' unite
Amang the braes o' bonnie Tweed.

O the Tweed I the bonnie Tweed !

O' rivers it's the best
Angle here or angle there,
Troots are soomin' ilka where.
Angle east or west,

Thomas Tod Stoddart.

CONTENTS

Pagci

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY, 1-4

The Angler's location, page 1... Favourable position of
Edinburgh, 2... Fraternization of the North British
Railway with the Border Streams, 3... The Author's
plan, 3.

CHAPTER II. ANOLING ON THE BORDERS, . 5-44

Meatae, Romans, Monks, and Kelts, 5...Salmou-fishing,
7. ..Rapid decrease of the fish and of the Rentals of
the Fishings, 9... The Tweed Fisheries Acts, 10-13...
Extent of kelt-killing in the Tweed, 15... Rod-fishing
for Salmon with fly, worm, parr-tail, &c. 16-23.. .The
habits of the Salmon, 19... His freaks when hooked,
24... Trout-fishing, 25... Fly, worm, creeper, and May-
fly, 26-37... Stewart's new methods, 27, 35... Minnow
and Roe-fishing, 38, 40... Forbidden fish, 43.

CHAPTER III. THE TWEED, 45-96

Character of the River from source to mouth, 45. ..Mr.
Stoddart's eulogium, 46... The Crook, 49... Hill-burns,
50... The Tala and the upper Tributaries, 51...Biggar-
water, Rachan Mill, and Broughton, 52, 53... The
Lyne and the Tarth, 55. ..Peebles and its neighbour-
hood, 56... Manor-water, 57...Eddleston-water, 58...
The Peebles Anglers, 59.. .Innerleithen, 59.. .The Lei-
then and the Quair, 60, 61..." The Bush aboon Tra-
quair,"6i...Ashestiel and neighbourhood, 62... Tweed
Trout-flies, 63...Caddon-wat«f and Clovenford, 64...

VI THE BOEDER ANGLER.

Salmon-fishing..." The Nest," 64... Scott at Ashestiel,
65... A night's Leistering with the Ettrick Shepherd
...the ducking in Gliddy's Weal, 66... Sir Walter at
Abbotsford...the coursing-match on Newark Hill, 67
...Scott's last home coming, 69, 70... His death, 70...
Allan-water... Lord Somerville's Fishings, 71. ..The
Law of Trout-fishing, 72, 75... Melrose, 72-74... Dry-
burgh.. .St. Boswell's... John Younger, 76-79... Ruther-
ford-water, 80... Ducal restrictions on Trout-fishing,
and imitations thereof by smaller fry, 82, 83...Maker-
ston Trows.... Rob Kerss, 83.. .Floors.. ..Kelso, 85...
Forrest's rods and flies, 86... Sprouston Dub, 87.. .The
Eden...Birgham-water, 88. ..Coldstream, 89. ..The Leet,
90.. ..The Till, the Bowmont, and the Gleu, 9L.. .Mill-
field Plain. ..Tweedmill,93...St. Cuthbert...Tillmouth
Castle, 94...Norham Castle... Salmon traps, 95.

CHAPTER IV. ETTRICK AND YARROW, . . 97-124
The Forest, 97... Salmon and Trout-poaching, 99.. .Lord
Minto's Act, 100... Head of the Ettrick, 101...Timah
....Rankleburn....Tushilaw, 102.. ..Traditions of the
Forest, l03...The Ettrick Shepherd, 104.. .His astonish-
ing draught of fishes in theMeggat,115, noie.. .Boston's
" Fourfold State," 105... The Ettrick, from Tushilaw
downwards, 10-5.. .St. Mary's Loch, 106.. .Tibbie Shiels
...her distinguished guests, and kindly care of them,
107.. .Hints on Locli-fishing, 109... Pike-fishing, 110...
Perch-fishing, 114. ..Little Yarrow. ..The Meggat, 114,
115.. ..Loch Skene, 116.. ..Roads to St. Mary's, 117....
Scenes of old Ballads, 118-20... Loch of tlie Lowes,
119...Dryhope Tower... The Yarrow, 121.. .Newark
Castle... BoAvhill, 122... Experiments in breeding Sal-
mon, 122, «o«e... Selkirk. ..Disputed dram at the battle
of Philiphaugh, 124.

CHAPTER V. THE GALA AND THE LEADER, 125-39

Edinburgh fishers and fast-days, 125...The trout amazed
at the multitudinous invasion, 126... Vast numbers
annually caught in tlie Gala, ib...Heriot- water, 127...
Large Trout near Stow, 129... The Luggate... Gala-
shiels Poachers, 130.... Factory pollutions, 131.. ..The

CONTENTS. Vll

Vale of Gala, ib,..The Leader and its Feeders, 132...
Our " old Nobilitie,'' 135.. ..James Baillie of Lauder,
136...Carrolside-water...Earlston, 137.. .Thomas the
Rhymer..." The Broom of theCowdenknowes," 138...
Sandy kno we... Smailholm Tower, 139.

CHAP. VI. THE TEVIOT AND ITS TRIBUTARIES, 140-68
Drinking and fishing in the olden times, 141... Source
of the Teviot, 142.. .The Allan. ..BorthAvick-water...
Branxholm Castle, 143...Hawick...The S]itrig...Stobbs
Castle, 144....Minto Castle.... Hawick Netters....The
Rule. ..Dcnholm... John Leyden, 145...The Ale. ..John
Younger again, 148-50.. .Ancrum Moor.. .The Jed, 150
The poet Thomson, and his angling sketch in " The
Seasons," I6l...rishing among trees, 152.. .Jedburgh
....its antiquity. ...The Oxnam and the Kale, 154....
Heaton-mill cauld...Mr. Purves's kelt-killing, 155...
Mr. Stoddart's monster Eel, 156... Pike and Perch in
the Teviot, 158.

These Berwickshire Twius unlike each other, 159.. .Head
of the Whitadder, ib...The Fasney a stream in a state
of nature, IGO... Heather Trout, lGl...Cranshaws, 162
...Bothwell-burn.. .Dye-water ..."NVatch- water, 163...
Blacksraill-burn... .Burn-fishing with dipping min-
now, lG4...Longformacus...Ellemford...Greordie Ha-
milton, 165...Geordie's angling feats. ..his migrations
...his rule of" change," 166-7.... Fishing-inn charges
...decline of toddy-drinking, 167-68. ...Hints on re-
freshing, 169., .Abbey St. Bathan's...Dunse, 172...The
Covenanters on Dunse Law...Chirnside, 173... David
Hume atNinewells...Allanton, 174.. .The Blackadder
...The Legend of Twinlaw-Cairns, 175... Straighten-
ing of water-courses, 176.. ..Greenlaw — The protec-
tionist system on the Blackadder, 177.. ..Lower part
of the "Whitadder, 178. ..The Anacharis Alsinastrum,
179.

CHAP. VIII. THE EYE, THE TYNE, THE ESKS, 181-91
The Eye, Grant's House, Reston, Ayton, 181-2.. .The
Tyne, its upper waters, 183... Haddingtor... rigid pre-

Vlli THE BORDER ANGLER.

servation of the river, 184.. .The valley of the Tyne...
Cricliton Castle. ...Hailes Castle. .. Tyninghani...Press-
mennan Loch... Biel Burn, 184-5.. ..The Esks....The
Duke of Buccleuch and the Edinburgh Commisioners
of Supply on the pollution of the North Esk, 185-7
...The South Esk. ..Upper portion of the North Esk,

188 Glencorse-burn....The Compensation Pond....

Edinburgh Pic-nic-ers...Habbie's Howe, 189.. .Mouth
of the Esk, ..Sea-trout.. .the Scenery, 190-1.

CONCLUSION, 192

The Anatomist of Melancholy on Fishing, 192. ..The
Philosophy of the Sport, 193. ..The neod of earnest-
ness, 194...Izaak Walton's pious conclusion, 195.

THE

BORDEE ANGLER.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

,HE keen Angler who has nothmg to do but
to pursue his sport, will probably, during the
trouting season, erect his tabernacle by some
river-side, where the murmuring stream will at night
" invite him to rest," and in the morning to recreation,
and where he will be in a position to take advantage
of those fleeting moods favourable to the exercise of
his art which air and water sometimes assume. As,
however, there is a large number of keen anglers who
cannot make it convenient thus to ruralize — whose
ways of life are amidst the stir of cities, and who
can snatch only in the intervals of business an occa-
sional day or two for their amusement — the next thing
to be desired is the enjoyment of such facilities for
conveyance to the water as shall neutralize, as far as
possible, the drawbacks to which the distance of tlieir

A

Z THE BOKDER ANGLER.

residence subjects them. Perhaps no city in the island
is so excellently situated in this respect, or so fully
provided with these facilities, as Edinburgh. Indeed,
considering the number and the variety of streams
which are every morning at the command of the in-
habitant of " the grey Metropolis of the North," it is
doubtful if he is not as well stationed in Edinburgh as
he could be if he were to choose for himself a dwelling-
place on the very margin even of his favourite stream.
In a period varying from one to three hours, the Edin-
burgh man of business can be whirled to the banks of
the Clyde, the Forth, the Teitli, or the Tay ; another
hour or so will place him on Loch-Lomond in time to
have a cast and be back to his abode at night ; he
may even start from Waverley Bridge in the morning,
and by the afternoon have his line wet in Highland
Dee. And, more valuable and convenient than all these
together, he can breakfast quietly at seven o'clock, and
by nine or ten be busy at his sport in almost any of
those delightful streams which make the south-eastern
counties of Scotland his land of hope and promise.

Never surely can Eailways and Kivers run more
lovingly together than the North British and its
Branches, and the Tweed and its branches. From the
moment you surmount the acclivity in which the Gala
rises, until you arrive at one of the various termini —
Selkirk, or Hawick, or Jedburgh, or Berwick — you
scarcely lose sight of some stream or other, famous in
Border song, and high in angling repute. There you
go down the vale of Gala, with that river of " braw,
braw lads " twisting and twining round the iron road,
making many a pleasant and coquettish bend, but

INTRODUCTORY. 3

never going out of sight, and growing every mile un-
der your eyes, until it is lost in the mazes of Galashiels
mill-leads. You leave it only as it accomplishes a
union with the Tweed (although not until intercourse
with a manufcicturing town has sullied its native pu-
rity— as intercourse with manufacturing towns is too
apt to do with both water and humanity), and then
you go careering past ancient towns, decayed abbeys,
ruined castles, and battle-fields, through the classic
land of Scotland, but ever, at intervals of three or four
miles, with a stoppage at some station, " mighty con-
vanient " for the bearer of rod and creel. The mere
enumeration of the streams Avhich are crossed by the
North British Railway and its branches or continua-
tions, is like calling the roll of the waters best loved
by the angler. The Esk, the Tyne, and the Eye, on
the Main line to Berwick ; again the Esks, North and
South, the Gala, the Tweed, the Teviot, and the Till,
on the line to Kelso and by the Branch of the North
Eastern Railway to Berwick ; the Ettrick on the Sel-
kii'k branch ; the Ale on the Hawick branch ; the Jed
on the Jedburgh branch ; and the Whitadder on the
Dunse branch ; while stations on these lines give the
angler command of the Yarrow, the Leader, the Kale,
the Rule, the Eden, the Leet, the Bowmont, and the
Blackadder, and of almost innumerable burns which
ought not to be without places in an angling cata-
logue.

It is the object of this little volume to point out the
best stations for these different streams, to delineate
the various characteristics of our border rivers, and
to throw out a few hints on the modes of angling

4 THE BOEDER ANGLER.

adapted for each. We shall lead the angler by quiet
waters and unquiet waters ; by " dubs" and "trows,"
seething " Hell's cauldrons " and calm mill-dams ;
we shall show him alike the "grace of forest charms"
on sylvan Teviot, and the "pastoral melancholy" of the
" dowie dens of Yarrow " — ^now point out the hanlcl of
the Salmon, and now the home of the Trout ; and shall
bring him to many an " honest alehouse " and com-
fortable hostelry, where he may rest and refresh him-
self after his pleasures and his toils.

( 5 )

CHAPTER II.

ANGLING ON THE BORDERS.

(^^^10 tells us that the M^at^e, the aborigmal
PSLS inhabitants of probably the whole country
(TS^^ between the two great Roman walls, and cer-
) tainly of the south-eastern borders, amongst other
peculiarities of habit, abstained entirely from the use of
fish. Tweed was running then as now : the Salmon,
with no T-nets at Goswick and no stell-nets at Ber-
wick to stay his course, must have been " belling "
and " ower-setting" in every pool, and swarming up
all the tributaries, then unpolluted with mills and fac-
tories;— the Trout, when the shower of ephemerce
came daily over the water, must have made it boil
like a cauldron. Yet no fly or worm was thrown to
tempt them — no leister launched at them, no cairn-net
quietly dropt in an eddy, and no deadly straik-net
drawn through their homes to decimate their numbers.
Foolish Maeatae ! — unworthy progenitors — if indeed
they were so in any degree — of the black-fishing ich-
thyophagi of the Teviot and the kipper-consumers of
Peebles ! We may be sure that when their Roman
conqueror fixed his camp at Lessudden, he was not long
in fathoming the mysteries of The Pot,* or in putting

* " The Pot" is the name of a noted salmon cast in the upper
llertoun water, near St. Bosv/ell's.

6 THE BORDER ANGLER.

his camp-kettle to what its shape would argue to have
been its legitimate purpose — that of boiling the shoul-
der or " tail-scud" (Tweedside x)hraseology) of a noble
salmon. Wiser too in their generation than the abori-
gines, were the Monks of Melrose, of Dr}^burgh, of Kelso,
and of Jedburgh. Well did they use, and carefully
did they guard, the piscarial rights conferred by their
charters ; and many were the laws which, doubtless in
great measure through their influence and that of the
Border Chiefs, the Scots Parliament passed against fish-
ing in breeding-time, and against the taking of salmon
by the profane vulgar for less sacred uses than the com-
fort of conventual stomachs and the gracing of baronial
boards. We mistake the character, however, of the
ancestors of the present breed that inhabits our border
counties, if they did not get a quiet share of what was
going, or if the taste and flavour of the different species
of the salmo which fi'equent their waters were unfa-
miliar to their palates. Indeed, notwithstanding the
severity of the penalties attached to illegal fishing,
fish were so plentiful, and there were so few ways of
getting rid of them, that, according to the often-told
stor}', within the last two hundred years servants and
apprentices made it part of theii' agreements that they
were not to be required to eat salmon oftener than
three or four times a- week. Although, no doubt, the
food being so rich and luscious, any stomach would re-
bel at having itself stuff'ed with fresh salmon daily, we
fancy the salmon thus protested against were rather
kippered foul-fish and bull-trouts, that had hung in the
chimney for months, than the newly-caught aquatic
prince himself. At any rate, there is no necessity for

ANGLING ON THE BORDERS. 7

such a provision now-a-days in indentures and agree-
ments, for it is only by setting the law at defiance, as
his honest forefathers did, that the Hawick weaver or
the Ettrick shepherd can get a mouthful even of a lean
and unsavoury kelt — the fresh salmon being utterly
unattainable, and less known on great part of the Bor-
ders than it is in London or Edinburgh.

The angling of the Borders is confined almost en-
tirely in these waters to the best known varieties of the
salmonid^. There are pike and perch in Till and Teviot,
but the grayling and the charr, the chub, the carp, the
tench, the roach, the dace, and the gudgeon, are un-
known. Eels are more or less abundant in all the
streams, but the angler must be reduced to rather des-
perate circumstances before he sets himself seriously
to fish for them. The members of the salmo family
are, — the salar, or true salmon and grilse ; the eriox,
or bull-trout; the trutta, orwhitling (if trutta be really
the proper designation of this beautiful fish, which is
much finer than the salmon-trout of other rivers) ; the
albus, or herling (blacktail is the local name — a very
dubious sort of animal); and the faino^ or common
river-trout.

SALMON-FISniNG.

The Tweed alone is worth much regard as a salmon-
fishing river; but for twenty or thirty miles of its
course, from Coldstream upwards, it has a high repu-
tation amongst the salmon streams of Scotland. Sal-
mon-fishing is not, however, altogether a public amuse-
ment— seeing that salmon are private property, which
trout are not. No one has a right to catch the true
salmon, or any of the migratory species, save in the

8 THE BOEDER ANGLER.

exercise of a privilege more or less directly derived
from the Crown — the unprivileged angler who at any
time takes one of these jBsh from the Tweed being
liable to a penalty. There is little difficulty, however,
in obtaining salmon-fishing at various parts of the
Tweed, by paying for it to the professional lessees of
the fishings, who live by them, and of course are will-
ing to make money either by catching salmon them-
selves, or by letting others catch them ; while other
parts of the river are let to amateur anglers at rentals
varying from £50 to £100. Even on some of these
waters * the ordinary angler may occasionally obtain a
day's amusement, as the lessee, who generally lives at
a distance, and only visits the Tweed at the best sea-
son for sport, sometimes permits his keeper to give a
day's fishing to any one who applies — the said keeper
being of course gratified for his trouble and complais-
ance, and the fish captured being either paid for at their
market value, or left with him.

Owing to the immense falling off in the number of
salmon in the Tweed — a falling off attributable to
various causes, but cfliiefly to too much net-fishing —
this, the highest form of angling, has on that river
greatly deteriorated. Indeed, in these latter times,
angling for clean salmon from the 15th of February
to the middle of June, except on a few days after
favourable floods, has been almost hopeless; and
salmon-fishing with the rod has really meant killing
kelts in spring, grilse in summer and autumn, and a

* The salmon-fishings in the Tweed are divided into "waters,"
each having a special name, and being usually a separate pro-
perty.

ANGLING ON THE BORDERS. 9

few salmon heavy with spawn in the three weeks of
grace allowed to anglers after the net-fishings have
closed. By an Act passed in 1857, however, veiy
considerable changes have been effected in the salmon-
law of the Tweed : the killing of kelts and foul fish is
now prohibited, and some small — veiy small — addi-
tional chances of getting clean fish have been afforded
to the angler. A heavy flood occurring on a Saturday
(salmon are always induced by floods to leave the sea
and ascend the river) gives them an opportunity of
running up on the Sunday when no nets are working,
and of getting within the reach of the rod-fisher. This,
however, has been about the only chance that there
was; for, when all the nets were working night and
day,' the chances that the fish which passed Spittal
Point would reach even Coldstream Bridge have been
poor hideed. Those that have missed the stell-nets at
Tweedmouth have fallen a prey to the sweep-nets at
Ord ; those that have escaped both of these have had
to run the gauntlet of many similar nets at Ilorncliffe,
Norham, and Tweedmill j while, if the strength of the
current has induced the salmon to retire into a tempting
eddy at the side to rest himself, ten to one but there
has been a treacherous cairn-net to bar his progress
outward, allowing him merely to get his gills through,
and hang himself, when he desired again to set out on
his journey.

Indeed, so rapid and alarming had been the decrease
of the fish, that the necessity of doing something to
prevent a hastening extinction of the salmon alto-
gether had, within the last few years, become apparent
to all but those who had really brought about the

10 • THE BORDER ANGLER.

evil, and to whom the remedy was of the greatest
importance. Salmon-angling with the rod had, as
we have said, become almost a delusion — save for
foul fish in spring or in the last weeks of October ;
and the annually decreasing returns at the lower net-
fishings showed that time would in all probability
make things worse rather than better. The annual
rental of the Tweed had fallen, within a few years,
from £20,000 to about £3,300 ; the annual take of
salmon from 40,000 to 9,000, and of grilse from
80,000 to 15,000. The upper proprietors, therefore,
came forward with a proposal to amend the law — to
shorten the season of fishing, and to abolish some of
the more obnoxious modes of capturing salmon. Instead
of being met in a fair spirit by the lower proprietors,
the proposal was strongly opposed, and a counter-
movement was made, actually intended to withdraw
some of the few privileges which the owners of the
upper waters possessed. The result was, that in the
1857 session of Parliament two Bills were brought
in — the one being the embodiment of the original
proposals of the upper or rod-fishing proprietors, the
other the counter- effort of the net-fishers. A large
amount of evidence for both sides was given before a
Parliamentary Committee, presided over by Mr. Fen-
wick the Member for Sunderland. On the side of the
Berwick net-fishers were Mr. Paulin, the manager of
the Berwick Shipping and Fishing Company, Mr.
James Paxton, the intelligent superintendent of their
fisheries, Mr. Hogarth of Aberdeen, Mr. Eobertson
of Ladykirk, and others. As one of the objects of
the upper proprietors' Bill was to abolish stell-nets.

ANGLING ON THE BORDERS. 1 1

some aged Spittal fishermen, whose memories extended
for nearly eighty years, were called to prove their
antiquity. (A stell-net, we ought to explain, is the
ordinary fishing-net drawn across the river, and kept
in that position until the man in the boat, who has
rowed it out and keeps his hand upon the rope, feels a
fish strike, when it is quickly pulled in, enclosing the
salmon. This net, it was contended with some reason,
was a standing obstruction to the run of the fish, such
as is prohibited in all salmon-statutes.) On the other
side the witnesses were — Mr. Russel, editor of the
Scotsman and writer of articles on salmon-fisheries in
the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews^ Mr. Richard
Hodgson of Carham (Chairman of the North British
Railway Company), Mr. Mitchell, the very efficient
Superintendent of Tweed Police, Mr. Fennell, the
Acting Chief Commissioner of Irish Fisheries, Lord
Polwarth, Mr. Dunbar, innkeeper and lessee of fisheries
at Brawl Castle on the Thurso, Mr. Andrew Young
of Invershin, manager of the Duke of Sutherland's
fisheries and author of several small books on the
natural history of the salmon and on fishing, Mr.
Robertson of Kelso, and others. The House of Com-
mons' Committee unanimously rejected the Bill of the
Lower Proprietors, and found the preamble of that
of the Upper Proprietors proved. They decided that
the fishing-season for both nets and rods should begin
on the 1st of March, instead of, as formerly, on the loth
of February ; and should close for nets on the 14th of
September instead of the 15th of October, and for rods
on the 14th of October instead of the 7th of November.
They also agreed to the abolition of stell and all other

12 THE BORDER ANGLER.

fixed nets, to a slight extension of the weekly close-
time, to a prohibition of the use of leisters under
any circumstances, and to a prohibition of killing
kelts or other foul fish. The Marquis of Westminster
was the Chairman of the House of Lords' Committee
on the Bill, and a number of the witnesses were re-
examined before them. The Lords' Committee agreed
in finding the preamble of the Bill proved, altering,
however, the period for closing the net-fishings from
the 14th September to the 30th of that month; but as
they neglected to make a similar extension of the time
allowed for rod-fishing, they — accidentally, we believe
— defrauded the anglers of the additional week of
gi'ace which the Ccwnmons' Committee Jiad given them,
and actually reduced the period of exclusive rod-fishing
to a fortnight, instead of the three weeks that had been
allowed under the old law.

These, then, are the prominent enactments of the
new Tweed Fisheries Act. The aimual close-time for
net-fishing now extends from the 1st of October to the
1st of March, a fortniglit having been added to each
end of it. The rod-fishing close-time extends from the
15th of October to the 1st of March. Although there
are fish ready to spawn before the 1st of October, and
some which have not spawned even at the 1st of
March, the legal destruction of salmon at the point of
breeding will now be veiy small — so that the Tweed
fishers will be freed from the disgrace of doing what
was really poachei-s' work. A clause also prohibits the
killing of foul-fish ; but we fancy it will only be en-
forced against the killhig of kelts and baggots in the
spring^ — the difficulty of deciding when a fish becomes

ANGLING ON THE BORDERS. 13

foul in the autumn probably rendering it inoperative
in that season. All kelts and spawning salmon are to
be returned to the water ; and, in the case of rod-
fishing, the nse of the gaff or " cleek" is prohibited
until the 1st of June, in order that the fish may be so
returned in as good condition as possible. To have
foul-fish in possession is made a penal offence. " Fixed
nets" and "fixed engines," which the Act defines to
" mean and include stake, bag, bob, hang, sole, and
cairn nets," and all nets or cruives made stationary in
any way whatever, are prohibited. The most important
net thus abolished is the stell-net, which is the principal
net used at the very mouth of the river, and the aboli-
tion of which, it is loudly declared, will totally destroy
some valuable fisheries. The stell-net, however, is
merely the ordinary wTir-shot or sweep-net, kept ex-
tended for some time instead of being immediately
drawn in ; and where it can be wrought the one
way it can be wi'ought the other, although perhaps
less productively. Leisters (fish-spears) are totally
prohibited, and the possession of such an instrument
made illegal. Four hours additional are added to the
weekly close-time from the 1st of June to the close of
the season, the killing of salmon by any means between
six o'clock on Saturday night and six o'clock on Mon-
day morning being now prohibited.

It certainly cannot be said that these provisions
show any marked favour to the angling interest in
the Tweed. The rod-fishing proprietors have given
up a great deal, in order to vindicate themselves from
the imputation of selfishness, and have trusted entirely
for future better sport to the generally increased pro-

14 THE BORDEE ANGLER.

sperity of the river, of wliich the net-fishings will of
course enjoy immensely the greater part. The right
of kelt-killing being given up, probably few of the
uj)per proprietors will put up their rods at all in the
spring; and leistering being also put an end to, the fish
will unmolested drop down from their spawning-beds
to the ever-renovating sea. When, about Coldstream
and Tweedmill, they encounter the nets, the honesty
of the booted fishermen will be tried as they draw in
haul after haul of fish which they are obliged to return
to the water, probably not half-a-dozen clean salmon
turning up for every hundred kelts ! Heaven strengthen
ye, 0 ye sorely-tempted Scotts and Kersses ! The
Berwick Fishing Company some years ago made a
point of returning the kelts caught at their stations
to the water; but as many of these fish just fell
a prey to other fisheries that were interspersed with
theirs, we believe they latterly gave up a practice
that did them much credit. They will, however, no
doubt very gladly resume it. The cairn-nets, the abo-
lition of which was proposed by the upper proprietors
themselves, caught, according to Mr Russel, something
like 6-7ths of the clean fish killed in the upper waters.
This of itself proves the spirit in which the angling
proprietors approached the subject; for nothing can
be said against cairns, which project only a few feet
into the water, and are no obstruction to the run of
fish, except that they afibrded facilities to the poachers
in close-time. Sport, and not fish merely, was, how-
ever, the object of the upper proprietors, and it is to
be trusted that it will turn out they have acted wisely
as well as disinterestedly.

ANGLING ON THE BOKDEKS. 15

The extent, however, to which kelt-killnig had been
carried of late years on the Tweed, by both net and
rod, was simply atrocious. We believe it was no ex-
aggeration of the newspapers to state, at the opening
of the season in 1857, that " tons of kelts" had been
captured by net the first day ; and the mere summing
up of those enumerated by the border papers as having
been taken by the rod for sport at the different "waters"
during the first week would not give a less figure than
1000. One dealer in Kelso purchased 2000ft)S. of
these fish after the season had considerably advanced,
the market for them being principally Paris. The
large midland towns of England were for several years
privileged to buy them and eat them as " Tweed
salmon ;" but a tour made through these towns by the
Superintendent of Tweed Police blew up that market,
and probably caused the stream of supply to be turned
towards France. We defy even the cooks of the
Palais Eoyal to make a kelt that has been carried
from the Tweed to Paris Avholesome or good, how-
ever much their craft may disguise its real character.
Kelts cannot, except perhaps as kippers, be eaten with
relish or even safety ; and when the Parisian gourmet
has flourished his napkin over his saumon a VEcosse,
he has not known that he was eating what even the
stomach of a Selkirkshire shepherd, the gastric juice of
which had been fortified by a preliminary mutchkin of
whisky, would revolt and " scunner" at. Tweed has
long been a standing anomaly in respect to kelt-killing.
On no other Scottish river were these fish allowed to
be taken by law ; and, although there is perhaps a
little truth in the argument that Tweed kelts are much

16 THE BORDER ANGLER.

better than other kelts, the fact that a kelt sold for
only 4d. or 6d. per pound, at the time that clean
salmon were selling for 2s. 6d. or 3s., sufficiently dis-
posed of that, and showed the monstrous waste caused
by the killing of these animals. A few years ago,
every spring some disgraceful butchery was com-
mitted on the Tweed and the Teviot amongst the
kelts vnth the leister, by noblemen and others high in
tlie sporting world ; but a little salutary exposure in
the sporting papers put a stop to it, and for several
years it has not been renewed. Two of the foremost
of these slew no fewer than 300 fish in one night be-
tween Melrose and Leader-foot ; and from fifty to
eighty kelts a-night were frequently killed. Wlien
we consider that the yearly take of clean salmon in
the Tweed by all means is now not more than 8000
or 10,000— in 1856 it was only 5000— it is not too
much to assume that in this ruthless kelt-killing we
have one of the causes of the constant reduction that
has been going on. Angling for kelts was salmon-fish-
ing in its coarsest form ; and, although far inferior to the
true sport, when clean salmon or grilse arc the objects
of capture, it was yet sufficiently enticing from the num-
bers and readiness of the fish in taking, and exciting
from the strength which they sometimes displayed.

The Tweed cannot be fished for salmon satisfactorily
without a stiffish rod of from 17 to 19 feet in length,
the reel containhig from 80 to 100 yards of line.
The salmon-angler's tackle varies with the season
of the year and the state of the water. We do not
know of any principle which should guide him in his
choice of flies — except perhaps that of adapting them

ANGLING ON THE BORDERS. 17

to the condition and colour of the water — when it is
black and heavy, using a larger and lighter-coloured
fly than when it is low and clear. There are salmon-
flies described as " Tweed flies" which may be as-
sumed as the most generally-killing that can be used ;
but probably it would be impossible to cover a hook
with feathers, mohair, or tinsel, in such a way that a
salmon would not rise at it ; while flies that are the
very opposite in their characteristics to the Tweed-
flies proper, are occasionally the most successful. Irish
flies are now very generally used ; although Mr. Stod-
dart has a legend that a few years ago salmon would
not look at them ! Half an hour's talk in the shop of
Forrest of Kelso, with John or Willie Younger at St.
Boswell's, with Jamie Wright at Sprouston, or with
any of the sons of the tribes of Kersses, Purdies, and
Scotts, who fish and guard the Tweed, will, however,
give the angler more knowledge of the subject than he
could get from any treatise ; while if he were to talk
with all of them in succession he would probably be in
possession of several theories, each inconsistent with
the others, and with innumerable facts apparently con-
tradictory, all forming capital materials for his powers
of generalization to work upon. Of course, it is his
business to construct a theory and system of his own ;
and all that can be done is to help him by a few ge-
neral directions. As matters stand, it is very unlikely
that a salmon-fisher who requires elementary instruc-
tions in the art will find himself on Tweedside without
a keeper along with him to direct him. Indeed, salmon-
fishing must be learned by observing the modus ope-
randi as practised by one acquainted with it ; and for

B

18 THE BORDER ANGLER.

success in it, so miicli depends upon the personal
qualifications of the angler and so little upon any well-
ascertained or definite principles, that the good salmon-
fisher is generally a law unto himself, regardless of the
maxims of Scrope, Stoddart, and Ephemera. On
Tweedside, you will find a man fishing on one " water"
with flies that would be rejected (not perhaps by the
fish but by the fisherman) on the next ; and all that
is generally agreed to may be summed up in a few
simple rules laying down the necessity of light and
far casting, of regulating the motions given to the fly
according as you are fishing for kelts, for clean salmon,
or for grilse, and according as you are fishing in stream
or pool, and of using large flies in spring, small ones
in summer, and again larger ones in autumn. And the
best salmon-fisher in the world might, after all, in the
Season when the fish are scarce in Tweed, if he were
not intimately acquainted with the water he was fish-
ing, throw away all his labour and pains for nothing,
while an indifierent angler, knowing the water, might
be successful. It is altogether impossible for a stranger
at once to fix upon those places which are worth fish-
ing ; and although a general knowledge of the habits
of the fish may teach him what are the likely places,
it is quite possible that he may spend his time in
anxiously thrashing where salmon never lie, and may
pass over those casts where they are almost always to
be found. A Tweedside fisherman can point out almost
with certainty, from his long observation, the spot
where a salmon is l}^ng, if there is a salmon in his
district ; and these places vary with the state of the
water, one cast being excellent while the river is
large, another while it is small.

ANGLING ON THE BOEDERS. 19

The day of kelt-fisliing being past, it is unnecessary
to enter at length upon the habits of the salmon while
it is in that state. Weak and worn-out by the labour
of spawning, kelted fish fall back from the streams
in which they have been carrying on their breeding
operations, into quiet pools, where they can lie at ease
without requiring to use that constant exertion of fin
necessary to their maintaining their position in strong
running water. The " tail of the stream," just where
the water is losing its visible motion in the pool, is
perhaps the most favourable place at the opening of
the season — or the pool itself if the water is heavy or
if there is a good wind ; but as the fish begin to
" mend" (that is, to recover strength and condition,
which they partially do as they descend to the sea),
they advance more freely into the streams, and a
straggler may be caught almost anywhere if they are
plentiful. It may be regarded as a maxim in all kinds
of salmon-fishing, however, that the fish lie and feed
chiefly where they can find some sort of shelter behind
a large stone or beneath a shelving rock. It is from
a hauld of this kind that the salmon, kelted or clean,
keeps a look-out upon the stream ; and, as the fly
comes temptingly past it — with short jerks contending
with the current, and opening and shutting its wrings
in its apparent eiiorts to hold its own — the fish sails
warily out, follows it round for a few yards, and finally,
as it appears about to leave the part of the water that
is his peculiar domain, makes a rapid plunge and en-
gulps the treacherous steel. Often, however, a salmon
will unaccountably and tantalizingly follow, time after
time, the fiy as it passes, without attempting to seize

20 THE BORDER ANGLER.

it ; or, worse still, he will rise at it, once and again,
making an exciting splash or boil in the water, but
carefully abstaining from taking hold. The ordinary
practice of anglers, in such cases, is to change the fly ;
and by patience in giving the fish pretty long rests
between the casts, and perseverance in trying him
again and again, he is generally induced at last to
make a serious attempt, and to become the angler's
partner in that whirring waltz that lands him finally
— more exhausted even than the miss who has been
whirled a dozen times round the ball-room by an
over-vigorous officer — upon the green sward or the
grey gravel.

The clean spring salmon disdains the company of
kelts and " bubblies"* in pools and caulds, and " keeps
himself to himself" in the surging streams and boiling
eddies. So few there be, however — or we should per-
haps say, so few there have been — of such fish, that the
casts favourable for them in Tweed are almost syste-
matically passed over ; and it is not until the rejoicing
tidings have passed upwards from Berwick that the
grilse have begun to enter — which is usually about
the middle of June — that the angling fly begins its
preposterous antics in the true salmon-streams. (We
say the antics are preposterous, because no fly that is
born of a chrysalide could ever by any possibility
struggle against the current as the angler's fly does.)
From the middle of July till the close of the season
a favourable flood is sure to bring a gTilse or two
into every " water ;" and it is during this period that

* The Tweedside fishermen on the lower waters contempt-
uously designate a bull-trout kelt a " bubbly."

ANGLING ON THE BORDEES. 21

the best salmon-fisliing is always had. An occa-
sional salmon is also to be got ; and hitherto, in the
three weeks' grace that has been allowed to the rod-
fisher, if a fresh opportunity occurred, a large number
of pretty heavy fish — often, however, far advanced to-
wards spawning — have been captured. It remains to
be seen what changes in the sport will result from the
alteration of the salmon season in the Tweed ; but we
believe experience shows that, in the first fortnight
of October, when the nets have hitherto been dili-
gently plied, more fish, and those in better condition,
have of late years been taken than formerly. So
much so, that a very intelligent and careful observer
(Mr. Paulin, of Berwick) argued from this that the
habits of the salmon, in respect to spawning, were be-
coming later, and that therefore there was no necessity
for an earlier closing of the river. In the month of
September, the fish used to crowd in large numbers
into the Tweed ; and a lull then occurred until about
the beginning of November, when a flood brought
away the first real shoal of spawners, and every cauld-
side was alive with them struggling to get up. The
season of grace allowed to the rod-fisher was thus
about the very worst in the year. K it should prove
that the fish are now running later, and that the last
batches of clean fish come in so late as the first fort-
night of October, it will, of course, be all the better
for the angler. Such, however, was hardly the expe-
rience of last season (1857), respecting which the
Kelso Mail^ summing up at the close, declared that
" a more unfavourable season for the angler had not
occurred for a number of years." According to the

22 THE BOEDER ANGLEE.

same journal, the number of fish killed during the last
fourteen days allowed for angling, between Coldstream
and Peebles, did not exceed 150.

Angling for salmon is also practised with worm and
with parr-tail, and even clean fish are sometimes killed
with minnow. Under peculiar circumstances worm-
fishing for salmon is often very successful. It was
first, we believe, described by Mr. John Younger of
St. Boswell's, and the method he recommends is this :
Two large round-bend hooks are tied upon the strongest
gut, the one a little above the other ; two or three large
lob-worms (well scoured) are run upon these hooks ;
if three, the two first must be drawn over both hooks
while the third covers only the lower — pains being
taken to cover all the wire, and the gut between, and
an inch or so of gut above the upper hook. Only one
hook may, however, be employed, and in this case the
point ought to be brought through and reentered several
times, making folds in the worms. The line ought to
have a swivel, and to be very heavily leaded, as the
places suitable for this kind of fishing are the strong
streams, and it is necessary to search the bottom with
the bait. The water must be low and clear, but even
in these states it is not always that this kind of fishing
can be successfully practised. Perhaps the best time
is a frosty morning towards the end of the season,
when the mist is rising from the river, — when the
pocket-pistol is often in requisition, and when an ac-
cidental "jaw" of water over the tops of his wading-
boots makes the angler shudder. The most important
direction to be given for worm-fishing for salmon is to
be careful not to strike or in any way to check the sal-

ANGLING ON THE BORDERS. 23

mon when he seizes the bait. The angler must hokl
a yard or two of line in his hand, unwound from the
reel, and keeping down the point of his rod, must let
it out, with whatever more is required, as smoothly
and uninterruptedly as possible. The salmon at first
merely seizes the bait in his mouth, in the manner of
the pike, and proceeds to his hold before attempting to
swallow it. The angler must not be induced to strike
even by pretty strong tugs from the fish, as he is then
merely mouthing it, and must wait until he stops,
or until something like a steady pull upon the line
takes place.

Parr-tail and minnow are more enticing to kelts
than to clean fish, and it is difficult to state the times
at which these are particularly tempting baits to
newly-run salmon. The best rule is to resort to them
only in circumstances when fly-fishing is found to be
unsuccessful. The baits, both the parr-tail and min-
now, ought to be larger than those used in trout-fish-
ing ; the tackle ought of course to correspond with the
baits and the strength of the fish angled for ; and the
spinning ought to be rather more deliberate than when
trout are the object in view. The ordinary salmon-
casts are the places adapted for them.

Of course the first great point in salmon-fishing is
to hook the salmon ; but even then, it is rather pre-
mature to count upon the shoulder-cut for dinner.
The " monarch of the tide" is still in his own element,
and he must be caught before he is cooked. It is
difficult to give general directions as to the proper
management of a hooked salmon, and we have not
space to enter upon the controversies about keeping

24 THE BORDER ANGLER.

a long or a short line, &c. The fisli himself generally
takes the matter pretty much into his own hand (or
rather fin), and the simplest recommendation to the
angler is to keep all the command over him that he
can, consistently with the safety of his tackle. It is
more frequently the case that a fish escapes from not
being tightly enough held, than from the line breaking
or the hold giving way, through too heavy a pull be-
ing put upon it. When the fish leaps into the air, it
is judicious to give a little line, or perhaps slightly
to lower the rod, in order to save the line from being
tested by the whole weight of the salmon as he falls
back. When he appears to be making for a dangerous
place, for rocks or tree-roots where the line might be
cut, the angler must unflinchingly present his butt,
keeping his rod back over his shoulder, thus bringing
all possible pressure to bear upon the fish. Should Sal-
mo, indeed, try to go down f other side of an island, or
through the wrong arch of a bridge, or anywhere else
that the angler cannot follow, there is nothing for it
but " pull devil, pull baker," until the line breaks or
the fish gives in — although we may mention that a
salmon has, on such occasions, been sometimes induced
to alter his course by a sudden relaxation of the strain,
the notion being thus put into his head that he was
told to go on ! A hooked fish will sometimes " sulk,"
— that is, lie down in the bottom of a pool, — and it
has happened that no amount of tugging or of stone-
throwing at him could then induce him to move. If
the angler in such a predicament retains his desire to
possess the fish, he must just sit down, or in any other
way strike the attitude of patience on a monument,

ANGLING ON THE BORDERS. 25

until his salmonship pleases to move. The best way
of pulling at him in such case is by getting below
him ; and if he can't be moved in that way, he can't
be moved at all. The safe rule in running a fish, how-
ever, is for the angler to have tackle in which he has
some confidence, and then, avoiding all jerks or sudden
strains^ to maintain as firm and constant a control
over the salmon's motions as possible, until the fish is
exhausted. Then leading it gently to some favourable
place on the bank, he may either strike a gaff into its
shoulder or through its gills, or encircle it in a large
landing net. If he has an assistant to do so for him,
all the better, although we deem it hardly sportman-
like for anglers to have their assistants watching every
opportunity to " cleek" the fish before it is exhausted.

TROUT-FISHING.

Of all kinds of sport, trout- fishing, to the people of
Scotland, is the most generally accessible. It is also
that which more than any other calls forth, or gives
occasion for the exercise of, the ingenuity, patience,
sagacity, and endurance, which enable man to conquer
the instincts and outdo the wariness implanted in his
prey for their protection. The sharp-sightedness, cun-
ning, and timidity of the trout — and especially of the
trout of our much-fished border-streams — are prover-
bial ; but even these must yield to the dexterity and su-
perior acuteness of the angler, who, using a line almost
invisible in its fineness, passes off a feather for one of
Nature's insect masterpieces, and makes a worm or a
minnow the tempting disguise by which to introduce
a barbed hook into the mouth of his not easily-deceived

26 THE BORDER ANGLER.

victim. Angling re-awakens in him who practises it
the original faculties by which man gained his food
before he took to ploughing, or pettifogging, or cotton-
spinning ; and he must have re-acquired in a consi-
derable degree the power of exercising those faculties
before he can daily fill his basket with trout from the
Tweed or its tributaries. He must be able to unite in
himself the man of the time when the world's grey
fathers came forth from the Ark, after the fishes had
for a season had it all their own way over the deluged
earth — and who would doubtless have to take to fish-
ing for their food, until the corn grew, or the veal was
ready — with the man of the nineteenth century, who
moves about amongst whirring wheels or pores over
papers, and whose dinner is sure every day in the year,
without his knowing whence it comes. But as it may
perhaps be said that the praise of fishers and of fishing
has already been said and sung to a sufficient extent
by members of the fraternity, we had better pass on to
the more particular business before us. Our functions
are those of a guide rather than of an angling pre-
ceptor— Wilson, Stoddart, Younger, and Stewart, and
hosts of others, have described the mysteries of the art
as practised in Scotland, as well as they may be de-
scribed— and therefore our instructions shall be brief

Fly-fishing, by general consent, stands first in the
angler's practice. It is the most elegant mode of fish-
ing— the simplest in respect of tackle (seeing that no
bait is needed), and in some measure the easiest —
and it is that which, taking the whole year into
account, is perhaps the most generally productive.

ANGLING ON THE BORDERS. 27

When we say it is the simplest and the easiest method
of angling, however, we mean only that by it almost
any angler can capture an occasional trout ; we are
very far from saying that it is that in which profi-
ciency is most readily attained, or in which there is
little room for the exercise of skill. On the contrary,
to make fly-fishing really productive requires the union
of all the angler's highest qualities. Knowledge of the
habits of the fish, quickness of eye, dexterity of hand,
the most unwearying perseverance against difficulties
— these are all combined in the man who, as in the
case of some border anglers, would make the river
yield him as much daily as could be converted into
daily bread for a family. As we fancy most of our
readers are already acquainted to some extent with
the principles or practice of angling — and as we deem
it utterly hopeless, by means of a book, to attempt to
teach a man to fish who has no previous knowledge of
the art — we shall, in treating of fly-fishing, do little
more than notice some most important improvements
in it that have been lately promulgated by Mr.
Stewart.* The old method of fly-fishing, in its highest
form, was " fine and far-off" casting across the stream,
and letting the flies float down below where the angler
stood. Many an overflowing basket has been filled in
this way, when circumstances were favourable, or in
cases where individual expertness overcame what are
undoubted disadvantages in the method. But rivers
ran more favourably for fiy-fishing long ago, before
the lands which feed them were so much drained ; and

* " The Practical Angler; or the Art of Trout-Fishing, more
particularly applied to Clear Water." By W. C. Stewart.
Edinburgh : A. & C. Black.

28 THE BOEDER ANGLER.

trout were more easily caught than now, from there
being fewer anglers to make them practically ac-
quainted with the difference between a real and a false
fly. It has been becoming yearly more and more
difficult to get a basket of fish out of streams which
run clear as crystal during almost the whole angling
season. Mr. Stewart has therefore stepped in most
opportunely with a way of getting over this. He
recognises as the fii'st principle in angling, the con-
cealment of the angler and of his tackle. " Surely in
vain is the net spread in sight of the bird," saith the
Scripture ; and surely in vain do you angle, says the
Practical Angler^ if the fish sees you, your rod, or your
line. But how to prevent this — when the waters are
clear and a Iklay sun shining into them, if you have to
present yourself on the bank before the trout's very
nose ? There is indeed no way but this : you must
get behind the trout. Owing to his anatomical con-
struction, a trout never looks over his shoulder. He
lies with his head up the stream, and notes most accu-
rately anything that floats past him in the water, or
any apparition that is exhibited on the bank above or
opposite to him. But if you stand a little below, and
not — if you are a six-footer — too much above his level,
the chances are that he does not perceive you. In
this position you can throw your fly above him, so that
he can catch it, as he does that of which it is " the
counterfeit presentment," as it comes down — with the
secondary result of your catching him. A repetition
of the process fills your creel. It is not to be under-
stood from this, however, that the cast is always to be
made straight up stream. By a straight-up cast the

ANGLING ON THE BORDERS. 29

whole of your flies must pass over the trout — as well
as the line — probably to the excitement of suspicion or
alarm. On approaching a pool, therefore, at the foot,
the first cast may be made straight up the side of the
bank on which you stand (or crouch, or kneel, which
are preferable attitudes), but the succeeding ones
should be more and more diagonal, until you throw
across to the opposite bank, or in the direction of it, if
the river is too broad for that. It is at the opposite
bank that you are to expect most fish, and if you are
fishing a stream which you cannot command from one
bank to the other, the best plan is to wade into the
middle, and cast across and upwards to the side. In
places where the water does not run into the bank, and
where it is shallow at the edges, deepening towards the
middle, trout do not lie at the side ; and to the middle,
therefore, especially to the eddy behind every large
stone, the angler should address his efforts : but these
are hardly the most favourable places for fly-fishing.

A bad angler, however, usually chooses some such
smooth and equable stream, and keeps casting away
over and over the same spot, for hours together. He
has been told to fish his water inch by inch, and he
thinks it necessary to give every parr half-a-dozen
chances before he passes it. It is indeed the besetting
sin of anglers to linger too much over the water, and
to make long casts, which are as vain and profitless
as long prayers. Mr. Stewart (whose valuable in-
structions we are very imperfectly summarizing) re-
commends quick, almost constant casting, and rapid
movement from stream to pool, and from pool to stream.
In fishing up-stream, frequent casting is necessary, or

30 THE BORDER ANGLER.

the line floats down past the angler. But the trout
usually rises to the fly the moment it falls, and it is
undesirable to let the line float for more than three or
four yards, each cast being made a yard or two above
the preceding one. The eye of the experienced angler
at once detects the points of each stream and pool, and
he does not waste time by casting in water where
trout do not ordinarily feed, but having brought his
fly in behind every stone, below every bush, and past
every tuft of grass, he passes on to other favourable
places. Fly-fishing, indeed, or any kind of fishing —
if the angler makes up his mind to fill his pannier — is
hard work. What his hand findeth to do, he must
do with his might, confident that skill and diligence
will meet their reward. Unless a stream is remark-
ably well stocked with trouts, and singularily adapted
for the catching of them, the angler in a full day's
fishing ought to pass over from four to seven miles of
water. It is waste of time to fish all the water — it
is folly to repeat casts, except where there is some
special temptation — and, when the take is not on,
there are but a few trouts here and there, stationed
where the angler's eye ought readily to direct him,
that are feeding. When the take is on — that is, when
of a sudden the water begins to "bell" with noses
poked up to catch the drowning flies that suddenly
come down the stream in myriads — the angler must
redouble his exertions; and as he ought to get a rise at
almost every cast, if he is in a proper place, he may
remain stationary as long as the trout continue to
seize his flies. Such golden minutes are not to be
thrown away, for " the take " seldom lasts long. It

ANGLING ON THE BORDERS. 31

seems to be caused by the bursting forth of a swarm
of insects, which, issuing in the fullness of their time
and of their wings from below the stones, begin their
precarious dance along the surface of the water, in
which they soon terminate their few minutes of winged
existence. It is, we may remark, a mistake to suppose
that the life of these insects is ephemeral. They have
been alive, and pretty active, for months before, under
the stones in the water or at the water-side, and their
wings are merely the garb which they don to dance
merrily to their death.

As it is chiefly the necessity for the concealment of
the angler that renders it desirable for him to fish up
the stream, he should take every means in his power
to render that concealment complete. He must take
care that his shadow or the shadow of his rod, does
not fall on the water ; and he should also constantly
consider whether, when standing erect, he is not
likely personally to attract the attention of trout lying
where his fly has fallen. In most cases, indeed, he
must stoop to conquer. He must often creep, he must
sometimes crawl — not only emulating the . wisdom,
but imitating the motion, of the serpent. When he
stands erect, the trout's line of vision towards him is
only through a small portion of the water, and the
greater part through the air ; when he brings himself
down nearly to the trout's level, the line of vision has
to pass obliquely through a quantity of water before it
rises, so that though he may be full in view, probably
the trout cannot see so far through a medium so dense.
Next in importance to concealment of himself, is con-
cealment of his tackle, and, to effect this, we shall

32 THE BORDEK ANGLER.

only advise liim to use the very finest stained gut that
he can procure, and to drop his flies as gently upon
the water as he may.

Respecting flies, we must recommend our readers to
the Kelso, Sprouston, or Edinburgh tackle-makers.
The best authorities on Scotch angling are dead
against the English practice of carrying about an ar-
tificial entomological museum in a pocket-book, and
restrict the flies that may be used with advantage to
a very limited number. Red, black, dun, and mottled
spiders, made of soft hackles — the hare-lug body with
wood-cock or greyish wing — a yellow-bodied fly, with
a brown wing and slight hackle — the march-brown
(most serviceable in the Tweed) — and a few others, all
of sober hue, afford sufficient variety for border- angling.
Fly-fishing commences in March — although, no doubt,
trouts will sometimes take the fly in February ; — but
it is not until about the beginnmg of April that they
begin to recover from the effects of spawning and of
the spare diet of winter. In few rivers, indeed, are
they in good condition until the end of that month.
Flies for the early part of the season should be large,
dressed upon jSTo. 10 of Bartlett's or No. 3 of Addling-
ton's hooks, and if the waters are discoloured they may
be even larger. It is of importance to adapt the size
of fly to the condition of the water ; but as the season
advances, the size may be reduced as far as is consis-
tent with safety in retaining hold of the fish. If it is
found that a considerable proportion of trouts get off
after being hooked, it may be assumed that the hook
is too small, and though fewer fish may probably be
raised, more will be creeled by using a size larger.

ANGLING ON THE BORDERS. 33

As a rule, larger flies may be used in the Tweed than
in any of its tributaries or in smaller streams. Fine-
ness of gut and lightness of construction — the wings
being gauzy and the body slim — are of more impor-
tance in the fly than the precise shade of colour.
The fly-fisher's rod should be so light as to be capable
of being used with one hand for a whole day without
fatiguing the angler. It must also be pretty stiff, to
enable him to strike with instant rapidity, and to
throw if necessary against the wind. It cannot there-
fore be long, and to our mind about 11 or 12 feet is
the longest that will suit most people.

Next to Fly-fishing, both in the order of the sea-
son and in general estimation, comes "Worm-fishing.
Worm-fishing may be practised the whole season
through, and trout may probably be caught with it
every day in the year. We have taken them in that
way when a dead worm froze to brittleness if kept a
few minutes in the air, and the dropping water icicled
on the line. But worm-fishing proper does not begin
until the trout have fed to satiety upon the abundance
of insects called forth by the summer sun ; and it is
usually about the beginning or middle of June that it
becomes for the time the most deadly and satisfactory
of all modes of angling. Trout in the beginning of the
fly-fisher's season are to be found chiefly in pools, their
strength not yet enabling them to lie with constant-
working fin in rapid water. But as the season ad-
vances they move into swifter currents ; and when
worm-fishing commences, they are distributed through
all the shallow streams — posted behind stones — lurk-

C

34 THE BORDER ANGLER.

ing under banks or bushes — and taking advantage of
every ripple and eddy to conceal themselves. A care-
ful scrutiny will often detect large fish in water not
of sufficient depth to cover their back-fins. To these
places the worm fisher must address himself. His rod
ought to be a two-handed one, 14 or 15 feet in length ;
his gut, for a couple of yards from the hook upwards,
the finest that he can procure. By tying his hook
upon coarse or white gut, he will in most cases spoil
his day's fishing entirely. It is absolutely imperative
that in summer worm-fishing he should cast up-stream.
All the reaso»s for this that we have mentioned in
describing fly-fishing apply equally here, and there
are others that will readily occur to him. He must
not use lead to weight his line, and cause it to fall
with a splash, catch stones, and give his worm an
unnatural motion. He must take every precaution to
conceal himself from view ; and his worms must be
well-scoured and lively, so as to tempt trout at the
season when they are most highly fed. Such rej^tiles
he will find in all the Edinburgh tackle-shoj^s at a
very low price ; but if he happens not to have access
to Edinburgh, he has only to dig them from the earth
— choosing such as are rather under than over two
inches in length — and to keep them for a week or
ten days among'st dry moss, until they slough off their
pollutions, and become clear and tough. The worm-
tisher must pass over much water in most rivers.
Pools and deep gushing streams it is useless to fish
in — although occasionally, when there is wind, trout
are to be taken thus in the thin running water at the
foot of a pool, and in a gale, worm may be angled

ANGLING ON THE B0KDER8. 3')

with almost like fly. The hook ought to vary in size
according to the general size of the worms, but per-
haps it is undesirable to use it larger than No. 11 or
smaller than No. 8 of Addlington's. The point of the
hook should he inserted a little below the head, and
the body of the worm drawn along the shank until it
completely covers the hook, leaving about one- third of
it to play beyond the point. Mr. Stewart recommends
a worm tackle made up of three or four small hooks,
Nos. 8 or 9, Bartlett's (5 or 4, Addlington's), tied to
the end of the thread of gut — the bend of the one
hook nearly touching the top of the one below it —
and the points of the hooks merely passed through
diflerent parts of the body of the worm. This gives
the worm a more natural appearance, and makes the
angler sure that when the trout seizes the worm there
wdll be the point of a hook in its mouth; but, of course,
on a narrow inspection, the trout will observe the
hooks or gut. We have had little experience of it, but
have heard it praised by old anglers who have tried it.
In using it the angler :must strike rapidly, as in fly-
fishing ; while, in fishing with one hook, he must let
the trout have a bite or two before he strikes.

" Worm-fishing," says Mr. Stewart, "is the most
certain and deadly of all fishing ; and by it more trout
may be captured in the month of July than by any
other means in any other month of the year. And he
is not worthy of the name of ajigier who cannot in any
day of the month, when the water is clear^ kill from
fifteen to twenty pounds weight in any county in the
south of Scotland." Tested by this standard, several
very worthy persons of our acquaintance, who think

36 THE BOEDER ANGLER. ^

themselves no small shakes with the rod, are " not
worthy of the name of anglers."

Worm-fishing may be successfally practised at all
seasons when the waters are muddy after a flood, and
before they begin to settle into the brown or porter
colour which old fly-fishers like. The angler may
then load his line so as to keep it at the bottom, and
may use a couple of hooks a yard and a half apart —
fishing chiefly at the side about the foot of streams,
and in eddies.

The Creeper is a bait but little fished with on the
borders, although it is easily got, and is very killing.
It is the undeveloped stone-fly [Pliryganea\ after it
has disencumbered itself of the shell of sand and straw
in which it lived as a caddis-worm, and before it as-
sumes its wings. It is found under the stones in
shallow water in most rivers ; and, with a number of
legs, runs about with considerable alacrity. It has
something of the appearance of a beetle, and is some-
times called the water-cricket. It is fished with pre-
cisely like Avorm in clear water, and in the same kind
of water ; although in the end of April, when it comes
into use, it may sometimes be used with advantage in
deeper streams. It may be baited upon a common
worm hook, passed through it side ways and back
again, or upon a couple of hooks of a smaller size, one
of them sideways through the shoulders, and the other
in the same way through the lower part of the body.
Towards the end of May it is a most effective bait for
large trouts, when brought skilfully into the eddies
behind stones and under banks. We have heard of

ANGLIXG ON THE BORDERS. 37

several dozens of trout, averaging fully a pound each,
being taken by it by a single rod in the Tweed in one
day.

About the beginning of June the creeper developes
into the May-fly — a name which on the borders de-
signates the stone-fly, and not the true May-fly or
green drake {Ephemera vulgata.) The creeper then,
after having lived solely in the water (although able
to live for a considerable time out of it), walks out into
the channel at the water- side, throws off another shell,
gets large brown wings, and becomes a denizen of the
dry land. In this state, few large trout are able to
resist it, as it floats down the river ; and, when care-
fully fished with, on any day during the short fortnight
or three weeks in which it is to be found, it will always
command a basketful of the best trouts. Using a very
fine line, and casting up-stream, so as to let it come
down to him, the angler must carefully watch it, and
strike pretty sharply when his line stops if the fly is
submerged, or allow a moment before striking if it is
floating on the surface, and he sees the trout take it.
Mr. Stewart recommends the angler with the May-fly
always to keep his bait under water, as he is of opi-
nion that trout more frequently miss taking hold when
it is afloat ; but we cannot say that we have observed
this, and it appears to us more natural that the fly
should be kept on the top of the water. What we take
to be the female fly is larger, yellower, and has bigger
wings than the male, the wings of which are not
usually longer than its body. The female is undoubt-
edly the more captivating to the trout, and may be
used singly, while it is advisable to put on two of the

38 THE BORDEE ANGLER.

others. Two hooks, the upper one of the size of a large
fly-hook, and the lower the very smallest worm-hook,
ought to be employed, and the baiting is managed by
entering the lower hook below the shoulder, passing it
through sideways, and bringing it back, while the
upper is passed through the shoulder, also sideways.
When two flies are used, the lower hook, after the first
is put on as described, has merely to be passed through
the shoulder of the second. Sport may, however, be
had with a single hook, and we have used the May-fly
pretty effectively upon an ordinary fly-hook, from which
the wings had been cut. With the May-fly it is of
little use to keeping whipping water inhabited only by
small trout ; but wherever large fish harbour, or are
observed feeding, it may be used with deadly effect.
A hot sunshiny day and clear water are favourable
for it, but it is also productive when the water is brown,
and we have had good sport with it in a gale, when it
was difficult to keep the line in the water. In such a
case it may be used in pools, but ordinarily streams
are the best, as it is there that trout do chiefly feed.

Minnow-fishing is most effective in two states of
the water — when it is red just after a flood, before be-
coming fit for the use of the fly, and when it is dead
low in summer-time. In early spring, it may be
practised with success at almost any time, in water
which has just enough of flow to make the minnow
spin readily ; and at all seasons, when the water is clear,
this kind of fishing is greatly aided by a stiff breeze.
In spring or in flooded water a pretty large minnow
may be used, but in summer-time the bait can scarcely

ANGLING ON THE BORDERS. 39

be got too small. Of course, the tackle must be adapted
to the size of the minnow. English anglers and tackle-
makers have sought out many inventions in the way
of artificial minnows and complicated minnow-tackle ;
but if the suffrages of Tweedside Gnostics were taken,
glass, brass, or gutta-percha imitations would be no-
where, and a plain running-tackle made of two hooks
would head the poll. The lower hook should be large
enough to impale almost the whole body of the min-
now, being entered at the shoulder, and brought out at
the tail, the shape of the bait assuming the curve of
the hook, while the upper hook ought to be smaller,
and to be passed through both jaws. Any slight dis-
crepancy in the size of minnows is obviated by a turn
or two of the gut between the hooks round the bend
of the upper one. Some anglers use, and Stewart
recommends, a drag made of two hooks tied back-to-
back at the end of about four inches of gut, and
hung on by a loop to the upper hook of the tackle.
This is intended to catch, by the outside of the body,
trouts which have risen to, and have missed being
caught by, the minnow. Minnow-fishing, as much as
any other branch of the art, requires to be practised
with skill and dexterity, and when so managed large
trouts are the result. The line ought to be leaded,
and streams ought most to engage the angler's atten-
tion— although here, too, he should diligently search
out the likely places for large fish. He ought not to
indulge in indiscriminate spinning over every kind of
water, as that is mere waste of time ; but in all cases
he ought carefully to work his minnow to the very side,
before lifting it out for a new cast, as trout often follow

40 THE BORDER ANGLER.

the bait, and only seize it when it seems about to es-
cape into some shelter at the edge. The dawn and the
gloaming are alike auspicious to the minnow-fisher.

We shall now only briefly notice Eoe-fishing —
which many sensible men regard as no better than
poaching. It has, however, its charms ; and these
chiefly, — that it is very slaughterous, and that it is
available at times when no other kind of angling is
possible or worth trying. Piscator has then no choice
between fly, wonn, and minnow, — his alternatives
being simply fishing with roe or staying at home. No
wonder, in such desperate case, that it is oftener re-
sorted too than, all things considered, may be quite
justifiable. The months for roe-fishing are from
October to the middle of March, when salmon are
spawning in the rivers, and trout are on the out-
look for stray particles of roe from the " redds."
Trout are then in bad condition ; but they are very
hungry and easily taken. Koe-fishing is most effective
just after the turn of a flood, when the waters are still
high and muddy; in clear water it is "no use." With
a stiff one-handed rod, a gut line two yards in length,
made of the strongest gut, no matter how coarse, and
a pot of roe, the angler must betake himself to the
water-side when the river is in the state we have de-
scribed, choosing a steady stream about three or four
feet deep, where, according to his judgment, trout are
likely to have been driven by the flood. If he find
such a stream just leading into a long pool, he may
expect trouts. Mr. Stoddart says it is unnecessary to
bait the stream, as some anglers do; but our experience

ANGLING ON THE BORDEKS. 41

is opposed to this \"iew. On one occasion vre filled our
creel three times in an afternoon by roe-fishing, and
attributed the success to our having a fresh " salmon-
belly," a handful or two of ova from which we occa-
sionally threw in. The ordinary baiting material is
the oil and refuse left when the salmon-roe is cured,
mixed with particles of the paste or pea, or even with
boiled rice or barley, which absorbs the oil. But good
fishing may be had, we have no doubt, without baiting;
although the eflects of baiting are usually attempted
to be produced by several anglers going together to a
cast, and, by constantly following one another, creating
a scent, and attracting fish. For it is beyond doubt
that the roe-fisher, by the smell of his bait, attracts
trouts to him, and it is therefore that he need not shift
his quarters, but may confine himself to a stretch of
water thirty or forty yards in length for a whole day.
He may use two hooks — we prefer good-sized worm-
hooks — a yard or so separate, and must have only four
or five yards of line out, often less. Leading his line
so heavily that it slowly searches the bottom, he must
throw or drop his bait in a little above him and follow
it down the cast. Quick striking is necessary ; the
roe-fisher must not wait for a tug, but must strike the
moment his line stops. He will thus often strike when
his line is merely held by a stone or a weed, but if he
acts more deliberately he will fail to hook two-thirds
of the fish that give him a chance. He should occa-
sionally put a worm upon one of the hooks, and will
thus sometimes get fish that are attracted to, but are
indisposed to take the roe.

There is one serious objection to roe-fishing, in

42 THE BORDER ANGLER.

addition to the drawback that the trout taken by it
are out of condition, — viz. that the practice of it is
a strong encouragement to the killing of spawning
salmon in close-time. Hitherto a considerable quan-
tity of salmon-roe sufficiently developed for curing-
has no doubt been obtained by legal fishing before
the expiry of the season, but that very fact proved
that the season was prolonged beyond the due period,
and it is to be hoped that the alteration of the law
will amend that greatly in future. Ninety per cent,
of the salmon-roe cured is bought from the poachers
at a high price, and every pound of that roe represents
several thousand eggs, that, but for the deadly leister
of the black-fisher, might have helped to stock the
border streams with salmon. We trust the exertions
of our excellent crony Mr. Mitchell, the active and
energetic Superintendent of the Tweed Police, will
year-by-year diminish this disgraceful traffic ; and pro-
bably it may by-and-by enter his head to strike, as we
have no doubt he could legally do, at those who tempt
the poachers by paying them 2s. or 2s. 6d. a pound
for the fresh roe. He can seize a carrier's cart during
close-time, if but a single salmon is found in it, and
fine the carrier ; he can follow foul salmon to the
uttermost ends of the kingdom, and compel the person
in whose possession they are to prove that they were
not killed in the Tweed betwen the 15th of October
and the 1st of March, or undergo a penalty : — why,
then, can he not make a descent upon a vender of
salmon-roe, and put him to the same proof as to how
and where the article was procured ? If he can, sa7is
ceremonie^ lay hold of the sides of a "kipper" hanging

ANGLING ON THE BOKDEKS. 4.";

ill the cottage chimney, can he not also lay liold of the
roe that was once between those sides ? At any rate
the attempt might have a salutary effect; and possibly,
even, it might be found that a water-bailiff is entitled
to carry off from under the nose of the angler the pot
of roe he is fishing with, and for which, like an ass,
he had paid at the rate of 10s. per pound.

Apropos of bailiffs and penalties, we may conclude
this chapter with a word of caution to anglers inex-
perienced on the borders. In the spring, on the Tweed
and most of its tributaries, the angler, while fishing for
trouts, may happen to catch something else, which may
turn out a Tartar. Bull-trout kelts will very readily,
and salmon and grilse kelts will occasionally, take the
ordinary flies and baits of the trout-fisher. Hitherto
there has been nobody to meddle with him in such
case, save perhaps the keeper of the salmon-proprietor
(who might not be very difficult to mollify), as there
has been no law against the killing of these fish. But,
under the amended Act, the murder of a kelt is now
a punishable offence ; and, should the angler hook one,
he must return it to the water as little harmed as pos-
sible. Then, before the kelts are fairly out of the rivers,
the smolts make their appearance in them. About
the beginning of April, the parr assumes silvery scales,
is denominated a "smout," and is taken under the
protection of the police. (Why the poor parr should
have been left friendless during the first year, or, it
may be, two years of its existence, we do not know,
although we are hardly disposed to suggest an exten-
sion of the bailiff's sympathies to it.) From that time

44 THE BORDER ANGLER.

to about the end of May, slioal after shoal of fry pass
downwards to the sea, and it is frequently difficult to
throw a fly into the water without hooking a smolt.
They may be killed by the dozen by any one who can
cast a line. But let none of our readers be tempted
to drop them into his basket, instead of throwing them
back into the water. A friendly individual will by-
and-by come up to him, and, after a sensible remark or
two about the weather and the water, will ask what
sport he has had, and peep into his creel. The Philis-
tines are upon thee ! and thou art liable to a fine.
Avoid the places, therefore, where smolts are numerous
— (they generally congregate in the shallow streams) —
or fish with worm, minnow, or creeper. The salmon-
smolt has blackish fins, and the bull-trout smolt, which,
singularly enough, is considerably larger, has bright
orange fins, and both may be readily recognised by the
ignoramus by the greenish-olive shade on the back,
and the bright loose scales that stick to hands, clothes,
rod, or whatever else they come in contact with, and
thus guide the knowing bailiff.

..MM'^5

>^.

( 45 )

CHAPTER III.

THE TWEED.

HAT the Rhine is to the German, or the
Jordan was to the Jew, the Tweed is to the
Scot. The barrier of his nationality, entwined
with his history and traditions, flowing through his
songs and beautifying his legends, it is the stream
which he is proud of above all others, deficient as it
may be in many respects when compared with some
native rivers — wanting the parent lochs and mighty
volume of the Tay, the rich windings and the regal
associations of the Forth, the romantic linns and teem-
ing commerce of the Clyde. The land through which
it flows is dear to him as the scene of his ancient bal-
lads ; and it has had its old character revivified and
refreshed within the memory of the present generation
in a way that has made it twice classic and doubly
hallowed. The great lyrical harvest that was garnered
long ago on the Borders has been succeeded by an
after-crop worthy of the first. From source to mouth the
Tweed sings for ever to the listener of the greatest of
minstrels and romancers, Walter Scott; from the braes
of Yarrow and the shaws of Ettrick still comes the
sweet and homely strain of the Shepherd-bard ; Teviot
rolls in the remembrance of the too brief border-life of
John Leydcn ; while every green glen has, as well as
its pleasant water or burnie, its own song and its ee-

46 THE BORDER ANGLER.

pecial poet. And the race that inhabits the land is
worthy to inherit such a past. Still, 0 Tweed —

" Still on thy banks so gaily green,
May numerous herds and flocks be seen,
And lasses chaunting o'er the pail,
And shepherds piping in the dale,
And ancient faith that knows no guile,
And Industry embrowned with toil,
And hearts resolved and hands prepared
The blessings they enjoy to guard I "

But, reverentially as the Tweed is esteemed by the
patriot and the poet, what shall we say of the loving-
regard in which it is held by the angler ? Dweller
in the cities, what are your thoughts of the Tweed as
you bend over your desk, the fishing-rod at peace in a
safe corner of your room at home — the creel hanging
empty and idle in the back kitchen ? The west wind
is " blawin' saft amang the leafy trees;" the day before
yesterday the surcharged clouds which it had brought
from the Atlantic saturated the hills and dales of the
South ; imagination pictures to you innumerable fa-
vourite spots where the brown water is now dimpled
by yellow-finned giants : who shall measure your long-
ings ? There are thoughts that lie too deep for ink.
So, to avoid metaphysics, let us take some facts from
Mr. Stoddart, whom we will back against any man in
Roxburghshire to give his facts (when he likes) a me-
taphysical hue : — " The whole" (of the Tweed) he
says, " is planned according to an angler's taste, every
inch of water accessible to the v/ader, without danger
or interruption. Its banks^ also, are in keeping with
its other advantages — not naked and barren, neither

THE TWEED. 4i

spongy and overg•ro^vn with rushes, nor yet crowded
with close and impervious wood, but mostly dry and
inviting, fringed in many parts with oak, ash, elm,
and beech, and in others hung over with the pleasant
alder, among the roots of which is often harboured a
goodly and well-grown trout, impatient for some drop-
ping fly or incautious worm. Most to our favour^
however, is its choice formation of bottom or channel,
fertile in food, provided with shelter, and admirably
fitted to the purpose of spawning." How many thou-
sands would add their affidavit to Mr. Thomas Todd
Stoddart's panegyric !

Although it is only some six or seven miles above
the Crook, we have never beheld the green well-eye — in
the side of the same hill that gives birth to the Clyde
and the Annan — from which issues the infant Tweed.
We the less regret this, however, since, in looking up
exact information on the subject, we have discovered
a joke, or rather a mild approach to one, in the Sta-
tistical Account of Scotland. " It may with truth be
said," remarks the reverend author of the account of
the parish of Tweedsmuir, " that though the origin of
the Tweed be humble, it is not lowly ^ as the spring
whence it flows is fully 1500 feet above the sea's level. '^
To make this descent — to stray from Erickstane-brae '
with willing sport to the wild ocean — the Tweed has
to run a course of fully a hundred miles. What angler
could not follow it lovingly, and, like Violet,

" Be as patient as the gentle stream^
And make a pastime of each weary step,
Till the last step hath brought him to" —

Berwick, where he would have to take off his trout -flies,.

48 THE BORDER ANGLER.

and start fishing for podlies, coal-saitiis, eels, and rock-
codlings.

The railway-system which has opened out so much
water to the angler has had the effect, however, of
making the Tweed, for the first fifteen miles of its
course, less accessible than it was ten years ago. The
opening of the Caledonian Railway has laid off the
Edinburgh and Dumfries Coach, which used to strike
the valley of the Tweed at Rachan Mill, and only
leave Tweeddale as it turned over the shoulder of the
hill into Annandale. Two most convenient angling-
inns, Rachan Mill and the Crook, the one about
twelve and the other about seven miles from the source
of the Tweed, are thus rendered somewhat difficult of
access. During some seasons a coach has been run
by Mr. Croall to Broughton, but this, we fear, is not
likely to last. A line of railway has been projected —
the project is indeed an old one — from the North
British at Galashiels to the Caledonian at Symington,
and if it is carried out it will throw open many miles
of water that are now only attainable from Peebles ;
but in the meantime, perhaps the easiest way of getting
to the head of the Tweed is by the Caledonian to Sy-
mington Station, and thence by omnibus to Biggar.
The angler who leaves Edinburgh by the first train
will get to Biggar shortly after nine o'clock. He is
here about twelve miles from the Crook inn, and he
may easily accomplish that distance in a day, angling
his way down Biggar water to the bridge at Kilbucho
Kirk, and thence taking the road across by Rachan
Mill to the nearest point of the Tweed, from which he
may fish up to the Crook. Stationed here, he has the

THE TWEED — THE CROOK. 49

command of the Tweed and its highest feeders, all of
which swarm with trout. Every dimple in the green
pastoral hills which form so beautiful a feature in the
scenery of these districts is traversed by rill, burn, or
"water." For the first few miles the Tweed itself is
of course but a brook ; the accession of the Fruid and
the Tala elevate it to the dignity of a " water;" but it
is perhaps not until it receives Biggar-water that it
can fairly be called a river. We should not recommend
the angler to betake himself to the Crook — or indeed
to any hilly region — in the early spring. Trout are
there late in getting into condition, the low temperature
retarding the development of the insect-world which
is to feed them up and restore the flesh they have lost
during the season of spawming and hunger. They
may be taken readily enough soon after the snows
have disappeared from the White Coomb and Culter
Fell — or even though the hills are capped with white,
if they are " green below the knee"; but they are still
poor and spiritless, and we would let the smiles and
(often cold) tears of April be nearly over, before
visiting the head of Tweeddale. By that time the
resident in Edinburgh will be snufiing up daily the east
wind in the most dissatisfied way, and he will all the
more enjoy the snug shelter of the Crook, and the
sunny uplands of Tweedsmuir, where the prevailing
winds are from the soft south and west. He may then
stretch himself by the linns of Tala without fear of
rheumatism, and think of the days when the perse-
cuted people took refuge there amongst the rocks — lie
may splash through the water without wading-bools,

D

50 THE BORDER ANGLER.

nor fear to venture over the moss-hags in search of
Gameshope Loch or Loch Skene.

The trout of hill-burns are always black in colour
and poor in condition ; but are also ravenous and
easily caught, if the angler only keeps out of sight.
What are properly hill-burns are too narrow for fly-
fishing, and can only be fished by dropping a worm
into them over a heather-bush. Uncomely are the in-
habitants of these waters, and seldom of large size, but
they are numerous and unsuspicious. Indeed, w^herever
water flows in Scotland, it may be predicated that there
are trout. We have picked them out of mere holes in
moors and hill-sides that had no visible communica-
tion wdth any stream, the water from them perco-
lating through the peat-moss. Of course there would
be a run of water there after heavy rain ; and during
these temporary floods trout would ascend into the
isolated pools, leading hermit lives until another spate
gave them an opportunity of returning if they chose to
the haunts of their species. We can hardly commend
the sport usually obtainable in hill-burns, although,
when the water is coloured, large quantities may readily
be taken in the most unlikely places. It is amusing
enough, however, for the passing angler to devote an
hour occasionally to pulling out caricatures of the
trutta race — all head and teeth — who voraciously dash
at everything that falls into the water, and instantly
dart back with it to their secure holds under the bank,
from which they often can only be drawn out by taking
hold of the line, and giving a straight steady pull.
When a burn becomes broad enough for casting with
the fly, the trout will be found improved in condition ;

THE TWEED — THE TALA. 51

and in many such small streams which flow through
meadows and rich soil, they are finer in flesh and colour
than in large rivers. These, however, are seldom
placed high up amongst the hills, and the trout of the
young Tweed and its first feeders are more distin-
guished for their extent and strength of jaw than for
their edible qualities. Of course, they gradually get
better as the river widens. The first burn which joins
the Tweed is the Core, which might dispute with the
Tweed the paternity of the river. Fruid-water, or
burn, is the next. It is larger, and is worth fishing
in the autumnal season when trout are difficult to be
procured in larger waters. The Minzion-burn comes
next, and then the Tala, a water w^ell worth the ac-
quaintance of the angler. It has two sources — one
the Tala proper, and the other Gameshope Loch, a
small sheet of water that will be best attained by fish-
ing up the Tala, and then striking up the Gameshope-
burn, which joins the Tala about four miles from the
Tweed, and within sight of Tala linns. There are
plenty of trout in Gameshope loch, and the visitor at
the Crook should certainly devote one day to the Tala
and it. (We would fain quote Professor Wilson's char-
acteristic sketch of a bathing-scene in the Tala, but
must refer our readers to the article " Streams" — of
which he was proud — which contains a panegyric on
the Crook, and has been republished in his Miscella-
nies.) All the streams which we have yet named flow
from the south, and are above the Crook, and by their
united contributions the Tweed at that place becomes
a most pleasant and convenient angling stream.
Abounding in trout, with fine alternations of stream

52 THE BORDER ANGLER.

and pool, the angler may command every inch of it
without wading. As the Tweed is accessible to the
salmon to its veiy source, the shoals of parr that exist
in all these streams indicate that the salar and eriox
pay their winter visits to the hills, and do their part
in the great economy of nature in multiplication and
the replenishing of the waters. Few of the sea-fish,
however, ever get back, for the shepherds of Tweeds-
muir are sad poachers, and the sight of a salmon
within reach of the leister is what no Scotchman can
well resist.

So having spent the half of his holiday-week at the
Crook, let the angler next fish quietly down to Kachan
Mill, looking up Kingledoor's-burn on his left hand
for a mile, just to see it, on his way, and passing by
Stanhope-burn on the other side, which is preserved
(! !) by Sir Graham Montgomery, and is therefore so
much fished as not to be worth attention. The angler
will see other rivulets on his way down — Glenriska,
Harestane, and Polmood ; but they are only for ex-
ceptional occasions, such as heavy floods, when larger
streams are unfishable, or for the month of August,
when trout, in all but small burns, where theii- hun-
ger is chronic, seem palled, and trying like overfed
aldermen to recover the tone of their stomachs by
fasting. Stationed at Eachan Mill, he has command
of Biggar- water and Holms- water (a tributary of the
former), and of a burn which comes in from Drumelzier.
Biggar- water is one of those to which we have alluded
as flowing through a rich alluvial soil, and productive
of trout of superior size and quality. It is the only
stream in Peebles-shire the trout of which are red-

THE T\VF.K13 — BIGGAR-WATEK. 5^

lieslied. Salmon follow it up for only a few miles, for
when " the monarch of the tide" enters the fresh water,
lie is on the outlook for gravel- beds, and does not care
for rich feeding. We believe, however, that the best
part of Biggar- water has been spoilt by a practice that
has become too prevalent — that of straightening water-
courses, in order to gain meadow-land, and to guard
against overflows. Probably, however, a delicate fly-
fisher or a dexterous spinner of the minnow will yet be
rewarded for a little patience and effort in a water that
had so high a character. Holms-water takes its rise
behind Culter-fell, on the borders of Lanarkshire, and
flows through a delightfully pastoral vale. It will well
repay half a summer's-day w4th the worm. Brough ton-
burn and Kilbucho-burn are also within reach from
Radian Mill, and there are inns at both Broughton and
Kilbucho, at which the accommodation is, we believe,
excellent.

Here let us, before rejoining the Tweed, state a rule
which we believe will very generally be found to hold
good in respect to fishing in burns. For the first half-
mile or so from their confluence with the main stream
they seldom contain many trout. We can only ac-
count for this by supposing that the trout which run
up them from the larger streams during floods, and
which chiefly stock these burns, do not stop until they
have gone some distance. It is so with the Tweed
itself, as regards salmon ; for there are seldom, except
after long droughts, fish lying in the river within
several miles of the sea. The burn-angler, therefore,
would do well not to be discouraged if he should meet
with but little success at first, even in likely pools ;

54 THE BORDER ANGLER.

and he might generally with safety miss the first few
hundred yards altogether.

The last day of his week has now come, and the
angler must be up betimes, for we propose that he
shall return to Edinburgh by way of Peebles, and that
ancient town is eleven miles off, with some tempting
water between. In summer-time, the angler cannot
be too soon at his sport, and, if he is fishing down the
water, probably the first two or three hours of the
morning with the minnow will be the most productive
of the whole day. The course of the Tweed is no
longer through a vale between ranges of steep green
hills, but it now makes its way through a more level
country, and here and there its banks are wooded and
picturesque. It is still a most satisfactory stream to
fish ; the trout are plentifid, and easily reached.

" There *s no a hole aboon the Crook,

Nor stane or gentle swirl aneath,
Nor drumlie rill nor faery brook,

That daunders through the flowery heath,
But ye may fin' a subtle trout,

A' gleaming ower wi' starn and bead,
And mony a sawmon sooms aboot,

Below the bields o' bonnie Tweed."

We are not yet, however, in the region of the sal-
mon. Though the streams swarm with foul fish in the
spawning season, it is probably some years since a
clean salmon has been caught above Peebles, and we
can only hope for better things in future under the new
dispensation of 1857. The trout, however, are larger
between the mouth of Biggar- water and Peebles, than
in any of the upper streams except Biggar-water itself,
in which fish of several pounds in weight have been

THE TWEED — THE LYNE. 55

caught. The pannier is now likely to contain, by the
evening, a trout or two of a pound weight, and several
of three-quarters and half-a-pound.

Tweed having escaped from the hills, there are now
fewer feeders, and indeed, throughout the whole of the
rest of the Tweed there are very few burns which
communicate directly with the main river. Their
tribute gathered from the high lands is brought in at
second-hand by streams which almost rival the Tweed
itself in size. We observe a burn with the name of
Weston Burn, marked on the map as flowing through
the parish of Stobo to the Tweed, but can say nothing
of its angling capabilities. About three miles above
Peebles, however, the Tweed receives the Lyne, a
stream which takes it rise on the south side of the
Pentlands, and has a course of about fifteen miles. The
lower part of the Lyne may be fished from Peebles,
and the upper part, and its tributary the Tarth, from
Eomanno Bridge, which used to be one of the stations
of the Edinburgh and Dumfries Coach. The Lyne is
noted for the number of trout which it contains, and
was a favourite resort of Edinburgh anglers in the
coaching days. It is still worth a visit — probably the
more so, that there must be fewer anglers in it now
than formerly. The Tarth, like many other streams, is
said to have been injured of late by having its banks
cut and straightened.

We have, however, still charge of the angler who
started with us for a week's fishing in Upper Tweed-
dale ; but he has now made his way to Peebles from
Rachan Mill. He had to take provender in his pocket,
for there is no baiting place by the water-side. He

56 THE BORDEU AXGLER.

is bound for Edinburgh by tbe evening train, and we
have now time to look about us at the place and its
scenery, as well as at the fishing for which Peebles
furnishes a convenient station.

Peebles is a curious old Scotch burgh, supposed
from its name to have been a haunt of the nomadic
Britons who long held Ettrick and Strath- Cluyd. It
obtained a royal charter from David II. in 1337, but
was ruthlessly deprived of the parliamentary privileges
thereto effeiring by the Reform Act of 1832. It has
still a provost and council, and is the county-town.
It has throughout borne the usual character of small
Scotch towns, having always been a homely, drouthy,
God-fearing place. Its inhabitants, of whom there are
about 2000, and who are as " clannish" as the inha-
bitants of other Scotch towns, consider it the most re-
markable spot in the universe. It is looked upon as
a metropolis by the surrounding country districts, and
a story is told of a county-laird, who thus gave his
verdict as to the comparative merits of this capital and
that of France — "Paris for pleesure ! — Hoot-toot!
gie's Peebles ! " It is, however, prettily situated, and
is singularly healthy. The bare pastoral hills of
Tweeddale are here partly relieved by wood ; Nidpath
Castle, about a mile above the town, overhangs the
Tweed, there contracted in its vale to a deep glen ; at
Peebles itself two bridges span the river ; and below,
the eye follows an opening valley, with the ever-charm-
ing accompaniments of adjacent woods and a stately
stream. Nidpath Castle is a strong old tower, once
belonging to the Earls of Tweeddale, and some pretty

THE TWEED — THE MANOR. 57

as well as warlike legends are connected with it. It
was formerly surrounded by fine woods, but when the
ownership of it passed to the wretched old voluptuary,
the last Duke of Queensberry, who was so long a
scandal to the nobility of Britain, he felled the aged
trees, and let the castle sink into decay. Wordsworth,
in an indignant sonnet, has denounced the " degene-
rate Douglas" who was guilty of this disgraceful
treason to his lineage and his country. The castle
has since, as the property of the late and of the present
Earl of Wemyss, been merely the residence of a game-
keeper, and has been falling more and more into ruin ;
but we have heard with pleasure that Lord Elcho,
whose patriotism and fine taste are so well known, has
lately taken steps for its preservation, if not for its
partial restoration.

IManor-water joins the Tweed, from the south, about
two miles above Peebles. The Manor flows through a
quiet hilly glen, and is a capital stream for trout. It
is stated that at one time netters ravaged its waters,
sending the spoil to Edinburgh by the carriers ; but
we believe Lord Minto's Act has had a deterrent effect,
and we have heard of excellent sport being obtained
in it of late years. If the pedestrian angler wants to
take Peebles on his way to St. Mary's Loch — and the
way by Peebles is indeed the most convenient — he
must follow up the Manor to its source by a road that,
at first passable for carriages, turns by-and-by into a
mere foot-path, seeming indeed to be finally quite
stopped by the Bitch-crag. No angler could well walk
the twelve or thirteen miles of Manor-glen Avithout try-
ing a cast in some of the tempting pools and streams,

58 THE BORDER ANGLER.

and, if there is a slight flood, he will generally be well
rewarded.

Eddleston-water enters the Tweed just at Peebles,
separating indeed the old from the new part of the
town. The Peebles railway joins the vale through
which the Eddleston flows about seven miles from
Peebles, and follows it down to the ancient burgh,
where railway and stream both terminate. The upper
part of the Eddleston owns the sway of Mr. William
Forbes Mackenzie of Portmore, but we are not aware
that he has made any attempts to impose restrictions
upon the angler's traffic in it. It is below Portmore,
however, that the best fishing is to be had, and the
angler may either get out at Eddleston station and fish
down (about five miles) to Peebles, or may go to
Peebles and fish back to Eddlestone. If he is using
minnow, or if the water is coloured, the former would
be the better course ; if the water is clear, and he is
fishing with fly or worm, we should recommend the
latter.

Peebles is a highly eligible station for the angler.
The arms of the burgh are three salmon, but, like the
pretensions of the town itself, these are emblematic
rather of the traditional past than of the actual present.
In the last generation some of the best and most suc-
cessful salmon-fishers of the Tweed were burghers of
Peebles, but probably not- one of their successors can
boast the capture of a clean salmon per annum for
twenty years past. Now that kelt-killing is abolished,
the occupation of the Peebles salmon-fishers is gone,
unless an occasional clean fish or two should in future
be permitted to make their way so far up. The Peebles

THE TWEED — PEEBLES. 59

bodies, however, are shocking poachers, and we should
imagine the Tweed bailiffs would like to have an
Aladdin's lamp to shift the town to some other quarter
of the globe during the winter season. At this point
the Tweed is in every way adapted for all kinds of
poaching implements — straik-net, cairn-net, rod, leis-
ter, and cleek, can all be used with the most mur-
derous effect. In the district of which Peebles is the
head-quarters, many hundreds, probably thousands, of
spawning salmon and foul fish were last year killed.
As respects trout-fishing, perhaps the chief drawback
to Peebles is the expertness of the inhabitants them-
selves in the art. Some of the adepts of the town
would be " bad to beat," and they are much addicted
to fishing, know the water of course thoroughly, and
even a good angler may chance to find himself obliged
to sing very small when baskets come to be compared
by the river side, or to be talked of in the evening at
the Tontine. Besides the Tweed, the waters com-
manded from Peebles are the Lyne, the Manor, and
the Eddlestone, which have already been noticed, and
several burns, like that at Hayston, which would pro-
bably repay examination. There are excellent hotels
at Peebles, of which the Tontine is the chief, but in
the Commercial, the Crown, and the Cross-Keys, all
the accommodation that an angler or a traveller may
want can be obtained. For those disposed to make a
stay there are plenty of lodgings.

Innerleithen, popularly believed to be the St. Ronan's
of Sir Walter Scott's novel, is six miles below Peebles,
a convenient distance for a day's angling, or it may be
reached by an omnibus which runs between it and the

60 THE BORDER ANGLER.

Peebles railway-station. It possesses a spa-well, and
is a delightful summer resort for invalids. The inva-
lid angler could hardly, indeed, desire a more suitable
retreat. There is medicinal water if he wants it, quiet
and charming scenery, the Tweed, the Leithen, and
the Quair, for the exercise of his rod. We would
hardly, however, recommend it to the angler who is in
good health. Innerleithen is a manufacturing village
as well as a watering-place, and its inhabitants are
not only inveterate anglers, but we fear we must add
inveterate netters. There are about five miles of ex-
cellent fishing-water in the Tweed between Peebles
and Innerleithen, but for a mile or two on each side
of the latter place, the trouts are not very numerous,
and besides have far too much experience and know-
ledge of gut and feathers to be very easily enticed.
Still the skilful angler may overcome these drawbacks
— so much the more does he deserve honour ; but as
a rule, we should recommend him to avoid watering-
places, and for ourselves personally we would rather,
while angling, cultivate the society of the lower orders
of creation, than even of "man made in God's image,"
especially when he is in the shape of a cockney with
a rod in his hand who has gone splashing down a
stream before us. It is an illustration, however, of the
beneficent fitnesses of things that pervade the uni-
verse, that your cockney seldom or never fishes in a
burn, and seems satisfied with any sheet of water in
which he can exercise his dexterity in casting with a
final result of " half a brace of trout."

The Leithen is just between a " water" and a burn,
contains lots of trout, and great quantities may be

THE TAVEED — INNERLEITHEN. 61

taken in it, as well as in the burns and rills which feed
it after a flood. The Qiiair, which makes its way to
the Tweed on the other side, through the fine woods in
which Traquair House, the seat of the Earl of Tra-
quair, is embosomed, is, we believe, partly preserved,
but the upper parts of this pretty streamlet, as well as
its feeders, are open, and offer a pleasing variety to
Piscator after he has had his morning draught at the
Spa. Up the Quair there is a road to the vale of
Yarrow, accessible to vehicles, and a pleasanter drive
than from Innerleithen to St. Mary's Loch, first through
fine woods and then through the pastoral treeless
" forest" could not well be desired. The " bush aboon
Traquair," w^hich, like "the broom o' the Cowden-
knowes" and Polwarth green, is a landmark in border
song, is pointed out as represented by some birch trees
on a little eminence overlooking the valley above Tra-
quair House. We are told his Lordship carefully pre-
serves these interesting relics. Lord Traquair, who is
a very old man, has, for some reason or other, been
greatly opposed to the protection of the Tweed ; so
much so, that the bailiffs were not allowed to be lodged
in any house on his property. As he is the proprietor
of Innerleithen, and of the adjoining parts of the
river, which has since the erection of woollen factories
at that place been daringly poached, this was a matter
of great inconvenience until the bailiffs got an iron
house made, which they have erected, we believe, at
the nearest suitable point. Perhaps, as his Lordship
is a remarkably rigid Roman Catholic, he was afraid
that the humbler adherents of his creed might, if
poaching were strictly repressed, find some difficulty

62 THE BORDER ANGLER.

in obtaining fish for dinner "on Fridays when they
fastit."

Below Innerleithen the valley of the Tweed for a
few miles preserves an intermediate character between
the pastoral hills and glens in which -it begins, and
the rich and woody lowlands to which it tends and in
which it ends. Holylee on the north side, and " Eli-
banks and Elibraes," Ashestiel, and Yair House, on the
south, are so beautifully situated as to be of themselves
sights worth a walk down Tweedside from Innerleithen.
To the trout-angler, there is here a stretch of eight
or ten miles of water scarcely surpassed on the Tweed.
Rippling streams and pleasant pools, swarming with
trout of superior size, distinguish this part of the
river, and careful fishing will invariably produce ex-
cellent results. As Stoddart sings —

" Frae Holylee to Clovenford,

A chancier bit ye canna hae ;
So, gin ye tak an angler's word,

Ye'd through the whuns and owerthe brae,
And work awa wi' cunnin' hand,

Yer birzy hackles, black and reid :
The saft sugh o' a slender wand

Is meetest music for the Tweed."

We ought, perhaps, to remark that the " up-stream"
rule of fly-fishing ought not to be too pedantically
adhered to in the Tweed, after it has become a broad
and deep river such as it is here and for the rest of its
course. Mr. Stewart himself confesses that that mode
of casting is best adapted for smaller waters which are
easily commanded, and it is clear that wading up a
strong stream for a whole day would be heavy work.
Besides, there are deadly places just where a heavy

THE TWEED — TROUT-FLIES. 63

stream loses itself in a deep pool, whicli can only be
reached by a long cast across and downwards, after the
angler has waded as far as he can with safety. Here
large trout feed, especially in the earlier part of the
season, before they have begun freely to enter the
rapid and shallow water. Indeed the very largest
trout of all, perhaps, never come fairly into the shal-
lows except at night, and if the angler wants a three-
pounder, he must try for it with fly or minnow in some
such place as we have described.

Trout-flies for the Tweed, too, beneficially admit of
greater variety, and of more fanciful combinations of
colour, than those employed in its tributaries. For
instance, a " drake- wing" — that is, a fly with the wing
formed from the black and white barred feather of the
teal or wild drake — is not, according to our experience,
a very telling fly in small waters, but in the Tweed
we have often found it the very best that could be used,
and always found it doing a fair share of work. In-
deed, several years ago, when angling in the Tweed
pretty constantly, we entertained so high an opinion
of the merits of the drake as generally to use it as
the tail-fly. It may be dressed with either a black or
a red hackle — very slight — and may be used, according
to season or the state of the water, of all sizes, from
the whitling-fly down to the midge. In colonred water,
the " Professor" — an invention of Professor Wilson's —
which is the drake wing and hackle with a body formed
of orange-silk, is very effective in the Tweed.

This part of the Tweed used to attract many anglers
to the inn at Clovenford, on Caddon-water (which
joins the Tweed about a mile below Ashiesteel) before

64 THE BOEDER ANGLER.

the railway to Hawick superseded the coach that ran
past it between Edinburgh and Carlisle. It is about
a couple of miles from the Tweed, and still the best
station for fishing this part of the river. Caddon-
water itself is worth the angler's attention, especially
in exceptional states of water when the Tweed is un-
fishable. After rain, smaller waters are often falling
into the best condition for angling just when the main
river is rising to its height, and a minnow or worm
may be deadly in the Caddon when the Tweed is roar-
ing from bank to brae, and the sickened and terrified
trouts are thinking only of their safety as they keep to
the edge of the yellow flood that is covering haugh and
holm. Clovenford is about three miles from Galashiels.
Salmon-fishing may be said to begin at Holylee, a
number of grilse, and a clean salmon or two, being
usually captured by the rod so far up every season.
The Yair fishing-water, which is next to this, and ex-
tends a distance of about four miles from Thornylee
to Yair Bridge, is even let to a large party of Edin-
burgh anglers, who have a snug shieling on the water-
side at " The Nest," near Fairnilee, capable of accom-
modating, at a pinch, nearly a dozen. They are said to
be jovial fellows, and to enjoy themselves remarkably
in their excursions to Tweedside. We believe they pay
about £70 per annum for the water, and have, in addi-
tion to the salmon-fishings, a right of shooting over
some ground in the neighbourhood. Hitherto they
have slain more kelts than clean salmon, however, only
a very favourable flood ever bringing either the latter
or any considerable number of grilse into their water.
Mr. Kussel of the Scotsman^ a rather celebrated angler.

THE TWEED — SIR WALTER SCOTT. 65

to whom we have already referred in connection Avith
the new Tweed Act, is one of them, and gave in evi-
dence to the House of Commons Committee that " at
the beginning of the season in 1856 he killed nine sal-
mon (kelts, we presume) in one day, whereas during
the rest of the season, though out eight or ten times,
he got only one." He stated, indeed, that he had
made calculations in 1850 which led him to believe
that in that year there had not been more than 700
clean fish altogether killed by the rod in the Tweed. A
few grilse and salmon — the latter perhaps not particu-
larly clean — have, however, always been got by " The
Nest" anglers in the period of grace allowed for rod-
fishing at the end of the season, and it is hoped that,
in future, although the time is abridged, the sport will
be better.

As we have reached the salmon-district of the
Tweed, we are now also fairly into the land of Scott.
At Ashiesteel he took up his residence after being ap-
pointed Sheriff-depute of Selkirk, when his principal
began to grumble about his living at Lasswade, at a
distance from the scene of his duties. Here he wTote the
Lay, Marmion, Waverley, and others of his immortal
works, and abode until he became the laird of Clarty-
hole, and built his "stone and lime romance" at Abbots-
ford. He was the plain " Shirra," — not even the titular
" Duke of Darnick" — and was ready for any kind of
" ploy." He was an angler, although he declares in
his review of Sir Humphrey Davy's Salmoyiia^ that
his line usually fell " with the emphasis of a quoit;"
and Hogg talks of him as being in his highest glee
when " toiling in Tweed to the waist" with rod or

E

66 THE BORDER ANGLER.

leister. Jamie relates of him, while he lived at Ashie-
steel —

" He and Skene of Eubislaw and I were out one night, about
midnight, leistering kippers in Tweed, and on going to kindle
a light at the Elibank March, we found, to our inexpressible
grief, that our coal had gone out. To think of giving up our
sport was out of the question ; so we had no other shift save to
send Rob Fletcher home, all the way through the darkness, the
distance of two miles, for another fiery peat.

" While Fletcher was absent, we three sat down on a piece of
beautiful greensward, on the brink of the river, and Scott de-
sired me to sing him my ballad of Gilmanscleugh. Now, be it
remembered, that this ballad had never been either printed or
penned. I had merely composed it by rote, and on finishing
it, three years before, I had sung it over to Sir Walter. I began
it at his request, but at the eighth or ninth verse I stuck it,
and could not get on with another line ; on which he began it
a second time, and recited it every word from beginning to end.
It being a very long ballad, consisting of eighty-eight verses, I
testified my astonishment

" Eob Fletcher came at last, and Mr. Laidlaw of Peel with
him, and into the foaming river we plunged, in our frail bark,
with a blazing light. In a few minutes we came into Gliddy's
Weal, the deepest pool in Tweed, when we perceived that our
boat gave evident symptoms of sinking. When Scott saw the
terror Peel was in, he laughed till the tears blinded his eyes.
Always, the more mischief, the better sport for him. ' For
God's sake, push her to the side ! ' roared Peel. ' Oh, she goes
fine,' said Scott ; ' An' gin the boat were bottomless, an' seven
miles to row;' and, by the time he had well got out the words,
down she went to the bottom, plunging us all into Tweed over
head and ears. It was no sport to me at all ; but that was a
glorious night for Sir Walter, and the next day he was no
worse."

Scott was not Shakespeare, — but who, of these latter
days, has had more of Shakspeare's genius and spirit?
If he had been born at Stratford-upon-Avon some three

THE TWEED — ABBOTSFORD. 67

hundred years ago, who can doubt but he would have
drawn a poaching cross-bow in immortal company in
Charlcote park, and taken his full share in a memorable
ale -drinking match in the neighbouring village, from
which the young men of Stratford walked off victo-
rious, but had to succumb before they reached home,
and sleep all night under the hedge ?

In 1812 Sir Walter had finished Abbotsford, which
is about six miles below Ashiesteel on the Tweed, and
bade the latter place good-bye, not without a pang.
But he was proud of his new creation, and of the title
of border-laird which was now his due. Here it was
that he lived for a space, deservedly waited upon, if
ever man was so, by " honour, love, obedience, troops
of friends;" hither, after the crash of his fortunes and
the death of his wife, he fled when he could from his
duties in Edinburgh, and toiled to redeem his position
and his credit, until his wonderful brain gave way ;
hither, from the blue skies of Italy, he was driven by
the yearnings of his love for his native country to die.
Lockhart draws a delightful picture of the life at Ab-
botsford in 1820 :—

" It was a clear, bright, September morning, with a sharp-
ness in the air that doubled the animating influence of the
sunshine, and all was in readiness for a general coursing-match
on ^N'ewark Hill. The only guest who had chalked out other
sport for himself was the staunchest of anglers, Mr. Rose ; but
he too was there on his shelty, and with his salmon-rod and
landing-net, and attended by his humourous squire Hinves
and Charlie Purdie, a brother of Tom, in those daj's the most
celebrated fishermen of the district. This little group of Wal-
tonians, bound for Lord Somerville's preserve, remained loun-
ging about to witness the start of the main cavalcade. Sir Walter,
mounted on Sybil, was marshalling the order of procession with

68 THE BORDER ANGLER.

a large hunting-whip ; and, among a dozen frolicsome youths
and maidens, who seemed disposed to laugh at all discipline,
appeared— each on horseback, each as eager as the youngest
horseman in the troop— Sir Humphrey Davy, Dr. Wollaston,
and the patriarch of Scottish belles lettres, Henry Mackenzie.
The Man of Feeling, however, was persuaded with some diffi-
culty to resign his steed for the present to his faithful negro
follower, and join Lady Scott in the " Sociable," until we should
reach the ground of our battue. Laidlaw on a long-tailed wiry
highlander, yclept Hodden Orey, which carried him nimbly
and stoutly, although his heel almost touched the ground as he
sat, was the adjutant. But the most picturesque figure was
the illustrious inventor of the safety-lamp. He had come for
his favourite sport of angling, and had been practising it suc-
cessfully with Ross, his travelling companion, for two or three
days preceding this, but he had not prepared for coursing-
fields, or had left Charlie Purdie's troop for Sir Walter's on a
sudden thought; and his fisherman's costume, a brown hat with
flexible brims, surrounded with line upon line of catgut [cat-
gut I] and innumerable flyhooks, jackboots worthy of a Dutch
smuggler, and a fustian jacket dabbled with the blood of sal-
mon, made a fine contrast with the smart jackets, white cord
breeches, and well polished jockey boots of the less distin-
guished cavaliers about him. Dr. Wollaston was in black, and
with his noble severe dignity of countenance, might have
passed for a sporting archbishop. Mr. Mackenzie, at this time
in the 76th year of his age, with a white hat turned up with
green, green spectacles, green jacket, and long brown leathern
gaiters buttoned up on his nether anatomy, wore a dog- whistle
round his neck, and had all over the air of as resolute a de-
votee as the gay captain of Huntly Burn, Tom Purdie and his
subalterns had preceded us by a few hours with all the grey-
hounds that could be collected at Abbotsford, Darnick, and
Melrose ; but the giant Maida had remained as his master's
orderly, and now gambolled about Sybil Grey, barking for mere
joy like a spaniel puppy."

I.ockhart's substitution of catgut for the fine entrail
of the Spanish silk-worm — as if Sir Humphrey had

THE TWEED — ABBOTSFORD. 69

been a fiddler instead of a fisher — is the less pardon-
able as, besides being Scott's son-in-law, and an occa-
sional angler himself, he was the constant associate of
the Wilsons, Hogg, and others of the keenest anglers
in all Scotland. Old people in the district yet remem-
ber the sports at this period, — the great annual hunt,
when all the neighbouring farmers attended, and the
proceedings terminated in a grand dinner and drinking-
bout, Sir Walter in tlie chair — the gala fishing days
at Charlie Purdie's at Boldside, &c. As a companion
picture to the foregoing — but in melancholy contrast
to it — let us extract Lockhart's account of the last sad
home-coming of the great Magician of the Tweed. No
borderer will " lay his banes far frae the Tweed," if
he can help it, and Sir Walter Scott felt at Naples
that he could not die away from Abbotsford. He came
back to London, and, although almost bereft of thought
and consciousness, still longed for his border-home, and
was brought to Edinburgh. Few Scotsmen, we fancy,
can read the narrative of his final journey to abbots-
ford through familiar scenes, without an uncomfort-
able sensation about the eyes : —

" At a very early hour on the morning of Wednesday the 11th,
we again placed him in his carriage, and he lay in the same
torpid state during the first two stages on the road to Tweed-
side. But as we descended the vale of the Gala he began to
gaze about him, and by degrees it was obvious that he was re-
cognising the features of that familiar landscape. Presently
he murmured a name or two — ' Gala-water, surely — Buckholm
— Torwoodlee.' As we rounded the hill at Ladhope, and the
outline of the Eildons burst on him, he became greatly excited;
and when turning himself on the couch his eye caught at length
his own towers at the distance of a mile, he sprang up with a
cry of delight. The river being in flood, we had to go round

70 THE BORDER ANGLER.

a few miles by Melrose Bridge, and during the time this occu-
pied, his woods and house being within prospect, it required
occasionally both Dr. Watson's strength and mine, in addition
to Nicolson's, to keep him in the carriage. After passing the
bridge, the road for a couple of miles loses sight of Abbotsford,
and he relapsed into his stupor ; but on gaining the bank im-
mediately above it, his excitement again became ungovernable.
" Mr. Laidlaw was waiting at the porch, and assisted us in
lifting him in. He sat bewildered for a few moments, and then
resting his eye on Laidlaw, said, * Ha ! Willie Laidlaw! — 0 man,
how often have I thought of you ! ' By this time his dogs had
assembled about his chair — they began to fawn upon him and
lick his hand, and he alternately sobbed and smiled over them
until sleep oppressed him."

He died on the 21st of September 1832, and five
days afterwards a stream of mourners followed his body
across the Tweed and over the hill of Berne rside to
Dryburgh. Wordsworth thus fitly lamented him —

" A trouble, not of clouds or weeping rain,
Nor of the setting sun's pathetic light *

Engender'd, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height ;
Spirits of Power, assembled there, complain
For kindred power departed from their sight,
While Tweed, best pleased in chaunting a blithe strain,
Saddens his voice again and yet again."

We shall not encroach upon the domains of our brother
inditers of guide-books by giving the oft-repeated de-
scriptions of the curiosities that may be seen at Abbots-
ford. But the house may be visited, and a few hours'
good angling at the same time be obtained, in a single
day from Edinburgh. Leaving Edinburgh by the first
train, and taking the Selkirk train from Galashiels, the
angler will be set down at Boldside, close by Abbots-
ford, a little after nine o'clock, with nine hours before

THE TWEED — THE ALLAN. 71

him for visiting the shrine and trying his skill in the
Abbot's ford, before the return train is due. He may
either fish up to Ettrick foot and back, or down to
Melrose, a distance of about three miles by the water,
where he may catch the evening train.

The Ettrick is the first of the larger tributaries which
the Tweed receives, and it enters the main river about
three miles below Yair-bridge. We reserve it and the
Yarrow, however, for a future chapter. From Ettrick-
foot to Melrose the salmon-fishings belong chiefly to
Major Scott of Gala and Lord Somerville, and we
believe the different waters are all rented by Mr.
Broad wood, the eminent London piano-manufacturer,
who has several keepers protecting the river, and pays
a visit or two each year to the Tweed, residing at the
Pavilion, Lord Somerville's seat, which he rents along
with the fishings. The Gala joins the Tweed from the
north, a little below Abbotsford, and about three miles
above Melrose. It, also, and the streams that sub-
sequently contribute to the Tweed — the Leader, the
Teviot, the Till, and the Whitadder — are of sufficient
importance to demand separate notice. The Allan or
Ellwand-water, which runs about parallel with the
Gala, separated by high ground, flows in a little
below the junction of the latter stream. Its vale is
the Glendearg of " The Monastery," but we regret that
we can say nothing as to its adaptation to angling.
Scott thus describes it in the preface to the novel we
have mentioned : — " The Allan, after traversing the
romantic ravine called the Nameless Dean, thrown
off from side to side alternately, like a billiard ball
repelled by the sides of the table on which it is played,

72 THE BORDER ANGLER.

may be traced upwards into a more open country,
where the banks retreat farther from each other, and
the vale exhibits a good deal of dry ground, which has
not been neglected by the active cultivators of the dis-
trict." Near the mouth of this little stream was the
singular old bridge across the Tweed which figures in
the same book. It consisted of three stone pillars, or
towers, connected by wooden planks ; on the middle
one the toll-keeper lived, and levied his duties upon
those who passed. The trout-fishing in the Tweed
here is hardly equal to the average, the weavers of
Galashiels being, like all borderers, addicted to " cast-
ing angles in the brook," and many of them are no
contemptible adepts. A very unwise attempt was a
couple of years ago made in the name of Lord So-
merville, but really, we believe, by Mr. Broadwood, to
stop the public right of angling here ; but the Sheriff
of Roxburghshire, after two or three contradictory de-
cisions, finally gave it as his opinion that the right of
salmon-fishing does not carry with it any exclusive
right of trout-fishing.

We are now at Melrose, whose ancient ecclesiasti-
cal splendour has been rubbed up of late years by Sir
Walter and local antiquaries, after its former inhabit-
ants had been consigned to posterity as luxurious hypo-
crites in a brave (but coarse) old Reformation song —

" Of Scotland wele the Freiris of Faill,
Their lymmerie lang has lestit ;
The monkis of Meh'oss maid gude kale.
On Frydays quhen they fastit ;"

with certain other particulars of monkish habits which
we decline here to recapitulate. Overshadowed by the

THE TWEED — MELROSE. 7.3

Eildons, and predominating over the broad river, Mel-
rose has been a suitable site for the magnificent Abbey
which still, after the fierce ravages of English invaders
and Scotch puritans, and the gnawing of time's cease-
less tooth for two centuries and a half, commands the
wonder and admiration of visitors from every part of
the world. Dilapidated as it is, it is doubtful if this
island has any other specimen of Gothic architecture so
grand in conception and yet so delicate in execution.
" The slender shafts of shapely stone, by foliaged
tracery combined," suggested to Sir Walter Scott the
idea that magic art alone could have wrought stone
into such forms, or rather that some fairy had twined
ozier wands through poplars —

" Then framed a spell when the work was done.
And changed the willow wreath to stone."

But everybody has the beautiful and weird scene at
Melrose in the " Lay of the Last Minstrel" by heart.
Melrose Abbey w^as founded by King David in 1136,
and it seems to have been built in ten years by a cer-
tain John Murvo or Morow, w^ho in a quaint scroll
claims to have " had in keping al mason-wark" of
numerous other churches in Scotland. It took the
place of an older monastic establishment, situated a
little further dow^n the river at Old Melrose, whither
Christianity was first transplanted to the South of
Scotland from lona, and wdiere St. Cuthbert erew^hile
led his holy life. Within its precincts lie the ashes of
Scottish monarchs, nobles, and holy dignitaries of the
old church. The heart of King Robert Bruce, after
its singularly romantic conveyance to Spain, on its
way to be buried at Jerusalem, was brought back by

74 THE BORDER ANGLER.

Sir Simon Lockhart, and buried at Melrose. The dead
Douglas who won the field of Otterburne was also
brought here to be interred — a fact which we rather
regret, seeing that while we give implicit credence to
the Scottish ballad's account of that battle, as against
the English one, we can hardly reconcile this with the
distinct statement that " Earl Douglas was buried at
the braken bush," where he had given his heroic dy-
ing instructions to his " ain dear sister's son, Sir Hugh
Montgomerie." " Heir lyis the race of ye Hous of
Zair" is one of the striking inscriptions upon the walls
of the abbey ; and there are many other legends
graven about the old walls, which, while they teach the
Melrose moralists to die, recall also the pomp and pre-
tensions of Scottish families, many of which are now
extinct. The Abbey of Melrose had rich and far-
spreading possessions in its palmy days, which were
bit by bit gripped by greedy barons, and were finally
confiscated at the Keformation. It had piscarial rights
in the Tweed adjoining, conferred by the charter of
David I.

A little rivulet with (as is sometimes the case with
Scotch burns) several names, flows into the Tweed
through the first haugh above Melrose. It comes from
Cauldshiels Loch, on the Abbotsford estate, where
Scott and his family used to bob for perch ; but it
is chiefiy remarkable as associated with Thomas the
Rhymer, — Huntly bank, where he first saw the Fairy
Queen, overlooking it. It is called, we believe, the
Bogle-burn, and the Ehymer's-burn.

As we have said, the salmon-fishings in the Tweed,
above and at Melrose, belong to Lord Somerville, and

THE TWEED — MELROSE 75

are rented by Mr. Broad wood. The Caiildpool, and
the stream above it, just above the suspension-bridge
that has recently been erected for communication with
Gattonside — a viUage on the opposite bank of the
Tweed — have several noted casts, and the Battery
stream and Cowie's Hole, below the bridge, have also
usually a number of grilse in them in summer-time.
There is, indeed, excellent salmon-fishing close to
Melrose, but of course it is somewhat difficult to ob-
tain permission to try it. A Purdie — a nephew, we
believe, of Sir Walter's Tom — is one of INIr. Broad-
wood's keepers, and inherits much of the spirit of his
predecessors.

There is not, however, any restriction now upon
fishing for trout — the attempt to prohibit the public
right having been abandoned. A stupid decision by
Sheriff Kutherfurd (of Roxburghshire) to the effect
that the owner of a salmon-cast may prevent trout-
angling in it, lest the salmon should thereby be dis-
turbed, is, we should think, too absurd for anyone ever
to try to enforce it. Melrose, therefore, is a capital
station for the angler. He has the Tweed at hand ;
the railway will, any morning, carry him to any other
part of the river below him, to the Gala, to the Teviot,
or to Ale-water, and bring him back at night ; while
he is within walking distance of the Leader and the
Elwand. There are excellent inns — in fact, all so
good that we cannot single out any as the best, al-
though the George is perhaps the most frequented. A
tackle-shop — a branch, if we mistake not, of Forrest's
of Kelso — will supply the angler with suitable flies
or other angling material, and the intelligent keeper

76 THE BOEDER ANGLER.

thereof will give the best advice and counsel as to
what ought to be used.

The salmon-fishings for the next seven or eight
miles of the Tweed's course — from Melrose to Dry-
burgh — belong to a number of different proprietors, and
several of them are let to English anglers. There are
many excellent casts in them, — the " waters" getting
better and better, as each has of course a better chance
of getting a few fish than the one above it. We do
not know how, in the absence of personal acquaintance,
leave of salmon-fishing may be obtained in these waters
— unless from the keepers of the lessees who reside at
a distance. Possibly a civil application might fre-
quently be successful ; but high rents are given for the
waters, and it is hardly to be expected, therefore, that
the privilege should go a-begging.

Here, too, there have been some mutterings, we be-
lieve, of greedy discontent that the right of angling for
trouts should be retained by the public, and some
placards have been stuck up threatening the utmost
rigour of the law, &c. As that rigour is not very
great, however — at the utmost there could only be an
action for trespass, and compensation exacted for
damage done — we do not recommend the angler to
abstain from choosing what streams he thinks best.
He cannot well go wrong, and if, wandering down to
about Leader-foot before beginning, he fishes round
the pleasant haughs of Old Melrose to Dryburgh bridge,
leaving off in time to walk up by St. Boswell's — taking
a single dram there — to Newtown station, with ordi-
nary skill he may make sure of a creel-full. If fishing
with creeper, may-fly, or with worm in summer-time.

THE TWEED — ST BOSWELL's. 77

for which there are capital streams in this stretch of
water, he ought to go to Dryburgh-bridge in the morn-
ing, and fish up. He must not, as we have said, choose
the deep and rapidly flowing streams, but the very
shallowest ones he can pick out, or the thin sides of the
deeper ones. Hereabouts in the Tweed, and further
down, there is always a chance of a whitling or sea-
trout, and in spring it will frequently happen that the
trout-angler may hook a kelt. We have already warned
him, however, to return kelts to the water with all
possible care.

St. Boswell's, or Lessudden, about five miles from
Melrose, is the next station on the Tweed for anglers.
It is about two miles from Newtown railway station,
where the line branches to Kelso and Hawick, and is
itself about a mile from the Tweed. There are two
inns, of which the Buccleuch Arms is the principal,
although the other is also a snug retreat for the angler.
Lessudden is admirably situated for fishing a few
miles of the Tweed that are not attainable from either
Kelso or Melrose save by railway, and we are sorry
to say that convenient trains do not usually run about
three or four o'clock in the morning, or about eleven
at night — so that when using them, the angler must
sacrifice both morning and night, and confine his sport
to six or seven hours during the day. We fear much
that no representation from the angling community for
such suitable trains would be attended to ; so that the
angler who has a few days' leisure ought to plant him-
self in such places as stud the banks of Tweed, where
the water is at his feet. The Dryburgh and Mertoun
fishings — both of a very high character for trout

78 THE BORDER ANGLER.

and salmon — are close by Lessudden; and, just across
the bridge, is Dryburgh Abbey, where the Last Mins-
trel himself was laid to sleep in 1832, and whither, in
1854, his son-in-law and biographer was brought to be
laid beside him. The upper part of the Mertoun fish-
ings is let to an English gentleman, who resides at
Lessudden during the grilse season, and has a keeper
who watches that particular water during the open
season, and, like other keepers, becomes a member of
the regular Tweed police during close-time.

We cannot pass Lessudden without a salutation to
our venerable friend, Mr. John Younger. John is the
village shoemaker, and the pedal encasements which
he turns out are worthy of the highest praise. If an
angler wants a pair of stout Tweed fishing-boots, or of
walking boots to wade in, by themselves or along with
waterproof leggings, we should, in all honesty, recom-
mend him to John Younger. He is now old, however
— having indeed passed the point fixed by the Psal-
mist for summing up human existence. He was a
militia-man in 1804, when the false alarm of a French
invasion spread from beacon to beacon all over the
south of Scotland, and he marched boldly to Kelso to
help in repelling Bonaparte. He has been a poet from
his youth upwards, and only the other day we noticed
a copy of capital verses from his pen in a Newcastle
publication. Besides providing the inhabitants of St.
Boswell's with shoes for half a century, John was ex-
alted at one time to the position of postmaster for the
village, but we believe he did not find Her Majesty's
service very remunerative, and resigned it. It is, how-
ever, in his capacity as an angling- writer and fly-

THE TWEED — JOHN YOUNGER. 79

dresser, that we take the liberty of making mention of
our patriarchal friend here. Eighteen years ago he
published (through the Blackwoods) a treatise " on
Kiver Angling for Salmon and Trout, more particu-
larly as practised in the Tweed and its Tributaries,"
full of sound information, as well as containing some
original suggestions. Since then, he has written, we
believe, several articles upon the natural history of
salmon, all evincing much sagacity and careful obser-
vation. As a fly-dresser, John has turned out as ser-
viceable insects, whether for salmon-fishing or trout-
fishing, as any man on Tweedside, and, aided by his
son Willie (who, like his father, is himself an eminent
angler) he continues to di-ess most killing Tweed flies.
Some very noted flies, indeed, are John's own inven-
tion, imitated from natural insects. Besides writing
on angling, he gained the second prize for an essay on
Sabbath observance several years ago, and in conse-
quence made his appearance on the platform at Exeter
Hall and delivered a homely speech in his mother-
tongue. He has, we are informed, been long engaged
in compiling an Autobiobraphy, containing some most
interesting sketches of contemporary border-life ; but
the " sad sentence of an ancient date," that man
should make his daily bread by toil, interferes un-
luckily with his literary labours. A man of original cast
of mind, of strong natural sagacity, and of honest manly
character, all anglers ought to hope that he will be en-
abled to complete it and leave behind him the homely
print of his border-foot amongst the sands of time.

After making a pleasant bend round Dryburgh and
back by Maxton, the Tweed passes Mertoun, the seat

80 THE BORDER ANGLER.

of Lord Polwarth, who is the proprietor of these fish-
ings, and a very successful salmon-fisher. Mertoun-
water is succeeded by Rutherford-water, which belongs
to Sir Edward Antrobus, and is at present let to Mr. D.
W. Brown of Longformacus. " The Rutherford-water,"
says Mr. Stoddart, " forms the commencement of a
series of the best rod-fishings in Great Britain. It
consists of a succession of casts or pools of various
characters — one still and lake-like, another rugged and
shallow, a third combining tranquillity with swiftness,
and a fourth depth with considerable turbulence."
The water is guarded by John Aitken, who is at once
ferryman and keeper, and whose cottage has a " but"
with a couple of beds for the accommodation of the
lessee. Mr. Stoddart gives a list of the "casts" in
this and the other waters of the Tweed — every separate
spot where salmon usually lie having a separate and
often quaint name, derived either from rock, stone,
or other feature in it, or from some angling event which
has occurred at it. These names, however, would only
occupy space without being of any benefit to the reader;
for, as we have fully explained, salmon-fishing is not
open to the public, and those who have the right have
always a local keeper to point out the casts and tell
their names.

" The trouting on Rutherford water," continues Mr.
Stoddart, " is superior to any in Tweed. I recollect
my friend, John Wilson, Esq.,* capturing with the
minnow a creelfuU of fish, out of one or two of the

* Mr. Wilson (now of Billholm in Eskdale) is a son of the
late Professor Wilson, and transcends even his father as an
angler.

THE TWEED — KUTHERFORD- WATER. 81

pools, among which at least a dozen and a half ex-
ceeded in weight one and a half pounds each, and as
many more were full pounders. I have more than
once taken trout there with the parr- tail that weighed
well on to three pounds. As an additional proof of its
superiority, as well as the esteem it is held in by the
anglers of Tweedside, I may mention that the majority
of the successful competitors belonging to the Teviot-
dale Fishing Club have achieved their triumphs within
its confines, and that the panniers produced on the
occasion of their club meetings, from this portion of
the Tweed, have generally excited admiration on ac-
count of the size and beauty of the trout contained in
them." Owing to the preserving spirit, however, there
is now some difficulty in the way of angling in Ruther-
ford-water. Some years ago, when Lord John Scott
and others became lessees of the Rutherford salmon-
Jishings, they gave a book to their keeper, and in-
structed him to allow only those persons to angle for
t?'outs who signed their names in it. Professor Low
and Mr. Spottiswoode, the succeeding lessees, continued
this practice ; but Mr. Brown, who now rents the fish-
ings, has improved upon it, and issues tickets giving
leave to angle, — any person who goes without one of
these tickets being turned away from the river-side.
That there is no mistake about Mr. Brown's assump-
tion of the right to prohibit trout-fishing, is clear from
the ticket being left blank, to be filled up (by the per-
son in Kelso who is empowered to do so) as giving
permission to fish for " salmon" or for " trout." We
believe that the lessee of these fishings has not the
remotest shadow of a right to impose any such restric-

F

82 THE BORDER ANGLER.

tions. It is a decided point that a title to salmon-
fishing does not carry exclusive trout-fishing along
with it — and there is little foundation in any legal
decisions for a claim even on the part of ex adverso
landowners to such exclusive privilege. If any party
of anglers, therefore, want a day's fishing in Kuther-
ford-water, we should have no hesitation in recom-
mending them to go, maugre John Aitken and his
master, " and all that ever with them be."

We do not know, indeed, that there is now an inch
of water between Eutherford and Kelso, a distance of
about five miles, which is open to the public — or rather,
which has not been seized upon, and an exclusive pri-
vate right, in defiance of the public, asserted by force
of gamekeepers. Thirty years ago, there was not an
inch of it which was not free, and the preserving
practice, which is now very rigid, was carefully and
insidiously begun. People, under the shadow of Floors
Castle, were induced to take written permissions;
gradually it came to be known that anybody who
fished in Floors water was expected to ask leave, while
it was understood that nobody who asked would be
refused; and finally within the last ten or fifteen years,
what young men can remember as perfectly open to
all, came to be obtainable only by special favour of the
Duke of Eoxburghe or his Chamberlain. We do not
know whether leave is at all liberally issued by his
Grace or not, and we can easily understand how a
keen angler, through whose possessions the Tweed
flows as if it were part of them, should desire to have
it exclusively to himself; but we confess that we are
radical enough to think that the ducal owner of Floors,

THE TWEED — ROB KERSS. 83

and of the rich and beautiful domain that surrounds it,
ought to have been satisfied with what he had, without
attempting to rob the public of almost the only privi-
lege that now belongs to it — that of angling for trout
in royal rivers.

The Makerston - water succeeds Eutherford; and
here, at the Trows, a famous Tweed fisherman, Eob
Kerss, used to hold sway as lessee from Sir T. M.
Brisbane. Here, under Eob's guidance, many of the
present Tweed salmon-fishers learned the art. Ma-
kerston Trows is the name of a part of the Tweed
where the river has wrought a narrow way for itself
through the rock, and, as parts of the original stone
have proved too hard to be worn away, and remain
jutting up in the middle of the bed, the water foams,
and boils, and rushes round them with great fury, more
like the violent streams born of the Grampians than
the equable gladdener of Tweeddale.* The angler who
can play and bring to the gaff a new-run twenty-
pounder amongst the Trows may consider himself a
master in the craft. In Eob Kerss' s time, leave of
fishing could be obtained in the Makerston- water for
payment to him as " guide, philosopher, and friend,"
— the fish being paid for at the current price, or left ;
and there were few days during the season on which he
had not somebody in his boat, or working a fly into the
eddies of the Trows, under his guidance. He was a
favourite with anglers of all classes — with peer and pea-
sant alike ; and preserved his self-respect, and asserted

* A similarly contracted and rapid part of the Tweed near
Yair i8 called " Yair Trows."

84 THE BOEDER ANGLER.

liis independent and original character, under all cir-
cumstances. It is related that the late Earl of Home,
probably the best salmon-fisher of his day, was on one
occasion angling from Eob's boat on the upper part of
the Makers ton -water; and, as the day was favourable,
lie hooked and landed several fish in succession. As
each salmon was knocked on the head, his lordship re-
freshed himself from his flask with much self-gratula-
tion, and returned it to his pocket without offering it
to the venerable fisherman. Rob gloomily bore this
unwonted treatment for some time, but at last, seeing
no prospect of amendment, he deliberately pulled the
boat to the shore, put up the oars, padlocked it, and
walked off in the direction of his hut. The Earl,
amazed, called to him to come back, as his day's sport
was not nearly over; but Rob replied — "Na, na; them
that drink by themser can fish by themsel," and left
the peer to digest his mortification as best he might,
Rob died — leaving a large family of fishermen behind
him — about eight or nine years ago ; and Makerstoun-
water, than which there are few better in the Tweed,
is now let to the Duke of Buccleuch and his brother,
Lord John Scott. Of course, salmon-fishing in it is
accessible only to the friends of the bold Biiccleuch.
In Rob's time, there was no restriction upon trout-
fishing ; but, in imitation of the Duke of Roxburghe's
practice, gamekeepers are now constantly on the watch
to turn off any one who may venture to intrude.

Floors- water is next in succession, and is held en-
tirely in his own hands by the Duke of Roxburghe,
who owns the south side of Makerstoun -water also, and
thence on that side downwards to Carham, a stretch

THE TWEED— FLOORS — KELSO. 85

of about ten miles. On the north he possesses about
four miles of water, of the most valuable description ;
and the three miles of it from Makerstoun to Kelso he
retains, as we have said, for the amusement of himself,
his family, and friends. The Duke of Roxburghe is
perhaps the most successful salmon-fisher of the Tweed
at the present day, and, by dropping rocks into proper
places in Floors-water, so as to induce fish to lie, he
has greatly improved many casts, and created several
new ones. The Marquis of Bowmont, his eldest son,
is already eminent as an angler. We have stated that
the public are now rigidly excluded from angling for
trouts in this piece of water. Floors Castle is a mag-
nificent edifice, standing amongst fine woods and sur-
rounded by a deer-park. It overlooks the Tweed, and
commands a noble view of Teviotdale, and of the ruins
of the old Castle of Roxburghe, the ancient seat of the
family of Kerrs, and the key of this part of Scotland.
In the times of war between the two countries, it was
often in the hands of the English, and the Scots Par-
liament enacted that when it and Berwick were thus
in hostile occupation, the severe laws against killing
Tweed salmon in close-time should be suspended.

Kelso is the most beautiful of the border- towns. It
has a fine old Abbey, as striking almost, in its massive
and simple early Norman style, as that of Melrose is
in its rich and elegant Gothic. Some of the streets of
Kelso are as mean-looking as those of other towns of
the same size, but it has a spacious market-place, and
is surrounded on all sides by gentlemen's seats and
handsome suburban villas. The district is beautifully
wooded, and the Tweed here is joined by the Teviot,

86 THE BORDER ANGLER.

the largest of its tributaries. The view on all sides is
very fine. The green Eildons are just far enough off
to be softened into blue ; the vale of Teviot lies open
to the south; the massive shoulder of Cheviot bars the
prospect into Northumberland; eastward the fertile
Merse smiles like a garden ; and to the north, Hume
Castle, standing on a huge rock, intervenes between
the black and distant Lammermoors. Kelso has about
6000 inhabitants — and we ought not to omit to notice
that amongst them is Mr. T. T. Stoddart, the author
of various angling-books (his chef d'oeuvre being The
Angler's Companion) as well as of a volume of poems
which has furnished us with a number of quotations,
and of several other works in lighter literature. We
can perhaps say nothing that will give a higher idea
of the suitableness of Kelso as an angling-station, than
that we believe Mr. Stoddart, who is a member of the
Scottish Bar, has taken up his residence there almost
solely because of the conveniences which it affords for
the exercise of his rod. Here, too, resides a noted
angler — whose superior, indeed, we have not yet heard
of — Mr. David Eobertson. Tweed, Teviot, and almost
all its tributaries, Eden, and the head of Bowmont,
are within easy reach, and offer every variety to the
angler. The Teviotdale Angling Club, of which Mr.
Stoddart is secretary, has its headquarters here, and
on many occasions the prize baskets of its members,
at their annual competition, have been most ponder-
ous. Mr. Forrest, whose rods and flies are celebrated
throughout the kingdom — and have even done yeo-
man's service in Norway and Canada — has his shop
here. Probably his salmon-flies are not surpassed by

THE TWEED — SPROUSTON-DUB. 87

any in Britain. The Maxwellheiigh station, at which
the North British Railway terminates, and a branch
of the North Eastern to Berwick begins, is on the south
side of the Tweed about half a mile from Kelso. The
line to Jedburgh branches off at Roxburgh, and gives
command of the Teviot, the Kale, and the Jed.

Resuming the course of Tweed, the fact that
Sprouston-water, which extends from a little below
Kelso to Eden-foot, a stretch of nearly three miles, is
rented by a Kerss, is greatly in favour of the angler.
On this water, which has a very high character, sal-
mon-angling can at any time be attained on the usual
terms — and heretofore bloody has been the annual
slaughter of kelts on Sprouston-dub. But this dub —
a large stretch of smooth water — is also the first fa-
vourite resting-place of clean salmon and grilse when
running up in a flood; and, under the able guidance of
the tacksman, novices have often found themselves
slayers of more than one " monarch of the tide" in the
course of an afternoon. Mr. Stoddart says — " It has
been conjectured, by those competent to judge, that in
this pool alone there are often congregated, at the
same time, a thousand salmon and grilses. I have
witnessed five or six good fish, not kelts, taken out
here, in the course of little more than half an hour —
as fast in fact as they could be hooked and played to
bank." For a few years by-past, Sprouston-dub, like all
other parts of the Tweed, has not been to the salmon-
fisher what it once was ; but it has always its due
share of fish. From Kelso downwards, and in the
neighbourhood of Sprouston, the trout-fishing is free
and perfectly open ; and a good inn at the latter place

88 THE BORDER ANGLER.

affords accommodation to ang-lers who do not care to
conform to the inflexible rules of the railway time-
table, or to perform a three-mile walk after their day's
sport is over. James Wright of Sprouston is a delicate
dresser of Tweed flies both for salmon and trout.

The Eden, which enters from the north a little be-
low Sprouston, is referred to by Mr. Stoddart as held
in good repute by the angler. " I have already al-
luded/' he says, " to the superior quality of its. trout,
which are red-fleshed, and deep in the shape. There
is a fall on this stream at Newton-Don, below which
the true breed of Eden is intermixed with other va-
rieties. May and June are the months when the
Eden trout are in the highest perfection, and the
worm at this period is a deadly bait. The largest
trout I ever killed in Eden weighed two pounds, and I
have frequently taken, among others, a dozen weighing
a pound a-piece. Of late years, the fish have greatly
decreased in size, but their quality, when in season,
is still good." The Eden is, we believe, a very early
river, and may be fished in March with good success.

Birgham- water comes next to Sprouston, and is
leased by a Scott. Grilse fishing in August and Sep-
tember is the principal feature of the angling* in this
district and for the rest of the Tweed ; and in some of
the Birgham casts, in a good season, great sport may
be had. Carham-water, which succeeds, belongs to
Mrs. Compton, of Carham Hall, and part of it is, we
believe, not let, but retained by Mr. Richard Hodgson
for rod-fishing. Although it is upon the grilses that
most reliance is to be placed, we recollect to have
been a 2 7 -pounder taken there, six or seven years ago.

THE TWEED — COLDSTREAM. 89

on the Jast day of the season. Inere is a station on
the branch of the North Eastern at Carham, and
capital trouting may be had. At the mouth of Carham-
biirn, which joins the river at the bend above Carham,
the Tweed becomes the boundary between the two
kingdoms, in place of the "ideal line" which stretches
from this point to the Liddel. The Tweed continues
to mark the " march " between England and Scotland
until about three miles from its mouth, the final ab-
sorption of Berwick-upon-Tweed and its liberties by
England having diverted the line of division from
being thus continued to the sea. The Wark fishings >
and the Lees fishings, belonging respectively to Lord
Tankerville and Sir John Majoribanks, intervene be-
tween Carham and Coldstream, which latter town
affords the most suitable position from which to fish
the lower part of the Tweed.

Coldstream is a border town of about 2000 inhabit-
ants, with Lees House on the one side, and the Hirsel,
the modern seat of the Earls of Home, on the other.
The late Earl of Home, as we have mentioned, was
a noted salmon-angler, and in the neighbourhood of
Coldstream most of his triumphs were effected. He
is stated to have killed with his rod here a salmon
fifty pounds in weight. Few salmon of this weight have
ever been caught in the Tweed, the largest of late years
having been a little more than forty pounds; but from
the largeness of some of the kelts occasionally taken
— which are little more than the skeletons of salmon
— it is evident that, amongst the " grey schule"
which enter the river to spawn in January, fish of
gigantic proportions visit the Tweed. Last year, Lord

90 THE BORDER ANGLER.

Polwarth killed a kelt of thirty-seven pounds at Mer-
toun, and one of thirty- eight pounds was captured by
net at Horncliffe ; both of which fish, before being
reduced by spawning and living in fresh water, must
certainly have been fully fifty-pounders. For salmon
fishing, the Tweed at and below Coldstream is chiefly
worth visiting in a dry summer or autumn when
there have been few floods to carry the grilse up to
the more favourite pools above. If grilse are plentiful
in July and August, there is generally one to be had
where, just at Coldstream bridge, the Tweed on the
south side breaks through the " slap " of the cauld.
We have heard of great successes in this neighbour-
hood ; but we are bound to st?vte that of late years
these have been restricted. We saw indeed last year,
in a newspaper which chronicled the feats of a visitor
to the district, that of some fifty fish which he had
killed in the Lees-water in spring, only one was a
clean salmon.

The Leet creeps into the Tweed past the west end
of Coldstream, after a sluggish course of a dozen miles
through the most level part of the Merse. This stream
is remarkable for the size attained by its trout, the
richness of their feeding raising them greatly above
the average of any other trouts on the border. Trouts
of two and three pounds weight are not uncommon in
it, and the ordinary weight is from half-a-pound to a
pound. The best part of it, however, flows through
the grounds of the Hirsel, and is preserved; but above
that, three miles below Swinton, it is worth a visit.
It also contains pike and very large eels.

At Coldstream there are excellent inns, and good

Tin-: TWEED — THE BOWMOXT. 01

fishing-tackle is supplied by Mr. Belloe. On the soulh
side of the river, a mile from Coldstream and more
conveniently situated for the railway station, is Corn-
hill, where admirable accommodation is afforded by
the Collingwood Arms inn. From this point the
angler can command the Till, and its tributary the
Bowmont and Glen, in addition to the Tweed. The
Bowmont is a beautiful water, which takes its rise in
Koxburghshire, and, passing through the double-village
of Yetholm, the historical home of the border-gypsies,
skirts the Cheviots, and joins the Till near Ford, close by
the base of the small hill of Flodden, where the Flowers
o' the Forest were so fatally wede away by Surrey and
his host of Englishmen. About four miles above its
junction with the Till, however, near Copeland Castle,
the Bowmont receives the College-burn from the Che-
viots, and becomes the Glen. The nearest point of
the Bowmont from Cornhill is at Mindrum Mill, about
four miles off, and here, as elsewhere, the water abounds
with trout, although when we last visited it we got a
hint that the Yetholm gypsies too frequently made a
raid down it with pout-nets. The trout are very fine,
as well as plentiful. The College is probably one of the
most populous streams in the kingdom, although its
inhabitants are tiny; and the Glen, formed by the union
of these two, is a celebrated trout-stream. In the
neighbourhood of Copeland Castle it is preserved, but
otherwise these waters are free. Not so the Till, the
public right to fish in which is constantly interrupted.
In its upper parts it is called, we think, the Breamish,
and above and below Chillingham it belongs to the
Earl of Tankerville, who preserves. We believe that

92 THE BORDER ANGLER.

for a few miles, between Wooler and Etal, there is no
restriction, — the Marquis of Waterford not being a re-
sidenter; but at the latter place, for about three miles,
it is again preserved — or at least was so when Lord
Frederick Fitzclarence occupied Etal House, which is
the property of the Earl of Glasgow. One free day in
the week only was allowed on this part of the water ;
but any one who might take up his residence at Etal,
the loveliest village of Millfield Plain, or indeed of Nor-
thumberland, would probably have little difficulty in
obtaining permission to fish every day. Below Etal,
for a mile or two on each side of Heaton Mill, the Till
is open, but, for the last four or five miles of its course,
it is the property of Sir Francis Blake, of Twizel, and
is rigidly preserved. The Till is a slow running river,
but stretches of water in which movement is barely
discernible alternate with brisk streams, and it is
stocked with very large trout. We have seen one of
seven pounds weight which had been caught in the
Till with worm. It is a very early trouting-river, pre-
ceding the Tweed and the other neighbouring streams
by fully a month in spring. Trout, in good condition,
may frequently be taken in February, and always in
March. There are also a great many pike in it, espe-
cially in the neighbourhood of Etal and of Chillingham.
Salmon enter it prettyfreely, but are captured at "locks"
at Ford ; and it is, above all others, the stream for whit-
ling — the liveliest of the salmonidse. Nothing can be
more pleasant than to see one of these fish, a pound
and a half in weight, dancing its vagaries at the end
of a line among the pools of the Till ; and on many
days of the season the angler in its waters will have

TIIK TWEED — MILLFIELD PLAIN. 93

the opportunity of seeing such a piscatory exhibition.
The eels of Till are almost worth fishing for. We
should by all means recommend a foray into this part
of Northumberland. The scenery and its memories are
most interesting. Mill field plain, the large alluvial
basin through which the Till flows, was once the head-
quarters of the British Druids ; and a sacred hill called
the Yevering Bell is said to have in those old days
overlooked a city more populous than any now in the
district. Tradition says King Arthur fought the first
of his twelve famous battles at the junction of the
Glen and Till. Near the quaint old town of Wooler is
the scene of the battle of Homildown Hill, and a little
further doAvn that of Flodden ; and from any part of
the ridge that rises up to the Cheviots, the course of
the march of the English army on the last occasion,
along the east bank of the Till, to where it crossed at
Twizel bridge — which still stands — may easily be seen.
No one can help wondering at the folly which per-
mitted such a movement, when it might have been so
easily opposed. Nearer Cornhill a rather more apo-
cryphal battle-field — that of Chevy Chace, as distinct
from Otterburne, which is in Eeed-water, on the other
side of the Cheviots — is pointed out.

Learmonth-burn, which enters the Tweed a little
way above Cornhill, contains trouts.

Net-fishing is practised at Coldstream, and also at
Tweedmill, three miles further down. There is good
trouting between these points. Below Tweedmill- cauld,
a famous run called the Chapel-stream gives the Tweed
unusual swiftness just where the Till slowly immerges,
and gives point to the bit of doggrel —

94 THE BORDER ANGLER.

" Tweed says to Till,
What gars ye rin sae still ?
Till says to Tweed,
Never ye heed ;

Though ye rin fast and I rin slaw,
Where ye droon ae man I droon twa."

We have a notion that it is the almost overwhelming
rapidity of the Chapel-stream which induces such a
large proportion of whitlings and even of salmon to
turn aside and enter the Till in spring. At the foot
of the Chapel-stream there is one of the best salmon-
casts in the lower part of the Tweed.

The stream we have mentioned takes its name from
a chapel, once dedicated to St. Cuthbert, now a mere
ruin, beautifully seated in the little haugh formed by
the angle of the Tweed and Till at their junction.
According to the legend, the stone coffin in which St.
Cuthbert' s body miraculously floated down the Tweed
from Melrose on its way to Lindisfarne, came ashore
here, and was preserved for centuries, until some neigh-
bouring Goth began to use it for a pig-trough, and
finally broke it. It is said — we do not know on what
kind of authority — that such a shell actually existed,
and, what is more, was so thin as to float in w^ater. On
a precipitous bank overlooking the mingling of Tweed
and Till, stands a huge abortive structure called Till-
mouth Castle. It was built, at enormous expense,
thirty or forty years ago, by Sir Francis Blake, but
has never been finished or inhabited.

The fishing at Tweedmill belongs to the Earl of
Haddington, and between that point and Xorham, a
distance of about four miles, the proprietors are Sir
F. Blake, Mr. Home of Milngraden, and Mr. D. M.

THE TWEED — NORHAM. 95

Eobertson of Ladykirk. Save in exceptional seasons,
when grilse are plentiful and there are no floods to in-
duce them to run up, there is but little salmon-fishing
with the rod in this part of the Tweed. A capital
day's trout-fishing may, however, be had in this stretch
of water, by the woody banks of Milngraden, the
streams and little islands of Bendibus and the Dreeper,
and the pleasant braes of Ladykirk — ending at last
where " Norham's castled steep" rises gaunt and ruin-
ous over the " fair river, broad and deep," flowing
majestically onwards to the sea.

Norham is an ancient border village, quiet as Eng-
lish country villages usually are. The angling visitor
at it feels constantly overshadowed by the ancient
Castle, and as he wades into the deep stream that
wheels round the base of the knoll on which it stands,
he of course keeps repeating to himself the fine opening
lines of Mai^mion. High spring-tides reach Norham,
but there is still good trout-fishing in the Tweed, and
we have many a time filled a creel between it and
Berwick. Every two or three hundred yards now, there
is a netting-station, and towards the mouth of the river
the stranger is amazed at the sight of tall ladders, with
a box or cage on the top of them, reared on its banks.
Over the edge of the box or cage a face may be de-
tected peering steadfastly into the Tweed at the head
of some shallow stream, and as aripple — invisible to the
inexperienced — marks the upward passage of a fish, the
watcher pulls a string which drags an old kettle across
the floor of the shell, some fifty or a hundred yards off,
where the fishermen are sleeping or mending their nets.
Out rush a couple of booted Northumbrians — one jumps

96 THE BORDER ANGLER.

into the boat, and the other seizes the rope attached to
the net — the boat makes its circle in the water, and it
is five to one that in ten minutes the salmon is gasping"
on the bank. Of course there is no rod-fishing where
these shots are pulled ; but in rocky places, where
nets cannot be wrought, where salmon or grilse are in-
duced by drought to lie, instead of making their way
up the river, the angling is sometimes excellent. We
are acquainted with an angler who, we have been told,
killed seventeen salmon and grilse in one autumn morn-
ing, in the stream below the Chain Bridge, about four
miles above Berwick, a part of the river which the
tide covers every day. At Horncliffe there are one or
two casts that are always worth trying when the river
is not in a state to induce salmon to run.

Berwick is a town of 13,000 inhabitants — the ter-
minus of the main line of the North British Railway
— and with all the accommodation that angler or tra-
veller could desire.* About two miles above the town,
the Tweed receives its last ally, the Whitadder.

And so the Tweed is wedded with the sea. The
moisture from a thousand hills — the tiny contributions
of a thousand rivulets — all the waters that make glad
our border-land — represented in one broad stream, pass
through the arches of the old bridge of Bei'wick, double
round Spittal Point, dash against Queen Elizabeth's
pier, and, gliding swiftly outwards, are lost in the
German Ocean.

* For a short description of Berwick, see the " Handbook to
Berwick-upon-Tweed."

( ^^7 )

CHAPTER IV.

ETTRICK AND YARROW.

*' Ettricke Foreste is a feir foreste,
In it grows manie a semelie trie;
'nM>re''s hart and hjiid, and due and ra«.
And of a' wilde bestis grete plentie."

The Sang of the Outlaw Murray.

fcTTRICK FOREST is still fair— but not
with seemly trees. Scanty and scrubby are
now the representatives, in cleugli and on
hill-side, of the ash, the birch, the alder, and the
rowan-tree, that by their abundance gave the district
its name and its old character — affording shelter in the
remotest times, to the bear, the bison, the wolf, and
the stag, — to the native Britons, when the Roman
conqueror had pitched his camp on the Eildons, and
lorded over all he surveyed from that lofty post — in
the later or historical and ballad-times to the outlaw
and the reiver, and the great families of Douglas and
Scott. It is still the "the Forest," however; and,
although with the trees have passed away the " hart
and hynd, and dae and rae," there remain the lochs,
rivers, and rivulets, and their original inhabitants.
The salmon hardly now penetrates to the Ettrick
and Yarrow, save in breeding-time, but at that pe-
riod every stream is ploughed up by spawners, and a
greater number of them escape the leister than might

G

98 THE BORDER ANGLER.

have been expected, for the Duke of Bncclench vigo-
rously interests himself in their protection. This, how-
ever, has only been of late years ; and indeed, instead
of wondering that the salmon should have decreased in
our rivers, the marvel seems to be that they have not
shared the fate of the larger fer^e of the dry land. It
is to be borne in mind, that notwithstanding the seve-
rity of the Scottish laws against killing breeding sal-
mon, they must have been almost entirely inoperative,
from the fact that the chief breeding- places were always
beyond the reach of the law. The inhabitants of Glen
Lyon or Glen Tilt were not likely to pay much respect
to the " Lawland laws" that forbade the taking of the
salmon in winter to give a relish to their oatmeal
bannocks, and afford an alternation of kipper with their
tough venison-hams. They would doubtless turn up
their nostrils in supreme contempt at the idea of re-
fraining from spearing the foul fish in order that the
burghers of Dunkeld, Perth, or Dundee, might get
them clean. The spawning-grounds of the Forth and
Teith were in the country of the Macgregors, and these
sharp-sighted children of the mist would always have
an old claymore blade, or perhaps even a weapon so
civilized as a leister, ready for the visitors from the
Bass Kock and Inchkeith. As to the Tweed, there
were, as we have seen, times — and these frequent ones
— when it was declared patriotic to kill every salmon
that could be got, so as to disappoint the English loons
who held Bermck ; and even at this date, the intelli-
gent and moral population of Roxburghshire, Selkirk-
shire, and Peebleshire — sound, nay learned, as they are
on all doctrinal points, and familiar from their childhood

ILLEGAL POACHINCt. 99

with the Shorter Ccatechism and the Whole Duty of jNIan
— are far from recognising the obligations laid down
in certain statutes made and provided for the protec-
tion of the salmon-fisheries of the river Tweed and its
tributaries. Combining the poaching in the upper
streams with the netting of kelts in the lower part of
the Tweed, probably not ten per cent of the fish that
have entered in winter to spawn have hitherto been
allowed to return to the sea. Those killed in this way
have not, of course, appeared in any statistics of the
annual yield of salmon, but nevertheless have exceeded
the entire numbers of clean fish taken in the proper
season ; and, taking this slaughter along with the cap-
ture of grilses, which are fish that are killed before
they have ever helped to propagate their kind, we have
what might appear amply sufficient reasons for the
diminution of salmon. Unless, indeed, they breed in
the sea — which there is no good ground for believing
— we cannot help being amazed at the extraordinary
fecundity which keeps up the species as it is kept up
in the face of so many and such comprehensive de-
structive processes ; for after all, it is not until, as in
the case of the Clyde, the filth of a great city and its
factories gives the finishing blow, that the salmon is
rooted out from our rivers. Even in the Clyde, a few
fish still make their way up every year past Glasgow
to Stonebyres Linn.

Luckily, the river-trout is individually nearly as
prolific as the salmon, and there is less temptation to
pursue it by the methods or to the extent that would
involve the risk of destroying the breed. There has
always been and still is a certain amount of netting,

100 THE BOEDER ANGLER.

especially in the neighbourhood of manufacturing
towns ; but we are glad to learn that it is much on
the decrease. For the last twelve or fifteen years there
has been a penalty provided for such kinds of fishing,
by Lord Minto's Act ; and although every village has
probably still its pout-net or two — one kind of which
has a long pole for capturing trouts when driven to
the side in heavy floods, the other having two stilts,
and being thrust below banks chiefly in burns — they
are not very deadly, and are generally used as much for
sport as for profit. There are many anglers who could
with the rod beat either of these kinds of net; and it is
to the more destructive " harry-water-nets,'' made of
such fine cord that they may be carried in the pocket,
and which sweep down and almost clear out the whole
stream, that the decrease of trouts, wherever they do
decrease, is to be attributed. Such places as Hawick
and Galashiels are. the head-quarters of the poachers
who use nets of this kind, and they generally practise
their illegal work at night sheerly for the sake of
gain. There is a strong indisposition on the part of
the people of Scotland to inform against poachers of
any kind, and landowners do not place such value
upon trouting as to take measiu-es for detecting them,
so that the law has never been so well enforced as it
ought to be. Perhaps the only plan of stopping this
kind of poaching is for anglers to form themselves into
societies for the protection of the rivers in the districts
where it is practised ; and, by employing the more
notorious poachers as watchers, on the old principle of
detection, it might soon be got under control. To
their credit, the Scotch landowners have never availed

LEGAL POACHING. 101

themselves of the power of netting whicli is so impro-
perly given to them by Lord Minto's Act. There are
no such exhibitions on the Scotch borders as are com-
mon in some parts of England, of parties of ladies and
gentlemen assembling to enjoy the sport of netting a
river for tront — such, for instance, as that which oc-
curred on the Eamont in Cumberland some half-dozen
years ago, when Lord Brougham and his friends were
interrupted by a party of watchers, and had to make
fight in order to keep the net from the clutches of their
opponents. The execrations of the angling- community
would probably stop these attempts, even if they are
to be held legal ; but we are happy to believe that
better notions of sport, and some lingering compunc-
tion as to the rights of the public, are in Scotland
sufficient to deter the class possessed of the privilege
from ever proposing to use it. It is to the English
notions of exclusiveness, of carefully keeping to oneself
whatever one is entitled to, that we owe the prohibi-
tions of sport, and the shutting up of pathways, that
have led to so much ill-blood of late years.

The Ettrick is most readily approached from Sel-
kirk, a little above which town it is joined by the
Yarrow. It rises near the foot of Ettrick Pen, a high
hill which also overlooks the source of the Esk. The
very head of the Ettrick lies nearer to Moffat than to
any other point to which the angler can be conveyed
by railway or other regular means ; but there is not
any accommodation to be had above Tushilaw, about
ten miles fi*om the source of the river, and about thir-
teen miles fi'om Selkirk. So that, if he wishes to fish
the upper part of the Ettrick, he must take up his

102 THE BORDER ANGLER.

quarters at Tusliilaw Inn, where there is admirable
accommodation, provided, in great^measure, for the
convenience of anglers. There is a good road np the
whole vale of Ettrick from Selkirk ; and there is also
a road from Hawick to Tushilaw, the distance being
about fifteen miles.

The Ettrick, for the first few miles of its course,
receives but insignificant accessions, the burns that
pour in from the hills being short in their courses and
small in volume. Its first important tributary is the
Timah, which is almost its equal in size, and enters it
a mile below Ettrick Kirk. " Moorland Rankleburn"
enters about a mile above Tushilaw, and just opposite
to the ruins of the old Tower of Tushilaw, a strong
fortress of a branch of the Scotts, the last of whom,
Adam Scott, commonly called King of the Borders,
was hanged on an old tree — which we believe still
stands in the court-yard — by James V. in one of his
celebrated expeditions against the lawless chiefs of the
borders who refused to remain at peace or to recognise
his authority. The fishing in all these waters is ex-
cellent, the trout in the upper part of the Ettrick, and
in Timah and Eankleburn, being very numerous, al-
though of a small average size. We have heard that
the Hawick netters make raids to the Ettrick, but can
hardly think that they can be frequent ones, or can
materially affect the fishing. The waters here, how-
ever, are late — indeed we may say that both Ettrick
and Yarrow are altogether later than the majority of
the border streams. The best fly-fishing is to be had
in ]\Iay ; and about the middle of that month, during a
flood, great quantities may often be taken. For sum-

ETTRICK — THE BOLD BUCCLEUCH. 103

mer worm-fishing, there are few stations more suitable
than Tiishilaw. Near the head of Rankleburn there are
several small lochs — that of Clearburn sending out a
small tributary to join Rankleburn, the others being at
the head of the Ale- water and its feeders — and there
are trout, and we believe perch, in all of them.

Ettrick parish, through the centre of which the
Ettrick flows, is thinly inhabited, there being a popu-
lation of only about 500 people to a district 12 miles
in length by 10 in breadth. There can thus be only
about 100 adult males — surely a falling off since the
days when the lairds of Tushilaw, Thirlestane, and
Buccleuch, could each raise his troop of armed re-
tainers to plunder either on the English border or in
the vale of Tweed. There is no district richer in
border tradition. In the recesses of a small glen
which communicates a rivulet to Rankleburn, was the
original hold of the Buccleuch family. It was in this
cleugh that the buck was seized by the stalwart
Galloway fugitive — according to Satchells' story —
and the name originated that has such a long tra-
dition, and is now so powerful in the south of Scot-
land. At Tushilaw, —

Where wildered Ettrick wanders by.
Loud murmuring to the careless moon,

Hogg has laid the scene of one of the finest ballads of
The Queen's Wake. A little farther up is the old
Tower of Thirlestane, the possession of a Scott who
was dubbed " ready, aye ready," by his sovereign
when other chiefs faltered in offering their spears to
support the monarch in his proposal to march into
England to wage a foolish and most disastrous war.

104 THE BORDER ANGLER.

There is a modern Thirlestane Castle now beside the
old tower, belonging to Lord Napier, and there are
also some fine woods of recent growth in the neigh-
bourhood. Gamescleuch, also a hold of the Scotts, is
opposite. But perhaps as interesting as these me-
morials of mosstrooping times, is a little dd cottage,
standing at the roadside above Ettrick Kirk, where
James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, was born. James
Hogg is the tutelaiy genius of the Forest ; and, to
our mind, his life and labours are amongst the most
remarkable of any that have yet been recorded.
Never had genius to sunnount greater difficulties be-
fore it found expression or recognition. Just barely
able to spell through Blind Harry when he was twenty
— unable to write with anything like accuracy when
he was thirty — still a tarry-handed shepherd when he
was forty — ^he has yet left some songs that are almost
unsurpassed in their sweetness, and some poems that
are wonderful in their delicacy. Never was genius
united with commoner clay ; but yet never did genius
more truly manifest itself. Never was poet more
conceited (in some respects he was even coarse and
vulgar) ; and yet he wrote " Kilmeny," and " Mary
Scott," and " The Abbot M'Kinnon," and dozens of
poetical pieces exhibiting singular command of lan-
guage and great variety of beautiful thoughts. Sure
nobody ever dreamed so prettily of fairies and elves,
since the kingdom of Oberon and Titania was unveiled
to the world, or since the nameless old minstrels, his
predecessors, left their ballads in the memories of the
borderers. Let us be thankful that James Hogg was
not born to wealth and an education at a university —

THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD. 105

else had Ettrick and Scotland been deprived of some
of the finest lyrics in all the world, and we had not
known how all-powerful Nature is in inspiring a
simple shepherd with a mental fire that the highest
intellectual culture is unable to kindle.

The recollection of the fact that in Ettrick Kirk-
yard lies the Rev. Thomas Boston, umquhile minister
of the parish, and author of " The Fourfold State" —
a great work of village divinity — induces us to warn
our readers to take some readable books with them in
their angling excursions to remote districts. Josephus,
Boston, and such-like, are often the only books to be
found in these places ;-^nd the remembrance of a
Sunday's torments which we once experienced from the
aforesaid " Fourfold State'' are not to be efifaced.'^The
landlord of an inn, instigated by a thoughtless hint,
persisted for a whole forenoon in reading to us the
lucubrations of the famous minister of Ettrick ; and,
as he came to each orthodox proposition, he made
sure of our attention by demanding — " And hoo d' ye
think he pruves tJiis pint?" Nor would he proceed
until a few random guesses gave him the opportunity of
exhibiting the superior acumen of his favourite divine
on the " kittle points" of faith or grace.

Below Tushilaw, the trout of Ettrick are larger,
and all kinds of angling may be successfully practised.
About eight miles below Tushilaw there is an inn at
Ettrick Bridge, from which the lower part of the river
may be conveniently fished. Many old stories and
traditions still cling to the locality — as witness the
names of Gilmanscleugh, Deloraine, Singlee, the Fair
Dodhead, whence Jamie Telfer's kye were stolen, Oak-

106 THE BOEDER ANGLER.

wood, the residence of Michael Scott the wizard, whose
industrious imp " cleft the Eildon hills in three, and
bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone," and Carter-
haugh, the scene of the beautiful romantic ballad of
" Young Tamlane." Just below this haugh, which is
part of the finely wooded grounds of Bowhill, a fa-
vourite residence of the Duke of Buccleuch, the Ettrick
meets its twin sister the Yarrow.

Tibbie Shiels' Inn, on St. Mary's Loch, at the
head of the Yarrow, is certainly at present the most
famous angling-resort in the south of Scotland. It
stands on the neck of land that separates St. Mary's
from the Loch o' the Lowes, and has, out of all sight,
the most beautiful situation of any fishing- inn that the
border angler can visit. Surrounded by steep green
hills, the two lochs lie so sweetly — whether bright un-
der the summer heavens, while

'' Not a feature of those hills
Is in that mirror slighted,"

or more greyly reflecting a cloudy sky, and rippling
with a southerly wind — that the weary wandering
angler, as he descends upon them, feels as if he had at
last reached the Fisher's Elysium. Tibbie's, with its
little circle of trees and its cosy parlour, is in complete
harmony with the picture — comfort modestly and fit-
tingly putting in its claim to a corner even in realms
of fairy beauty. Nor did angler, since the days when
Father Izaak rested and sang his simple songs in the
honest alehouses on the banks of the Lea, ever meet
with more kindly care than he will receive in Tibbie's
homely hostelry. Tibbie, or ]\Irs. Kichardson, for to
that name she is entitled, — only anglers have got the

ST. mart's loch — TIBBIE SHIELS. 107

more familiar one into their mouths — is now 75 years
of age, but she is still active and attentive, and most
motherly in her ways to her visitors. Under her roof all
the best fishers ami many of the finest wits of Scotland
have at times disported themselves, and in the mouths
of the collocutors of the Nodes Ambrosiance her name
was a frequent one. And, if you ask her, Tibbie will
tell you stories of James Hogg and Professor Wilson,
and others of her favourites. " For I ser't wi' Mr.
Hogg, ye ken, fifty years syne, owre-by at Ettrick
House ; and whan he leeved at Altreeve he was often
often up here, sittin on that very sait there, carryin'
on his fun wi' the Professor. An' oh but the Professor
and a' the family has been kind till us, and brocht us
intil muckle public notice, an' puttin' us forrit in a
way that we couldna weel hae expeckit."* Long may
she live to welcome her guests from all the points of
the compass ! — for she is a part of the scene, and the
removal of Tibbie would be almost like the diying up
of the Loch o' the Lowes.

* The scene of one of the Ixodes is laid at Tibbie's, and the
Shepherd, ISTorth, and Tickler, in turn compare her cottage to
a -wren's nest, an ant-hill, and a beehive : —

"Shepherd. A wren's nest's round and theekit Avi' moss —
sae is Tibbie's ; a wren's nest has a wee bit canny hole in the
side 0 't for the birdies to hap in and out o', aiblins wi' a bit
hangin' leaf to hide and fend by way o' door — and sae has
Tibbie's ; a wren's nest 's aye dry on the inside, though drappin'
on the out Avi' dew or rain— and sae is Tibbie's; a Avren's nest's
for ordinar biggit in a retired spat, yet within hearin' o' the
hum o' men, as weel 's o' water, be it linn or lake — and sae is
Tibbie's ; a wren's nest 's no easy fun', yet when you happen to
keek on 't, you wunner hoo you never saw the happy housie
afore— and sae is 't wi' Tibbie's ; therefore, sirs, for sic reasons,

308 THE BORDER ANGLER.

The two lochs are together about four miles in
length, that of the Lowes being nearly a mile, and St.
Mary's being rather more than three miles. They wind
amongst the hills, expanding or contracting as the
latter recede or jut out, but nowhere is St. Mary's
more than half a mile, while the Loch o' the Lowes
is only about three or four hundred yards, in breadth.
Salmon and bull-trout make their way up the Yarrow
so far in close-time, and have even been caught in St.
Mary's at other seasons. St. Mary's is the best for the
trout-fisher, being full of fine fish, which, although
capricious as the trout of all lochs are, often well repay
the angler's labour. They do not attain the size of
those of most of the Highland lochs, and a trout of
more than a pound and a half in weight is not at all of
frequent occurrence ; but the greater proportion of them
run from six ounces to a pound, and are thus of course
superior to the average of most of the border streams.
These lochs can be fished sufficiently well from the side,
or by wading, there being no tempting islands or shoals
in the middle which it is desirable to reach ; and the
angler can of course accommodate himself to the wind,
when there is any, by fishing from the bank on which
it favours his cast.

Loch-fishing can seldom be practised with much
success, without a smart breeze. Occasionally towards

and a thousand mair, I observed, ' a cosy bield this o' Tibbie's,
—just like a bit wren's nest.' "

And so each goes on amplifying his illustration. Tibbie's,
however, is no longer " theekit wi' moss," but has got a slated
roof, and an eke that had come to be much wanted. She has
now, in one corner and another, seven beds for the accommo-
dation of her visitors.

HINTS ON LOCH-FISHING. 109

sunset on a calm evening, trout will begin to rise to the
fly with surprising readiness, and a lucky hour of that
kind is often worth a whole day's work. But as a rule,
when a lake lies a calm blue sheet, reflecting every hill
and shadow, it is better to take to the streams which feed
it, however insignificant they may be. Fortunately the
visitor to St. Mary's has no difficulty, and when ^olus
refuses to do his duty, he need not cast a single long-
ing lingering look behind, as he turns to the Meggat,
Little Yarrow, or any of the neighbouring bums. In
St. Mary's he must use larger flies than in river-fishing,
although it is unnecessary to use them of the sizes sold
by the tackle-makers for the northern lochs. His largest
size should indeed be a size smaller than the smallest
Highland flies, nor should they be of the gaudy hues
that take the fancy of the inhabitants of Loch Kannoch
or Loch Lubnaig. The drake -wing is a good fly in all
its combinations, and it is advisable to experiment
with a green or a yellow body ; but — except perhaps
when the waters are coloured — there is no necessity
for tinsel, and the common winged flies, dressed a size
larger, will be found in general the most killing. When
the day is dark and the breeze strong, the larger and
brighter flies ought to be employed. On such days,
should the fish rise reluctantly to the fly, the angler
should take at once to the minnow, and by it he will
probably capture the largest trout ; while on a bright
day, with a gale, the worm may sometimes be em-
ployed with success. The worm should be thrown
out with a long cast, allowed to sink a little, and then
drawn in with slow jerks. We hesitate to recommend
the otter as a proper instrument of the angler ; but

110 THE BORDER ANGLER.

should any one be clear in his conscience about the use
of it even on a loch, he will often on a breezy clay find
it effective on St. Mary's.* It is not till the middle of
April in the earliest season, and the beginning of May
in a backward one, that there is much chance of suc-
cess in trout-fishing here.

The minnow-fisher, who is willing to risk his tackle,
may in the lower parts of the Loch o' the Lowes, and
about the head of St. Mary's, take his chance of
hooking pike or large perch, as well as trout, when
practising his art with a large minnow on a windy
day. But as pike are apt to bite through gut — though
we have had good jack-fishing with common trouting-
tackle — it is better to angle for them by the ordinary
methods, which we have not yet described. The most
common pike-tackle consists of the double hook attached
to a piece of twisted brass-wire, which by means of
a needle is drawn up through the bait — not through
its entrails, but inside the skin — leaving a hook pro-
jecting on each side of the mouth. The bait usually
employed is a parr or small trout, ranging in size from
half an ounce to two or three ounces, according to the
size of the fish that frequent the casts. The bait is
thrown out as far as is thought desirable — usually just
beyond a bed of weeds ; is allowed to sink nearly to

* The otter, we may inform those unacquainted with it, con-
sists of a piece of wood shaped somewhat like the hull of a
ship, with a leaden keel, to which a line with several dozens of
flies may be attached ; and when the fisher — who may either
use a rod or not — puts a strain upon it, it sti'ikes diagonally
outwards, and may be drawn upwards at any required distance
against the current. On lochs it is most easily wrought against
the wind. This in the north of England, is called "jacking."

ST. MARY'S loch — PIKE-FISHING. Ill

the bottom, and is then slowly drawn up, and again
permitted to sink, and thus brought inwards until the
cast is completed. Or a running-tackle may be made,
consisting of large hooks tied upon gimp, in the same
manner as the ordinary minnow-tackle, with one or
two large swivels for the purpose of spinning a small
trout, parr, or parr-tail, or even the head and half of
the body of any of these. There are other and very
complicated tackles used for capturing pike, but those
we have described are at once the simplest and the
l)est. The most important directions to be given for
pike-fishing are, to bring the bait carefully to the side
of the beds of weeds, or even amongst them if it can
be done with safety, and to refrain from striking the
fish when he seizes the bait, until he has pouched it.
To this end, a yard or two of line should be kept free
in the hand of the angler, and given out without any
check when the pike has taken the bait, until he has
retreated to his hold and begun to swallow his prey.
He will often sail slowly about or remain stationary
with it in his mouth for several minutes without trying
to bolt it ; but, especially when fishing with the first-
mentioned tackle, it is necessary to humour him.
When, after moving about, he stops for a little, and
the angler begins to perceive a strain upon the line, the
time has come for striking him ; and frequently exciting
runs are to be had, although, upon the whole, the pike
is not so lively or powerful in comparison with his size
as any of the salmonid^e, while the tackle is so strong
that a gi-eat amount of force can be used in exhausting
him. When using the spinning-tackle, if a third hook
is employed about the middle of the bait, the impa-

112 THE BOEDER ANGLER.

tient angler may perhaps trust to a barb being in the
pike's mouth, and strike more rapidly — although, in
doing so, we have found the pike hold on for a little,
as if surprised at our tugging, and then let go his hold,
and retreat unscathed. Should the angler be tempted
to try a pike-cast with a large minnow or parr-tail and
gut-tackle, he ought to strike at once, or the chances
are that if the pike swallow the bait he will sever the
gut with his teeth. Many people content themselves
with fishing for pike by means of set-lines — the brass-
armed double hook being baited in the ordinary way,
and thrown into a likely place, a cork attached to the
line suspending the bait at any depth. Eels, however,
when they are numerous, are apt to interfere sadly
with such baits — and everybody is not so lucky as to
fall in with 20-lb. specimens of the anguillidse, as Mr.
Stoddart relates he did in such a case in the Teviot.
To be such remarkably wary and sagacious animals,
river-trout sometimes do singularly stupid things — for
we once caught one, a pound and a half in weight, in
the Clyde in clear water, at a pike-line, the bait being
a two-ounce trout, with a great hook projecting on
each side of its mouth, and six inches of twisted brass-
wire connecting its tail with a strong cord ! Pike are
sometimes caught by setting a bait adrift suspended
from a bundle of rushes, a corked soda-water bottle,
or other " trimmer;" and we have know^n the jocund
rustics of the Till amuse themselves by fastening a
small trout to a duck's leg and making it swim
through a deadly haunt of the fresh-water shark, a
furious struggle ensuing, if a pike took hold, as to
whether the fowl was to be drawn under water or the

\

VORACITY OF THE PIKE. 113

fish drawTi out of it. We believe there have been in-
stances of the duck being drowned, although finally
the pike also was exhausted and taken. We cannot
speak from personal experience of fly-fishing for pike,
but believe that it may be practised successfully in
windy weather. The fly is a bulky affair, nearly as
large as a wren, the principal feature in its composition
being two of the transformed eyes of the unfortunate
Argus which adorn the peacock's tail. The pike, in-
deed, will seize anything — is fond of ducklings, al-
though we never heard of anybody fishing with them
— and, when other fare is not to be had, will, like a
hungry fisher (as indeed he is), sup off a bit of Tibbie
Shiels' bacon or mutton-ham if ofiered to him. A
frog is a capital bait, and it is while instructing his
pupil as to the way to put a live frog upon the hook,
so that it may live longest, that Izaak Walton recom-
mends Venator to " use him as though he loved him !"
We shall not, on the present occasion, enter upon any
exposition or defence of live-bait fishing, but shall
merely remark that many moral philosophers have
been particularly addicted to it — and what finer moral-
ist than old Izaak himself ever lived ? Yet we would
rather that he had not used that phrase.

The pike in these lochs are large, and we believe of
good quality. At one time, they were chiefly con-
fined to St Mary's ; they afterwards removed almost
entirely to the Loch o' the Lowes ; and they are now
again returning to their former haunts, being pretty
numerous in the bays where there are reeds or rushes
in the neighbourhood of Tibbie's cottage. The num-
ber of pike in the upper loch has always kept down

H

114 THE BOEDER ANGLER.

the number of trout, although they are said to be get-
ting more plentiful.

Perch-fishing is ordinarily managed by means of a
worm and float, and great quantities of the smaller
members of that fraternity may be thus killed when
the angler gets amongst a shoal. Large perch may
be taken by the minnow, and when one of a pound
weight is hooked, he has a power of digging down
into the depths that is rather gratifying to the angler
who likes to see his tackle tested. The round shoulders
of a large perch give him considerable strength, and
he makes very different play from that most contemp-
tible of all fish, the chub or skelly, which, we believe,
is, amongst Scotch rivers, confined to the Esk and the
Liddell.

Upon the very verge of Moffatdale, from the one
side of the little hill that on the other sends a scanty
rivulet down the wild chasm called Dobb's Linn, Little
Yarrow takes its rise, and, after a course of four or
five miles, enters the Loch o' the Lowes as its principal
feeder. It is a shallow stream, and the trout in it,
though numerous, are sinall in size, with the exception
of occasional emigrants which run up from the loch in
floods. If the trout were more numerous in the upper
loch, there would doubtless be good fishing in Little
Yarrow after spates. Near the loch it is joined by the
Chapelhope-burn, which also is full of small trout. It
is here that the scene of Hogg's fine tale, The Brownie
of Bodsheck^ is chiefly laid — Bodsbeck being in Moffat-
dale, and, as well as the Grey Mare's Tail and Dobb's
Linn, a great haunt of the persecuted covenanters.
Corsecleuch-burn enters at the foot of the loch from

LITTLE YAK ROW — THE MEGGAT. 115

tho south, and is also well supplied with finny teiianis
of moderate size.

The principal contributor to St. Mary's Loch is the
Meggat — which, indeed, although it enters the lower
loch, is entitled to be considered the true source of the
Yarrow, as its course is the longest, and its volume the
greatest, of any of the streams issuing from " the hills
whence classic Yarrow flows." It rises in Peebles-
shire, near the source of the Talla, and, aided by Win-
terhope and other burns, enters St. Mary's from the
north near Henderland. It is one of the most celebrated
of trouting-streams in the south of Scotland, has been
a favourite haunt of eminent fishers, and probably as
great feats have been performed in it as in any other
water. It has been recorded — we are unable to say
with what correctness — that a late famous Peeblean
angler captured nearly 100 lbs. in it with the worm in
one day ; and many anglers have often, long before the
day was done, found their baskets all too small for the
captives of their rod and of their line in the Meggat.*
In a summer flood, there is perhaps no limit to the
numbers that may be taken with the worm in the up-

* Amongst the amusing exaggerations of the Nodes Amhro-
siajue, the Shepherd is on one occasion made to say— " Anither
day, in the Meggat, I caucht a cart-fu'. As it gaed down the road,
the kintra-folk thocht it Avas a cart-fu' o' herrins — for they were
a' preceesely o' ae size to an unce — and though we left twa dizzeii
at this house — and four dizzen at that house — and a gross at
Henderland — on countin' them at hame in the kitchen, Leezy
made them out forty dizzen, and Girzy forty-twa-aught; eae a
dispute ha'in arisen, and o' coorse a bet, we took the census
OHTe again, and may these be last words I shall ever speak, giu
they did na turn out to be Forty-Five ! "

116 THE BOEDER ANGLER.

per parts of the stream and the burns that enter it, ex-
cept that of the angler's ability to pull out the fish, bait,
and drop in again ; and further down, better trout may
be taken with nearly equal rapidity with either fly or
worm. Not that to every angler, or on all occasions,
the Meggat will yield such " store of trout ; " for many
a one has gone out only to be disappointed, and break
his shins fruitlessly amongst the rocks at the linns, or
sink to the knees in "Winterhope moss. But a proficient
angler may always make certain of a full basket in
the Meggat, from the first of May to the end of the
season ; and will not gi'udge the labour of climbing the
hills or venturing through the morasses to get to the
lonely and mossy moors at the head of Meggatdale.
If he intends to take advantage of a flood when the
waters are thick, he ought to make at once, in the
early morning, for Winterhope-burn, and fish down ;
if he intends to practise the ordinary worm-fishing in
clear- water, he should begin at Henderland and fish up
to the linns, below which lie large trout, and then,
missing a mile or two, pursue the lonely stream as far
as time or fatigue will permit him. Fine trout from
the loch enter the Meggat during floods, and baskets-
full may be taken with minnow, worm, and fly, one
being used after the other as the water gradually cla-
rifies. In all the burns that join the Meggat, trout are
in remarkable abundance.

Loch Skene is more easily reached from Tibbie's
than from any other point. It is near the head of Win-
terhope-burn, but, particularly after rain, the mosses in
that direction are unsafe, or at least troublesome, to
those unacquainted with them. The angler, however,

ROADS TO ST. MAEYS LOCH. 117

may follow the road np to the source of the Little Yar-
row, above Birkhill, and thence striking across the hills
in a westerly direction, he will easily come upon it. It
contains very fine trout — although their taking is not
always to be relied upon.

There are a number of roads to Yarrow and St.
Mary's Loch, most of which have been already in-
cidentally referred to. The angler may most readily
reach the river itself by Selkirk, which is the terminus
of a line of railway that branches from the Edinburgh
and Hawick at Galashiels. Selkirk is sixteen miles
from St. Mary's Loch, there being a good road up the
vale of Yarrow the whole way ; and a few hours' plea-
sant walking, with intervals of a little angling, will
bring the angler who has left Edinburgh by the morn-
ing train to Tibbie Shiels' with time left for a cast in
the loch before the gloaming. Anglers, now-a-days,
however, usually prefer driving, and there are of course
all kinds of conveyances to be had at Selkirk. We have
already noticed the road from Peebles, up the Manor
and down the Meggat, solely for pedestrians and eques-
trians, and from Innerleithen, up the Quair and down
Mount-Benger-burn. From Hawick, the road by Tushi-
law is continued up Tushilaw-burn and down by Al-
trieve to meet the road from Innerleithen at the bridge
below Mount-Benger, while a bridle-road leaves the
vale of Ettrick a mile or two further up, and descends
on the other side of the hills directly upon the head of
St. Mary's Loch. From the west, a good road from
Mofi'at, which is two miles from the Beattock station of
the Caledonian Kailway, runs up the vale of Moffat and
down Little Yarrow to Tibbie's — a distance of fifteen

118 THE BOEDER ANGLER.

miles. This road is continued down the north side of
the loch and down the Yarrow.

So now we must bid Tibbie Shiels farewell ; and
who — as he drank the stirrup-cup at her door — ever did
so without regret ? Esto perpetua, we would fain say-
to the aged hostess ; but since that may not be, we can
only hope that the nest-like shelter between the lochs
may for generations be open to the angler, and may be
presided over by some one that, in kindliness, attention,
and lastly, moderation of charge, may emulate thee,
0 Tibbie^!

As we saunter along the road, by the side of the
loch, on our way down the vale of Yarrow, we must
pause to note some of the more remarkable features of
a scene that has had such a singular attraction alike
for the old ballad-monger and the modern poet. There
is no swan on still St. Mary's lake, " floating double,
swan and shadow," — for only in the hardest winters
have these waters such a visitant. But as we pass the
mouth of the Meggat, we mark Henderland, near
which are the ruins of the old castle which was the
scene of one of King James's sudden descents. The
royal asserter of law on the borders pounced upon
Percy Cockburn of Henderland one morning in 1529,
hanged him over his own gate, and left his body with
his weeping wife, whose faithful care of his remains
has come down to us in a ballad than which there is
nothing more pathetic extant. Having been deserted
by every living creature, she herself sewed his shroud,
and waked his corpse, and then bore it to St. Mary's
Kirk :—

I

THE LOCH OF THE LOWES. 119

** I took his body on my back,
And whiles I gaed, and whiles I sat ;
I digged a grave and laid him in,
And happed him with the sod so green.

But think na ye my heart was sair,
When I laid the mouls on his yellow hair?
And think na ye my heart was wae,
When I turned about awa' to gae? "

The ruins of the chapel of St. Mary, which was de-
dicated to our Lady of the Lowes (lochs), stand on a
small table-land, elevated a little above the loch, and
not discernible from the road immediately below them.
Coming from the head of the loch, however, the tra-
veller may see several pillars surrounded by a dyke,
rising up from the rough moor, to the east of a staring
little Free-kirk Chapel, with a singularly priggish-
looking steeple, which has been reared of late, doubt-
less out of the " Building Fund" which we hear so
much about. The pillars in St. Mary's Kirk are in
memory of Mr. John Grieve, and his kith and kin ; and
as Mr. Grieve, besides being a respectable hatter in
Edinburgh, was a warm and effectual friend of James
Hogg, in his worst as in his best days, his memory
may be forgiven for being preserved upon pillars that
most people would wish anywhere but where they are.
The little kirkyard is still a much-frequented burial-
place in Yarrow and Ettrick, and numerous grave-
stones tell the brief story of the birth and deaths of the
Forest. The Lord William and Lady Margaret of
*' The Douglas Tragedy" were buried here, according
to the ballad, — the result of their interment being a
floral phenomenon that has since been greatly afiected
by parish minstrels in all pans of the kingdom : —

120 THE BORDER ANGLER.

" Lord William was buried in St. Mary's Kirk,
Lady ]Margaret in Marie's quire ;
Out o' the lady's grave grew a bonny red rose,
And out o' the knight's a brier" —

the love wliicli they had borne to each other being re-
presented in the twisting and twining of the rose and
the brier, until " bye and rade the Black Douglas" the
lady's father, who " pulled up the bonnie brier, and
flanged in St. Marj^'s loch." The scene of the Douglas
Tradegy itself — the elopement of Lady Margaret with
Lord William, and of the unequal combat in which
her brothers fell before her lover's sword — was in
Douglas-burn, which flows into the Yarrow about three
miles farther down. In St. Mary's Chapel also, was
the more satisfactory denouement of " the Gray Goss-
Hawk," when the lady, after having been carried in
her cofiin for dead out of England to be buried here,
was awakened by the kisses of her lover — a pleasant
catastrophe imitated in Hogg's " Mary Scott" which
we have already mentioned. The real Mary Scott,
the Flower of Yarrow, was born at Dryhope Tower,
and was married to Sir Walter Scott of Harden in
Koxburghshire, — the prudent father agreeing to keep
his son-in-law and daughter and suites for a certain
time at Dryhope, but requiring the security of a num-
ber of barons for his newly-acquired mosstrooping re-
lative, that at the end of the agreed period he would
remove Avithout any attempt to establish himself by
force. Dryhope Tower is in full view, about a mile
from St. Mary's Kirk, and is a fine specimen of the
ancient square border " peel." From the Chapel, in-
deed, perhaps the finest view of the loch and its scenery
may be obtained, — Tibbie's strip of planting running

DRYHOPE TOWER — THE YARROW. 121

into tlie water at the head, Boiirhope lying snugly in
a wooded cleugh on the opposite side, and the blue
Yarrow itself at the foot, winding through the bare
valley. The Free Kirk we have noticed, and a farm-
house newly erected at the foot of the loch, are the
only modern-looking intruders upon a scene where
we fear our readers will think we have already lingered
too long.

Kirkstead-burn, which enters just at the foot of the
loch, is full of small trout, and we fancy but little
fished. Mr. Stewart informs us that upon one occa-
sion he caught twenty-three dozen in it.

The Yarrow is rather a late water, and fly-fishing
in it is somewhat uncertain. The trout, however, are
of good size, and it is well adapted for angling with
minnow. Many very heavy baskets have been got
out of it in the first mile or two from where it flows
out of the loch. About two miles downwards it is
it is joined by Douglas-burn, which has a high repu-
tation as full of small trout, and. in a flood almost any
numbers may be taken out of it. The Gordon Arms
Inn is situated about a mile below the junction of
Douglas-burn, or about seven miles from Tibbie Shiels's
and eleven from Selkirk, and is in great measure in-
tended for the accommodation of anglers. It is indeed
most suitably placed for fishing the middle district of
the Yarrow. From the other side enters Altrive-burn,
in the little valley of which is situated Altrive farm-
house, where James Hogg long sat rent-free under the
Duke of Buccleuch — although, even under that ar-
rangement, with poetical perversity he found himself
hardly able to make both ends meet. The farm of

122 THE BORDER ANGLER.

Mount-Benger, which he held as a " led-farm," is a
few miles farther down.

Space does not allow us minutely to trace the vale

" Where Yarrow rows among the rocks,
And wheels and boils in many a linn ;"

or to dwell further upon the traditions of its " dowie
dens." There is no interruption to the freedom of
angling until the river bends southward at Yarrow-
ford, about five miles above Selkirk, when it is taken
under the protection of the Duke of Buccleuch. It
here loses its pastoral character in the " pomp of cul-
tivated nature," the woods of Newark and Bowhill
rising beautifully on its banks. Newark Castle, now
in ruins, was an ancient residence of the Buccleuch
family, and is the place where Scott makes the last
minstrel smg his lay to the widowed Duchess of Mon-
mouth and Buccleuch. The Duke is, we believe,
something of an angler, and has done a great deal to
protect the salmon breeding in this district. Under his
Grace's direction, we presume, his head gamekeeper,
Mr. James Kerss, some years ago instituted some in-
teresting experiments as to the growth of salmon
smolt in fresh water.* It appeared that, after being

* It occurs to us, that in describing the Tweed we neglected
to notice some experiments in the breeding of salmon that
have been made in a burn near Floors Castle and in another at
Paxton, near the mouth of the Tweed. Under the direction of
the Superintendent of Tweed police, ponds were constructed in
imitation of those at Stormouthfield on the Tay, in which im-
pregnated ova were deposited to be hatched. We remember
having taken a specimen of the j'oung salmon, two months old
and about the size of a small minnow, from the lower pond ;
but we do not know what the result of the experiments was.
Probably they failed j,through bungling or inattention. At in-

THE BREEDING OF SALMON. 123

kept for a year or two in a pond at Bowhill, from
which wire-grating prevented any egress, they were
found to have increased greatly in length, without
anytliing like a proportionate increase in thickness,
but had bright scales, and exhibited a great deal of
restlessness in their confinement. Similar experiments
have been made with similar results in other parts of
the country. We do not know whether the fish still
remain in the pond.

tervals for the last fifteen years, however, experiments as to
the history and habits of the salmon have been conducted at
the mouth of the Tweed. Smolts have been marked on several
occasions, by cutting their fins, or by twisting loops of thin
silver wire into their gills or tails. Marking by the mutilation
of fins is however a most unsatisfactory method of making such
experiments ; and nothing certain can be affirmed from it. But
of the smolts marked with silver wire, three, we believe, have
been recaptured as grilse. The results are contrary to the
common belief of the grilse's age. We have seen two. one of
which was marked with wire in the tail as a smolt in May 1851
and taken again as a 4-lb grilse in August 1852 ; the oilier Avas
marked with wire in the gill, as a smolt in May 1855, and
caught again as a grilse in 1856. The former of these fish is at
Berwick, the other is in the possession of the Duke of Rox-
burghe at Floors Castle. !Many kelts have also been marked to
ascertain the dilFerence between their condition when keltcd
and when clean ; but, so far as we have heard, with nothing at
all like the surprisingly exact returns that ]\Ir, Andrew Young
of Invershin chronicles. Of a number of kelts of the salmo
eriox marked at the mouth of the Whitadder, one Avas shortly
afterwards caught at the mouth of the Tyne, another at Yar-
mouth, and the skeleton of a third, with its gutta-percha ticket,
was found in the stomach of a cod captured at Eyemouth! But
although the marking has been repeated annually, we do not
know that in a single instance a ticketed kelt has been recaught
as a clean fish.

124 THE BOEDER ANGLER.

The old town of Selkirk, whose famous " sutors"
bearded the Earl of Home, has in itself no particular
claims as an angling station, although the Ettrick
immediately above it is, we believe, free, and contains
good trout. Below the town the river is damaged for
angling-purposes by the factories ; but towards its
junction with the Tweed there are some good casts,
especially for roe in winter. A little above Selkirk,
on the north bank of the river, is the plain of Philip-
haugh, where Montrose was so thoroughly routed one
misty morning in 1643 by Sir David Leslie and his
Covenanters. Below Selkirk, on the south, is the
Shaw-burn, specified in the ballad, where Sir David
addressed a piece of advice to his army, about which
there is some little dispute : —

" When they came to the Shaw burn,

Said he, " Sae weel vre frame,
I think it is convenient,

That we should sing a psalm."

A various reading makes the stout general rather sug-
gest that it was convenient " that we should tak a
dram;" and considering that it was a raw misty
morning, and that the grand object was to come upon
Montrose by surprise, we should think commentators
ought to have no difficulty in making up their minds
which version is the correct one.

-^^

( 125 )
CHAPTER V.

THE GALA AND THE LEADER.

F all the waters in which the anglers of Edin-
burgh exercise their art, the Gala is that with
which they are most familiar. It can be
reached in an hour by railway, and trains three or
four times a-day afford the opportunity to visit its
banks. Accordingly, on almost every day of the fish-
ing season the citizens of Edinburgh seek their sport
in the vale of Gala, and on fast-days or other holi-
days the numbers of persons, rod in hand and creel on
back, that may be seen pouring down Waverley Bridge
from all quarters are something portentous. W. S.'s
from the New^ Town drive desperately up in cabs ; from
the Old Town, down these wonderful " closes " rush
dozens of every grade and station ; steady old hands
from Leith, most of them in the spirit trade, make their
appearance ; there are a couple of Sheriffs, a sprinkling
of editors and sub-editors of newspapers, probably a
Professor, undistinguishable from an ordinary mortal ;
— lots of medical students, the most easily recognisable
class of the genus homo — and there is every likelihood
that, regarding his fellow-craftsmen with curious eye,
and inwardly chuckling over the idea that by the
evening his ample basket will contain a weight about
equal to all the others put together, may be descried
the six-feet-two form of Mr. W. C. Stewart, the best

126 THE BORDER ANGLER.

angler in Edinburgh. When the train reaches the head
of Gala-water, at every station a cloud of witnesses to
the love of angling prevailing in the metropolis drop
off; and although a few of the angling passengers pass
Bowland, intent upon the"jSrest," the pools of Kuther-
ford, or the streams of Mertoun, the green valley for
the day becomes populous, and the trout that dwell
therein are amazed by the rapid succession of leashes
of new and strange-looking entoma that float past
them. There is no stream that has such railway facili-
ties as the Gala. On about fifteen miles of its course
there are no fewer than five stations, every one on its
very banks.

Luckily the Gala is most abundantly stocked with
the river-trout ; and notwithstanding the numbers of
those who cast angles in it, there is no prospect of a
serious falling off. It must be confessed that a great
proportion of the metropolitan anglers who resort to it
do not seriously reduce its population, and a census
taken the day after the Edinburgh fast-day would pro-
bably find only a few hundred fish amissing as com-
pared with the day previous to that solemn occasion.
Mr. Stewart states that the Gala is fished by about
thirty anglers daily during the season, and "supposing
they average only two pounds a-piece," he thereby
makes out the capture of an immense number of trout.
If we take the fish as averaging five to the pound —
which approximates to the size of the trouts taken by
fly in small streams — we have thus a destruction of
300 per diem ; and supposing it to continue over a
hundred days in the year, the " total casualties" would
reach the figure of 30,000 ! Probably as many more

THE GALA — HERIOT- WATER. 127

are taken by net by poachers from Galashiels; but
still a good angler on almost any part of it may get a
basketful. The Gala, however, requires fine fishing —
for all but the first year's trouts have been educated
in gut and feathers, and perhaps about 80 per cent, of
the whole number have been pricked by the hook on
some occasion, while not a few have been nearly
dragged out of the water, or have even slid through
the benumbed hands of the piscator who was fumb-
lingly fingering them as he was about to convey them
to his pannier. Fear of man has become hereditary
in animals since the days when they gambolled before
Adam in Eden ; and perhaps fish will by-and-by ac-
quire an instinctive knowledge of the lures he uses,
and thus avoid the dangerous mouth-test to which they
are at present so often subjected.

The proper source of the Gala is Heriot-water. The
other stream called Little Gala, which by its union
with the Heriot forms the Gala, is much shorter in its
course and smaller in its volume. Heriot-water rises
in the hilly parish of Heriot, and runs a little more
than five miles before it changes its name. In its
upper parts, however, it is superior to the ordinary
run of hill waters, and the numerous burns that con-
tribute to its size are also better than those of heathery
or mossy regions — the hills of this part of Edinburgh-
shire being low and undulating, and covered with green
verdure. Heriot-water for the first two or three miles
has many deep pools, and its trout have a darker hue
and a yellower gleam than the starry-sided inhabitants
of the Gala. They are also of good size, and of supe-
rior flavour. Perhaps as good sport may be had here

1 28 THE BORDER ANGLER.

as in any part of tlie Gala, for it is not nearly so much
fished as most portions, being a little out of the way.
With the Little Gala at their feet at Heriot station,
and the Gala itself to be reached by following it down,
anglers are usually too eager to begin, to think of
walking three or four miles to the best part of Heriot-
water. It is, however, heavily fished for a mile or two
above its junction with the Gala, where its character
is precisely similar to that of the main river, being full
of small trout that are easily taken after a flood, and
that require considerable skill to entice them when the
water is clear. Perhaps the best arrangement for a
day's fishing here is for the angler to miss the first two
miles of the Heriot (by following the road from the
station, he comes upon it at Heriot Kirk, more than a
mile from the junction with the Little Gala), and then
to fish up to nearly its source with fly, worm, or creeper,
and back again with minnow. Little Gala presents
little temptation to the angler. There is a good inn
at Hangingshaw, near the Heriot station.

Unless fishing downward with minnow, the angler
who wants to fish the upper part of the Gala should
go to Fountainhall station and fish up to Heriot. This
is an admirable piece of water, there being about three
miles of the Gala between these points, and Heriot-
water may be followed as far as time permits. While
it consists chiefly of streams, there are also whirling
pools where large trout harbour, and where fishing
may be practised pretty successfully early in spring.
The Armet enters the Gala above Fountainhall, a
stream not much worth fishing, save in a flood. There
is an inn also, we believe, at Fountainhall.

THE GALA — STOW — LARGE TROUT. 129

The next stretch of water, between Foiintainhall
and Stow, is more rapid, having indeed a constant trot
about it that adapts it beautifully for worm-fishing,
but rather unfits it for the early fly-fishing. Trout
flock into it in the summer months, and in June and
July it is well worth a visit. Huge basketsful have been
taken from it, however, with fly, as well as May-fly
and creeper, for the latter of which it is capitally
suited. Creepei-s and May-fly are usually plentiful
throughout the whole course of the Gala and its tribu-
taries, although in some years they are more abundant
than in othei^s. Stow is a considerable village, with an
inn, and is resorted to sometimes by anglers who want
lodgings in summer-time within easy distance of Edin-
burgh. Cockum-water enters the Gala above Stow.

Between Stow and Bowl and Bridge (the station
below Stow) the water runs more into pools, and
contains larger trout than any other part of the Gala.
*' We once took with the minnow, between Bowland
and Stow," says Mr. Stewart, " twenty trout, the whole
we got that day, which weighed fifteen pounds, and
we never got such a large average size of trout in any
of the tributaries of the Tweed, or even in Tweed it-
self." A basketful of twenty trout, averaging three-
quarters of a pound, is certainly remarkable for the
Gala, but it has been frequently surpassed in the
Tweed, in the Till, the Leet, and the Blackadder.
Mr. Stoddart mentions having caught in the Leet
twenty-six trout weighing upwards of twenty-nine
pounds ; and we have seen an average of a pound at-
tained in the Whitadder with the *' lying minnow"
— that is, a minnow thrown into an eddy, the line

I

130 THE BORDER ANGLER.

well loaded, in a flood, while the water was yet too
thick for spinning it successfully. But the truth is, the
trout of Gala are small — ^below the average, indeed, of
any other tributary of the Tweed of equal volume.
Like those of the human race whom the gods love,
perhaps they die young, and only a few are allowed
to reach their full stature and ponderosity. This is,
however, rather opposed to the ordinary rule, which is,
that where trout are very numerous they remain small,
whereas when they are thinned by fishing, they in-
crease in size. On the last occasion on which we
fished the Gala — (with fly in the end of April, in a
bitter east- wind from Fountainhall up to Heriot Kirk)
— the six dozen trout which we got certainly would
not weigh more than nine pounds, if so much, and
there was not a half-pounder amongst them.

The Luggate enters the Gala a mile and a half
below Stow. It is its principal tributary, and swarms
with trout. Very large numbers have been attained
by anglers in this little stream, and with the May-fly
a diligent fisher may also pick out an " assortment"
of a very respectable size.

Below Bowland, the Gala may be fished for a mile
or two, but it here comes into dangerous proximity
to Galashiels and its poachers. At that town it be-
comes a mill-lead^ and is mixed with chemicals that
poison the fish ; and although, between the mills and
the Tweed, a few of tough constitution are believed to
survive, and were, we understand, counted in order to
furnish an answer to the promoters of the new Tweed
Act, who wished to strengthen the clause preventing the
throwing of deleterious matters into our border streams.

THE GALA — FACTORY POLLUTIONS. 131

the Gala for fishing purposes may be said to end at
Torwoodlee. At Gala-foot, in the Tweed, it is tri-
umphantly asserted by the mill-owners and the Border
Advertiser^ that there is a very superior roe-cast, which
merely proves that when the river is flooded the fresh
water from the hills is sufficient to dilute the chemicals
from the mills. We have not yet heard that trout are
very fond of muriatic acid, and we conceive it to be
highly desirable, not only for the sake of anglers, but
for the sake of the community at large, that every
precaution should be taken to prevent the pollutions
of factories from mingling with the pure streams of
the border. At Hawick, numerous efforts have been
made to prevent the defilements, by running the dyes
and other chemical preparations used into pits, where
they stand until the poisonous stuffs precipitate ; but
the manufacturers grumble loudly, and try to evade
what they ought to be forced to do, at whatever cost
of trouble or money. We are not aware that as yet
any similar efforts have been made at Galashiels. At
that town there is a cauld so high as to prevent sal-
mon from ascending the stream to spawn ; and so the
angler in this river may fish the year round without
fear of killing forbidden fish.

The vale of Gala is not very picturesque, nor is it
very fruitful in song or tradition. Burns has celebrated
its " braw braw lads." It was anciently denominated
Wedale — the Vale of Wo — for what reason is not
exactly clear, but probably on account of some deadly
battle which left the sound of lamentation and weeping
on the banks of the Gala. The vale was formerly
church property, and a chapel stood near Stow. Tor-

132 THE BORDER ANGLER.

|/
woodlee, the seat of the Pringles, a border clan of some
note, is on the banks of the Gala, about two miles
above Galashiels ; and near it are the castles of Buck-
holm and Blindlee, from which it is said that two in-
veterate enemies of the owner of Torwoodlee used to
watch him in the time of Charles the Second (Pringle
being a Covenanter), in order to detect some symptom
of disaffection to the Government. Galashiels is an
energetic manufacturing town ; and its inhabitants
have much of the old border spirit smongst them.
Hence the poaching.

The Leader rises amongst the western skirts of the
Lammermoors, from the recesses of wbich hills it draws
its supplies, although the greater part of its course is
through a low-lying and rich country. The upper
waters of the Leader can be best commanded from
Carfrae-Mill Inn, which is on the old coach-road from
Edinburgh to Kelso, but which is now rather difficult
of access. The two most convenient modes of getting
to the Leader are by walking or driving nearly six
miles over the hills from Stow, in the vale of Gala, to
Lauder, and by taking the omnibus, which runs twice
a-day from Melrose to Earlston, a distance of seven
miles. We believe, however, that the head of the
Leader might be readily reached by an adventurous
pedestrian from Heriot station, who might try to find
a road for himself across four miles of hilly country ;
but until that path has been discovered, we must be
content to recommend our readers to go to Lauder,
and fish up to Carfrae-Mill. About that point the Leader
separates into two streams, which are each again si-

THE LEADER AND ITS FEEDERS. 133

milarly divided ; and as they are all about a size, it is
difficult to say which is the proper source of the Leader.
The fishing in them is good, and the trouts of excel-
lent quality, sometimes of very good size.

From Carfrae-Mill for about three miles downwards
the Leader is open to the public, and the trouting is
excellent. The trout, however, are small, the streams
being rapid and thin ; but if the angler does not object
to an average of five or six to the pound, he may find
good sport here. A mile above Thirlstane Castle, the
seat of the Earl of Lauderdale, his lordship — the son,
we believe, of the man who was so strong a Jacobin
and advocate of equality and fraternity — claims posses-
sion of the river, and strictly preserves it for about two
miles to Lauder Bridge. Some of the profane vulgar,
however, who have penetrated into his lordship's sacred
preserves, inform us that the trout, although very
numerous in this piece of water, are very small, from
the fact of there being too many of them for the food
that is to be had. A little more fishing would have
the effect of increasing their size, and would thus make
the sport better. A little below Carfrae, the Wharp-
law-burn, a small hill-stream, enters the Leader, and
in the middle of the Thirlestane preserve, Earncleuch-
water also comes in. The latter stream is reputed to
be worth angling in. Below Lauder Brig there is a
stretch of nearly four miles of water in which the pub-
lic may enjoy their sport uninterruptedly, and in the
greater part of this the fishing is very good. Below
St. Leonard's Mill, a mile and a half from Lauder brig,
the trout are rather scarcer than in the water above,
but they average five or six ounces in weight, and will

134 THE BORDER ANGLER.

repay careful fishing. The Leader is a stream ex-
ceedingly well suited for the use of the minnow. Near
St. Leonard's the Boon-water comes in from the east,
and although but a small stream, it contains plenty of
good-sized trout. Two of the streams which unite to
form it, Blyth-water and the Boondreigh, come rapidly
down from the Lammermoors, while another oozes out
from the moors of Gordon, and has pools in which
there are trout s of large size.

This part of the Leader can of course be very con-
veniently fished from Lauder, which is a small old
" burrows- toon," with a comfortable inn. Over Lauder
Brig, the Scotch Barons on one occasion hanged, in
their rough way, all King James the Third's favourites,
because his Majesty took more delight in music and
the fine arts, than in hunting, hawking, and fighting.
Such tastes were looked upon as disgraceful in a Scot-
tish King ; for although his grandfather was a sweet
poet, and wrote The King^s Quhair, he was also a po-
litic ruler, and a hard rider of the border nobles and
the Highland chiefs, and it was for that that they
finally murdered him cruelly at Perth. The high-
spirited nobles, who may be pardoned for their con-
tempt of science and art, seeing that they were too
ignorant to know anything about these things, could
not brook that a " mason," as Pitscottie terms one
Cochrane an architect, who was made Earl of Mar,
should presume to rank with them, — so after a mid-
night council in the kirk of Lauder, at which, according
to the well-known story of the old Scots historian, the
stalwart Earl of Angus undertook to " bell the cat,"
the favourites were seized, and as we have said, hung

THE LEADER — OUR OLD NOBILITIE. 135

over the bridge in halters. It is an unfortunate feature
in Scottish history, that the aristocracy of the country
always appear as about the worst in the world. They
ought to have been rather advanced in civilisation and
patriotism, it might have been thought, under the
good and wise King Alexander III., but as soon as
the English aggression commenced after his death,
they disgracefully yielded to the invader, caring for
nothing but to keep their lands. And so they always
show throughout. As mean and greedy as they were
proud and ignorant, they had only the redeeming
quality of bravery in the field. From the time of the
war of Independence, when they were so basely jealous
of Wallace, and gave such laggard support to Bruce,
there are singularly few stories of gentle chivalry in
the annals of the Scottish nobility. At the Eefomiation
they pillaged the church far more ruthlessly even than
their compeers in England ; they adopted readily the
religion which the Charles's fruitlessly tried to thrust
down the throats of the people of Scotland ; they sold
their ancient Parliament for English gold ; even when
they went out with Prince Charlie, they usually left a
member of the family at home to take the other side,
so that whoever might win, the lands might be kept !
In our own day, they are aliens from the national re-
ligion, and are personally trying to spread Episcopacy
throughout the land ; while at county meetings and
on the hustings they are constantly and mysteriously
bawling about the support of the Established Presby-
terian Church, in which they somehow affect the deep-
est interest, though giving it the go-by on Sundays.
Feeling slightly relieved by the above expectora-

lo6 THE BORDER ANGLER.

tion of spleen — ^produced (who knows?) by the recollec-
tion of the contemptible preserving spirit that actuates
so many land-owners in Landerdale — we proceed to
our work ; but before leaving* Lauder we must pay a
passing tribute to one who is not a noble, but is, we
believe, something of a tinker, and a " gut-scraper" at
fairs.^ James Baillie of Lauder, however, is probably
the best fly-fisher in the world. We do not know that
he has much more book-learning than Archibald Bell-
the-Cat, nor are his abilities, either as tinker or fiddler,
much to be talked of; but for several months in the
year he is able, by a few hours' trout-fishing in the day,
to keep a wife and family, and can pick out from 12 to
20 pounds of fishy where most people would find a dif-
ficulty in getting any at all. He is weak in consti-
tution, and is afraid of cold, or of wetting his feet ; so
he usually devotes only the forenoon to the Leader or
the Gala. But necessity has sharpened his angling fa-
culties, and so perfected his skill, that in that time he
can fill his basket. Whether he really was the first to
find out the advantages of fly-fishing up-stream, we do
not know ; but it is certain that he is the most efiicient
practiser of the method, and we believe that he gave
the hint to Stewart, who has, after i>ersonally testing its
benefits, brought it out in the volume from which we
have made so many quotations. There are two brothers
of the name of Dryden, of Hawick, who rival James as
anglers, but not in the department of fly-fishing ; — we
believe, indeed, that he hardly practises any other
mode. Casting up-stream, with carefully " waled"' gut,
and flies dressed lightly upon the hook, Ja,mes Baillie
is unsurpassed.

THE LEADER — EARLSTON. 137

At Blainslee Bridge, the freedom of fishing is again
interfered with. The water skirting the estate of
Chappie used to be open, but a new owner has arisen
who knows not the sons of Izaak, and who takes after
the magnate of the district by preserving. The owner
on the other side is said to be a little more liberal.
After these comes the Can-olside-water, also strictly-
preserved. This part of the w^ater is about the best in
the whole river, and, as we have hinted before, the only
penalty that can be exacted for fishing in preserves is
the amount of damage caused by the trespass. Verb.
Sap. — never make any inquiries about boundaries. A
little above the village of Earlston, the restrictions of
grasping landowners are relaxed, and there is about
a mile of water open. We suspect the villagers pay a
good deal of attention to it. Earlston, as we have
mentioned, has a 'bus running daily to Melrose. The
remaining two miles of the Leader comprise the Cow-
denknowes and the Dry grange waters, both of which
are gamekeepered. A dam-dyke at Leader-foot pre-
vents salmon from ascending the stream.

But, if we cannot fish in the rest of the Leader,
we may at least be allow^ed to lie down on its banks
and call to mind the associations that cling to them.
We have recommended the angler to be diligent in
his vocation, and, especially when there is a " take,''
to direct all his energies to the capture of fish.
" Time 's troots," is the pithy maxim of a friend of
ours. But when the trout give up rising to the fly
or seizing the worm, let the fisher not scruple to rest
himself, eat his luncheon, and try his flask. And if he
should chance to be on Leader- aide, near the beautiful

138 THE BORDER ANGLER.

village of Earlston, why not lie down and dream of
the old times when Thomas the Rhymer was pursuing
his liaison with the Queen of Fairyland ; — when
" a knight and a lady bright had a true tryst amang
the broom/' and the foolish knight fell asleep, and
the lady, softly approaching, kissed his lips, and passed
away unscathed from the perilous meeting against
which her wily nurse had warned her ; — or when the
love-passages of the shepherdess and her swain gave
the cue to that sweetest of border melodies, " The
Broom o' the Cowdenknowes ? '' In the pretty haugh
below Earlston are the ruins of True Thomas's tower ;
behind, and farther down the river, are the Cowden-
knowes and their bonny bonny broom. Whether the
prophet had as much honour in his own country in
his own time as he had afterwards, who can tell ? —
for no one knows when he lived. But there are the
remains of his ancient hall of Ercildoune, testifying to
the tradition of his existence, although hardfy, like the
bricks of Jack Cade's house, " alive to this day" to re-
late its particulars. The stream of time was but a
burn when Thomas sat its banks, and a deal of Scotch
mist is hanging over its recesses and windings. But
the legend is a glorious one. And how the green and
golden livery of the broom on those knowes is mel-
lowed and beautified by that one simple song ! When
you get back to the George at Melrose to-night you
may find some one to sing it to you.

" O the broom, the bonny bonny broom,

The broom o' the Cowdenknowes :
I wish I were there with my dear lad,

With his pipe and my ewes."

The names of the locality are strung together in a

ERCILDOUNE — THOMAS THE RHYMER. 139

curious old song, by some one who called himself
" Minstrel Burn," which Sir Walter Scott was fond of
quoting —

" Sing Ercildoune and Cowdenknowes,
Where Homes had ance commanding.
And Drygrange wi' the milk white ewes,
'Twixt Tweed and Leader standing.
♦ # * *

For many a place stands in hard case,
"Where blythe folks kent nae sorrow,

Wi' Homes that dwelt on Leader side.
And Scotts that dwelt on Yarrow."

The bare high knoll that you see standing to the
south-east of Earlston is Sandyknowe, where Scott
was brought up, and on it are the remains of Smail-
holm Tower, the scene of his ballad of " The Eve of
St. John."

-g»^?8i:^J^

( 140 )

CHAPTER VI.

THE TEVIOT AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.

" Sweet Teviot ! on thy silver tide

The glaring bale-fires blaze no more;
No longer steel-clad warriors ride
Along thy, wild and willowed shore."

The Lay of the Last Mimtrd.

E do not know that in a single old border
ballad there is mention made of any kind
of fishing. Yet, when the deer were getting
scarce, as undoubtedly they must have been in the
sixteenth century, what sport could have been more
congenial to the Scotts, Elliots, Kerrs, Turnbulls, and
Rutherfords of Teviotdale and Jed Forest, in the in-
tervals of their feuds and forays, than either leistering
or angling for salmon in the numerous streams that
traverse Koxburghshire ? There is no record, so far
as we are aware, of the period when angling was
introduced into Scotland — if we recollect rightly, the
first mention of the " wande " as an instrument of
killing fish is in a statute passsed during the reign of
Queen Mary ; but it is certain, from Dame Juliana
Berners' " Treatise of Fysshinge with an Angle,"
printed in 1496, that it was practised in England a
century previously, and doubtless also it was a common
recreation in Scotland. Sir William Wallace, as we
learn from Blind Harry, diverted himself bv fishing

FISHING AND DRINKING OF OLD. 141

with a pout-net in Irvine- water, and, when interrupted
in his sport (as Scotch anglers too often are, even
now-a-days, by Englishmen, or at least by English-
men's gamekeepers) he as usual easily made " a Scots
poult- staff foil five English swords," killing three men
and making the other two run for it ! We may con-
clude from this that there was no angling then, — for
who can suppose that if the hero knew the use of a
fishing-rod he would have descended to a pout-net ?
Still it showed the spiiit of fishhig alive in Scotland,
and it is not likely that that spirit would die out ; in
fact it seems to have become a sort of instinct, espe-
cially on the Borders, so long has it been identified
with the habits of Scotchmen. Wherefore, then, this
omission in the ballads? We leave the question to
future investigators. We might almost say there is a
cognate puzzle in the absence of any special praise of
drinking in the old poetry. " Fuddling," which in
modern times has been so much and so improperly
conjoined with " fishing," is in the ballads only men-
tioned incidentally, — as when it is stated that the
monarch's commands came to Sir Patrick Spens, or
news of an English raid came to Buccleuch, as they
vrere sitting at table birling their bottle ; or that " late
at e'en, drinking the wine, and e'er they paid the law-
in'," the combat was set that ended so bloodily in the
dowie houms o' Yarrow. The lads of Wamphray, in
the exuberance of their triumph, declare that they
will " hae a pint at Wamphray gate" — a Dumfries-
shire ale-house ; and the very emphasis they give to
that exceedingly moderate proposal might support the
inference that they were rather addicted to teetotalism.

142 THE BORDER ANGLER.

We happen to know, however, from other sources,
that such an hypothesis would scarcely consist with
authentic facts; and that a " Hawick gill" was even
more frequently in request in those days than in our
own. Wherefore, then, are there no old border drink-
ing songs ? Frankly, we do not know, and have not
time to guess. Perhaps the old minstrels thought that
their profession of recording the loves, wars, and thiev-
ings of the border chiefs would be lowered by singing
of the bottle, and left that to pert Edinburgh lawyers
who followed the Circuit, such as the one who de-
clares, in a highly humorous but rather equivocal ditty,
in the praise of " Jonet Reid, Marion White, and Jean
Violet, being slicht women and taverners," that

" This song of thrie lasses
Was made aboon glasses
In Jedburgh at the Justiciair."

But whether or not there was much fishing or fuddling

in Roxburghshire three hundred years ago, there is a

fair proportion of both now, and

" The men of pleasant Tiviedale,
Fast by the river Tweed,"

can handle both the rod and the glass like adepts.

The Teviot rises near Mosspaul on the borders of
Roxburghshire and Dumfriesshire. An inn at this
place, on the Hawick and Carlisle road, gives the
angler the opportunity of fishing the higher tributaries
and hill-burns, which combine to form the river in its
early stages. These have the usual character of such
burns, — the trout small but plentiful, and the green
hills and bare moors pleasant in summer and autumn,
when such streams are most worth fishing. The first

THE TEVIOT — THE ALLAN. 143

notable tributary of the Teviot is the Allan, which
from the south winds through some very beautiful
pastoral scenery of which the chief feature is the Pens
or laws — detached conical hills, standing by them-
selves. It joins the main stream about four miles
above Hawick, and from its retired character is, we
should imagine, very little fished. Borthwick-water
next enters, from the north — a rocky and shallow tor-
rent, with some good pools towards its head. Branx-
holm Castle, which was the principal hold of the
Scotts three hundred years ago, and is indeed the
scene of the Lay^ stands on the side of the Teviot half-
way between where the Allan and the Borthwick join.
The old peel of Goldielands stands nearly opposite the
mouth of the Borthwick ; and overhanging the deep
and rugged ravine of one of the little tributaries of
that stream is the ruinous Tower of Harden, where
another and famous branch of the Scotts maintained
themselves, in great measure at their neighbours' ex-
pense. We believe Lord Polwarth is the representative
of this line ; and it was from it also that Sir Walter
Scott drew his lineage. The Teviot itself is much
harassed by the Hawick mechanics, — in winter with all
sorts of contrivances for the capture of the spawning
bull-trout, which run up it in immense numbers, and
in summer with the harry-water-net for river trout,
for which ready sale can always be found. From
Branxholm upwards, however, good fishing may be
had. The road from Hawick to Carlisle follows the
vale of the Teviot for nearly ten miles, and a coach
runs daily each way between these places ; we fear,
however, it is not so timed as to be of much use to the

144 THE BORDER AXGLER.

angler, as it passes both down and up the Teviot abont
the middle of the day. Hawick and its suburb, Wilton,
make together a town of nearly 10,000 inhabitants,
the head-quarters of the manufacturing industry of
the south of Scotland. It is a place of great antiquity.
In its inns there is of course ample accommodation for
travellers. Within a few weeks of our writing, it will
be decided by Parliament whether a railway to unite
Hawick with Carlisle shall go by the Slitrigg and the
Liddel, in continuation of the North British line, or by
the Teviot, Ewes, and Esk, forming a branch from
the Caledonian. Either way, a railway through the
district will be of advantage to the angler ; but un-
doubtedly the former, opening up the Liddel, which as
an angling-stream is greatly superior to the Esk, will
be much the preferable.

The Slitrigg enters the Teviot just at Hawick, in-
tersecting the upper part of the town. The course of
this stream is about ten miles, in greater part very
hilly and rocky. Near its source its banks are bare ;
and though there are fine woods around Stobbs Castle,
a seat of the Elliotts, it is chiefly to its ruggedness
that it owes its pictnresqueness. It is a rapid water,
and is well stocked with fish that seldom attain a
large size. It is greatly frequented by bull-trouts in
spawning-time.

Below Hawick, the vale of the Teviot expands, and
its subsequent course of thirty miles is through a rich
and beautiful country. We are not exactly informed
as to what parts of the river are attempted to be pre-
served, but we believe restrictions have been placed
upon the angling of late years by several landowners.

HAWICK — THE RULE. 145

FisWng in preserved water is not, however, amongst
the deadly sins, and we do not suppose that the angler
will experience much annoyance, as it is probably
chiefly with a view to check the incursions of the
Hawick weavers that prohibition has been resorted to.
Partly from the assiduous attentions of these sons of
industry, and partly from the deleterious character of
the chemical stuffs which are allowed to escape from
the manufactories — though we believe measures have
lately been taken to abate this nuisance — the angling
in the Teviot for a few miles below Hawick is not very
choice in its character. It is not perhaps until it is
joined by the Rule, seven miles from Hawick, that it
it becomes really worthy of the reputation which it
enjoys amongst anglers. Under the shadow of Minto
Castle, the seat of the nobleman who framed the Act
that is held in terrorem over them, it is to be expected
that the wicked netters from Hawick should cease from
troubling.

The Rule is another swiftly-flowing tributary from
the hills, the velocity and rockiness of which are not
favourable to the gi'owth in size of its finny habitants.
They are, however, very numerous, and have greatly
increased smce the ravages of the netters have been re-
strained. It is a good worm stream, but requires care-
ful fishing- from the number of bushes overhans^ing it.

In following the Teviot, however, we have already
passed the village of Denholm, the birthplace of a man
who deserves notice from us, if for nothing else than
that he has embalmed the hills and vales, woods and
streams of Roxburghshire in beautiful verse. Dr. John
Ley den, the author of " Scenes of Infancy," was born

K

146 THE BORDER ANGLER.

here in 1775, of peasant parentage; and but that his
career was cut short by untimely death, there is every
reason to believe that he would have made for himself
an eminent name. His parents were ambitious that
he should " wag his pow in a poopit," and so, his parish-
school curriculum over, he went to Edinburgh Univer-
sity, and even became a probationer of the Church. But
he had other longings after literature and science, and
it was while he was poring over old books, perched
on a libraiy-ladder, that he was discovered by a friend
of Walter Scott to have an extraordinary amount of
border and ballad lore. Scott was preparing the Min-
strdsy of the Scottish Borders^ and Leyden on being
introduced to him immediately became his friend and
zealous coadjutor. He undoubtedly rendered great help
in the work, besides contributing several original bal-
lads and the beautiful poem upon Flodden field. In a
letter, ^a-itten in 1800, Scott relates — " An interesting
fragment had been obtained of an ancient historical
ballad ; but the remainder, to the great disturbance of
the editor and his coadjutor, was not to be recovered.
Two days afterwards, while the editor was sitting
with some company after dinner,' a sound was heard
at a distance like that of the whistling of a tempest
through the torn rigging of the vessel which scuds
before it. The sounds increased as they approached
more near ; and Leyden (to the great astonishment of
such of the guests as did not know him) burst into the
room, chaunting the desiderated ballad with the most
enthusiatic gestures, and all the energy of what he used
to call the saw-tones of his voice. It turned out that
he had walked between forty and fifty miles and back

THE TEVIOT— DK. JOHN LEYDEN. 147

again for the sole purpose of visiting an old person who
possessed this precious remnant of antiquity." Mus-
cular energy and animal spirits were indeed as cha-
racteristic of Leyden as his strong mental faculties
and indomitable resolution. He delighted in teasing
poor peevish Eitson — the learned antiquarian — when
he visited Scott at Lasswade ; and for the purpose of
horrifying the nervous vegetarian, manfully bolted a
pound of raw beef-steak one day at dinner, declaring
that it was the only proper food of man ! Such a man
could make his way in the world anywhere ; and when
he was sent out to Madras, chiefly through Scott's friendly
influence, nobody seems to have been surprised that in
a year or two he became first a professor in the Bengal
College at Calcutta, and afterwards one of the principal
Judges of the Presidency. He died in 1811 of fever,
while engaged in a scientific expedition to Java, just
as he was becoming the first Orientalist of his day, and
was laying the foundation for future honours. Many
warm and worthy friendships died " with Leyden in a
distant land," and Sir Walter mourned him in one ol
those beautiful Epistles that open the cantos in Mar-
mion^ and again in The Lord of the Isles.*

* In a note to The Antiquari/, the following example of the
native spirit sticking to Leyden in India is given : —

" The account of the ready patriotism displayed by the
country on this occasion [the false alarm of invasion in 1804]
warmed the hearts of Scottishmen in every corner of the world.
It reached the ears of the well-known Dr. Leyden, whose enthu-
siastic love of Scotland, and of his own district of Teviotdale,
formed a distinguished part of his character. The account,
which was read to him on a sick-bed, stated (very truly) that
the different corps, on arriving at their alarm-posts, announced

148 THE BORDER ANGLER.

The banks of the Teviot are very beautiful in the
neighbourhood of Minto, with its wooded grounds, and
the picturesque crags " where Barnhill hewed his bed
of flint." There is a good deal of wood on the lower
part of the Teviot, but not such as to interfere with
the angler, who has now a pretty broad river, with
alternate pools and streams. There are various places
in the district where entertainment may be had, par-
ticularly at Ancrum ; but the whole of this part of the
Teviot, as well as the neighbouring 'tributaries, may
very conveniently be fished from Jedburgh.

The Ale is the next accession which the main river
receives. It flows in from the west, its sources, as we
have already mentioned, being a number of lochs in
the high lands of Selkirkshire. These lochs are Kings-
moor, Alemoor, and Hellmoor, on Ale-water proper,
the Shaws-lochs near the head of Todrigg-burn, and
Akermoor-loch, out of which Blind scleugh-burn flows,
with some others of smaller dimensions, Essenside,

themselves by their music playing the tunes peculiar to their
own districts, many of which have been gathering signals for
centuries. It was particularly remembered that the Liddesdale
men entered Kelso playing the lively tune —
" O wha dare meddle wi' me,

And wba dare meddle wi' me?
My name it is little Jock Elliot,
And wba dare meddle Avi' me?"

The patient was so delighted with this display of ancient bor-
der spirit, that he sprung up in his bed, and began to sing the
old song with such vehemence of action and voice, that his
attendants, ignorant of the cause of his excitation, concluded
that the fever had taken possession of his brain ; and it was
only the entry of another Borderer, Sir John Malcolm, and the
explanation which he was well qualified to give, that prevented
them from resorting to means of medical coercion."

THE TEVIOT — THE ALE. 149

Shielswood, Headshaw, and Ashkirk, as the reservoirs
of other tributaries. It is stated that in some of them
trouts are scarce, there being abundance of pike and
perch, but there are, we believe, numbers in both Ale-
raoor and Hellmoor, as well as in Clearburn, in the
neighbourhood, the outlet of which is to the Ettrick ;
and they are rarely visited, so may have attractions
for those who seek " society where none intrude."
They may be attained from either Tushilaw on the
Ettrick, or from Hawick ; but if any kind of " up-
putting" can be found at Ashkirk — of which we are
ignorant — about five miles from Hawick, it would
naturally be the most suitable point from which to
command them, and the head of Ale-water. The up-
per part of the Ale is, we believe, well worth making
an effort to get at ; and throughout this little stream
contains capital trout and affords good sport, espe-
cially after a flood. By a sudden leap at some linns
near its source, it saves itself the constant incline that
makes so many of the streams in Roxburghshire too
rapid and shallow for the production of weighty trouts,
and thus it runs into pools that afford an occasional
pounder to the angler. New Belses station, which is
five miles beyond Newton Junction, at which the line
to Hawick branches off, is within easy reach of the
Ale, about the middle of its course ; and the Edinburgh
angler could thus accomplish a day's fishing in this
pretty little water by leaving home in the morning
and returning at night. There is an inn at Lilliesleaf
where an angler who wished to stay might find accom-
modation. At Ancrum, the lower part of the Ale is
quite handy ; and a bend which it makes about three

150 THE BORDER ANGLER.

miles above that village is within walking distance of
St. Boswell's. John Younger, of that place, was bred
on Ale-water, and in the last verses of his w^hich we
have seen, he recalls to mind his primary step to the
angling excellence which he has since attained : —

" Still, as in a dream, I can see the first flee
George Grey in the Ayle-water kindly gae me :
Such pleasures of hope as it raised in my breast
Hae never by poet on earth been exprest.
' Where was ye a' day, laddie — what been about ?'
When joyfu' I held out my first little trout :
To utter the feelings a' language is vain —
But just it was what I can ne'er feel again,
Unless in idea : as we rub in life's rust
Wearing down into age — ere we drop in the dust —
The thoughts of a new birth may weel mak us fain,
Were it only a hope to be younglings again !"

Rather a pawlie touch that of John's about the now
birth, we are afraid.

A little way from Ancrum is the field of Ancrum Moor
or Lilliard's Edge, where a savage English foray upon
Melrose and Teviotdale in 1545 was amply avenged by
the Earl of Angus, who followed the retiring army.

About two miles below the mouth of the Ale, the Jed
enters the Teviot from the south. For the greater part
of its course, the angling in the Jed is much interrupted
by trees, but towards its source it has a good deal of
the usual character of hill- waters. After it has flowed
about five miles, and been increased by the Black and
Carter burns, it bends pleasantly round Southdean kirk
and manse, where James Thomson, the poet of the Sea-
sons, was brought up, and where it is said he planned
and partly wrote " Winter." His father was minister
/)f the parish, having been "translated" hither from

THE JED— JAMES THOMSON. 151

Ednam, where, on the banks of the Eden, Thomson was
born. The poet could not miss being an angler, reared
as he was by the side of the Jed, and it was doubtless
the remembrance of his boyish exploits that prompted
his admirable description of fly-fishing, in " Spring:''

" Just in the dubious point, where with the pool
Is mixed the trembling stream, or where it boils
Around the stone, or from thehollow'd bank
Reverted, plays in undulating flow :
There throw, nice judging, the delusive fly;
And as you lead it round in artful curves.
With eye attentive mark the springing game.
Straight as above the surface of the flood
They wanton rise, oi', urged by hunger, leap,
Then fix with gentle twitch the barbed hook.
Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank,
And to the shelving shore slow dragging some,
With various hand proportioned to their force.
If yet too young and easily deceived
A worthless prey scarce bends your pliant rod,
Him, piteous of his youth, and the short space
He has enjoyed the vital light of heaven.
Soft disengage, and back into the stream
The speckled captive throw. But should you lure
From his dark haunt beneath the tangled roots
Of pendent trees, the monarch of the brook,
Behoves you then to ply your finest art.
Long time he, following cautious, scans the fly,
And oft attempts to seize it, but as oft
The dimpled water speaks his jealous fear.
At last, whilst haply o'er the shaded sun
Passes a cloud, he desperate takes the death
With sullen plunge. At or.ce he darts along,
Deep-struck, and runs out all the lengthened line.
Then seeks the farthest ooze, the sheltering weed,
The caveru'd bank, his old secure abode;
And flies aloft, and flounces round the pool.
Indignant of the guile. With yielding hand,
That feels him still, yet to liis furious course

152 THE BORDER ANGLER.

Gives way, you, now retiring, following now
Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage,
Till, floating broad upon his breathless side.
And to his fate abandoned, to the shore
You gaily drag your unresisting prize."

This is angling in the Jed at Southdean, not in the
Thames at Richmond or Twickenham ; and it is plain
that the whole of the Seasons receive their colouring
from impressions made upon the poet's mind in his
"border life.

The trout of the Jed are of good size, and of a high
character from the frying-pan point of view.. The trees
that make its banks so picturesque are not so objec-
tionable to the fly-fisher who casts up-stream, seeing
that he needs less room behind him for the swing of his
line, as to the one who casts straight across ; and to
the worm-fisher, who does not require to use a long
line, they are still less objectionable. But if an angler
finds himself in any case interrupted by trees, — mis-
taking his distances in casting, failing to perceive some
slight projecting branch that intervenes between the
point where he wishes his fly to fall, constantly getting
fast, trying in vain to get his line down, then giving
it a tug that breaks it and renders it necessary for him
to construct a new one that is shortly to share the fate
of its predecessor, — we most earnestly beseech him to
keep his temper. If he gets hot and begins to swear,
and in his eager hurry to make up for lost time verifies
the maxim that " the more haste the less speed," we
advise him to sit down, take out his handkerchief and
wipe his face, then to examine the contents of his
pocket-pistol, and coolly reflect what is best to be done.
If he goes on without doing so,, he will probably en-

THE JED — ITS WOODED BANKS. 153

tirely lose not only his temper but his time ; he will
get into a furious passion, and will obstinately declare
to himself that he will be dee'd if he be beaten by trees,
let them grow ever so thickly or perversely. And so
he will get worse and worse ; keeping the recording
angel busy for a whole forenoon, the perspiration pour-
ing over his (the angler's, not the angel's) face, his
pocket-book rapidly thinning of his favourite flies, and
people passing will wonder how the fisher's art should
ever have been called the Contemplative Man's Ke-
creation. We are drawing no fancy picture, but what
we ourselves, in common with hundreds, have expe-
rienced. There is nothing so tempting as a cast that
shall bring your fly under some overhanging branch,
where imagination depicts a monster ready to seize
it : but if the fly can't be got there, why should you
persist in trying it ? Flee the temptation — walk a few
miles if necessary to some point where you have water
free from foliage — and the result will be that you will
preserve your serenity and probably fill your basket.

Who does not admire trees and rivers in combina-
tion ; but let us add, why should the wood and water
crowd each other ? To be an angler, Burns, in his pe-
tition for trees to adorn the banks of the Bruar, most
unaccountably neglected to stipulate that they should
not approach within a dozen yards of the water's edge.
Overlooking this unfortunate feature in its sylvan adorn-
ment, that it sadly interrupts angling, it must be ac-
knowledged that the Jed for the last few miles of its
course is preeminently beautiful.

Jedburgh itself is an ancient town, that for centuries
had to bide the brunt of southern invasion, which was

154 THE BORDER ANGLER.

all the more ruthless in the latter period of the national
wars, when Englishmen had begun to lose respect for
church property, which had formerly been held sacred
even in the most ferocious inroads. After Henry VIII.
had let the Southern nobles taste the blood of the
church, as it were, the noble Abbey of Jedburgh began
to suffer in the forays until it was entirely reduced to
dilapidation in 1545. It is still, however, a fine monu-
ment of ecclesiastical art. There are a great number
of old fortresses and other antiquities in the neighbour-
hood of Jedburgh ; and at Hundalee, Lintlee, and Moss-
burnford, the rocky sides of the Jed are excavated so
as to form hiding-places, probably for women, children,
and other valuables, in times of trouble. The burghers
of Jedburgh, however, were always ready to give as
good as they got ; their peculiarly inverted method of
carrying out criminal law has passed into a proverb ;
and at the last great border battle, the Eaid of the
Reidswire, they came in pretty effectually, and turned
the day in favour of the Scotch. The town in its modern
character is a " pleasant habitation," and is the best
place from which to fish the Teviot and its lower tri-
butaries. Besides the Eule, the Jed, and the Ale, it
gives command of the Oxnam, and allows of a stretch
to the Kale. The Oxnam enters the Teviot from the
same side, about two miles below the confluence of the
Jed. It is a small stream, and is not, we believe, much
distinguished amongst the anglers of the district. Not
so the Kale, however, the next and last tributary which
the Teviot receives. Its trout are numerous, of fair size,
and of excellent quality. The upper part of it may
be most conveniently fished from Hounam, where the

JEDBURGH — KALE-FOOT — HOUNAM. 155

angler will find accommodation at the village inn. The
lower part may be reached readily from either the Old
Ormiston or the Nisbet station on the Jedburgh line,
— and the angler wdll find it a pretty hard day's work
to fish thence up to Hounam, missing all the woody
places, there being plenty of water with grassy banks.
The head of the Bowmont is within reach of Hounam.

Below Mounteviot, when salmon were more plentiful
than they are now, there were several casts in the
Teviot where a number of fish were got with the rod
every year. A favourable autumn flood always brings
a few grilses into the pools of the Teviot, but they are
thinly distributed, and the angler must seldom be san-
guine of success with his salmon -rod. Great numbers
of kelts have, however, hitherto been killed in this
river, in the spring, with the rod; and, before they took
a thought and mended, the kelt-killing gentry of Rox-
burghshire to whom we have formerly alluded used to
commit deadly ravages in it with the leister. In the
spring of 1857 a feat in kelt-fishing was performed in
the lower part of the Teviot by Mr. Purves of Kelso.
We have mislaid the paragraph from the Kelso papers
which chronicled the deed ; but it was, we think, from
Heaton-mill cauld, near Roxburgh, that in a few hours
one afternoon he took eight fish, weighing altogether
126 lbs. Two of them, kelts though they were, w^eighed
26 lbs. each, two others were 16 lbs., and the rest
smaller. It was on a frosty day, and Mr. Purves was
angling with minnow^ In the same piece of water Mr.
Stoddart has accomplished some of his most remarkable
victories. We have incidentally alluded to his eel, which
took a gorge-bait with which he w^as trolling for pike,

156 THE BORDER ANGLER.

swallowed it, ran off in extraordinary style, and finally,
finding no other way of escape, bolted the whole nine
inches of brass wire, and bit through the line. Much
amazed, Mr. Stoddart threw in six set-lines, each with
a trout and wire-armed hook at the end, and went on
his way trouting. When he returned, and proceeded to
draw his lines, he found the first five docked of their
bait and hook, the whole having been swallowed and
the cords bit through by some monster, as had hap-
pened to his trolling-line ; but at the end of the sixth,
dead and motionless, was a huge eel with the whole of
the lost gorge-hooks, brass-wire and all, in its maw,
having been choked in its attempt to swallow the
seventh ! Mr. Stoddart most unluckily did not weigh
his prize, but estimated it at 20 lbs. We have searched
for, but have been unable to find, this singular cir-
cumstance recorded in the last edition of The Angler^s
Companion; we are certain, however, that it was in the
first. In the last edition of that book — which is really
the most complete and interesting, as it is about the best-
written, of angling- works — we find set forth, however,
a very remarkable mode of grilse-fishing in Heaton-
mill cauld, in which, with a worm and float, in the
mode of school-boys bobbing for perch, on a bright
day, with the water low, clear, and calm, Mr. Stoddart
killed a "noble grilse" out of a shoal of about a dozen
which were visible sailing about in the pool.

In April and May the Teviot swarms with smolts,
both of the salar and of the eriox, so that the angler
must be careful. He cannot possibly avoid hooking
one occasionally ; and if he finds, when he has hooked
one, that a sharp twitch will not suffice to disengage

SMOLTS IN THE TEVIOT. 157

the hook from its mouth, he ought to pull the smolt
out as quickly as he likes, but not with a jerk that
may involve the risk of killing or seriously injuring it,
should it foil on a stone.

" Take it up tenderly,
Lift it with care,
Fashioned so slenderly
Young and so fair;"

and return it gently to the water, hoping that it may
be your luck in the future, if not to kill it, at least to
pay your " devours" to it as a grilse or salmon at some
friendly board or Tweedside " kettle."

The lower part of the Teviot, from the mouth of the
Jed downwards to near Roxburgh, is decidedly the best
part of the river for trouting. The trout are larger
than in the upper streams, and, although capricious,
by the use of the finest gut and lightly-made flies of
the more sober hues, or of well-scoured worms in sum-
mer, bountiful returns for skill and labour may often
be obtained. Roxburgh station receives the angler ex-
actly at the part of the river where it is most desirable
to begin — and, according to the arrangement of the
trains, about seven hours fishing may be obtained in
the Teviot by any one leaving Edinburgh in the mor-
ning and returning to it at night.

In all the still pools below Mounteviot — from ponds
at which they are said originally to have come — there
are considerable numbers of pike ; which, unlike these
fish in most lochs or other rivers, take readily in early
spring, and probably throughout almost the whole
year. They are of good quality as compared with most
river-pike, and were at one time increasing so rapidly

158 THE BORDEE ANGLER.

that their depredations caused considerable fears for
the future of the lower part of the Teviot as a trouting-
stream. A lucky flood, however, carried numbers of
them off, and cleared out some of their holds and
haunts ; and it seems certain that the floods from the
Roxburghshire hills are far too frequent and heavy to
allow them ever to become so abundant, or their weedy
refuges to become so secure, as to give the esox the
ascendancy over the salmo in this famous river. Pike
are frequently carried, even by ordinary floods, down
the Tweed from the Teviot, the Leet, and the Till,
probably even to the sea ; for they have been caught
in the salmon-nets within the tide-way. In no part of
the main river, however, have they fixed their habi-
tation. At Coldstream, a few years ago, a pike was
caught in the Tweed by a worm-fisher, in a stream — a
circumstance, so far as we know, altogether singular
in the history of pike-fishing. Heaton-mill cauld is
also about the best cast for pike in the Teviot.

There are perch in the Teviot, and we believe they
are sometimes taken of a very large size, even up to
three and four pounds. The minnow, either spun in
the ordinary way, or angled with alive, is a more
tempting bait for large perch in rivers than in ponds.
But little attention, however, is paid to this kind of
fishing by border anglers.

( 159 )
CHAPTER VII.

THE WHITADDER AND BLACKADDEE.

G^WPHESE Berwickshire Twins will stand compa-
y «^ rison with any trouting-streams in the south of
) Scotland. The one is fair and gravelly, with rat-
tling streams, and sometimes rocky banks ; the other
black but comely, sleeping in its alluvial bed amongst
the moors, and breeding big trouts that are as strong
and sportive in the water as they are flavoury on the
table. Both come from the same hills, yet no two
streams differ more in character. It is hard to tell
which is the preferable ; and the best way of solving
the difficulty is to spend a summer in the skirts of the
Lammermoors, and take them " week about."

The Whitadder rises at the White Well, near Johns-
cleuch, in Haddingtonshire, and for the first fifteen
miles of its course v/inds its way through the bare
valleys of the Lammermoors, the heathy sides of the
hills being relieved and variegated by pleasant patches
of green. In the first five or six miles of its course
it receives but insignificant contributions from a few
burns ; but it and they are all swarming with small
trout. Above Millknow, in a flood, a boy with a pin
may slay his dozens, and at all times the expert angler
may fill his pannier, if it is of reasonable size, with
trout — a few of decent proportions amongst them.

160 THE BORDER ANGLER.

At Millknow the Whitadder is joined by the Fasney,
a rocky and heathery-edged stream, than which there
is no water that we know of that yields a greater
quantity of trout to the fisher. Its bleak recesses are
indeed but seldom explored, save by the shepherd
looking after his flocks. The farm-house of Priestlaw
stands near its mouth, but there is not another house
or hut on its banks throughout its whole course. It
is five miles, at its nearest point, from any inn or vil-
lage, and that village is eight miles from any railway,
or place reached by any public conveyance. Probably,
since time began, no net has ever been drawn through
it, unless a pout-net for sport in a flood ; for there is
no temptation in the way of a market for the trout,
even if there were poachers ready with their imple-
ments. But indeed its rugged bottom would not allow
of the effective use of any of the more deadly engines
for destroying river-trout. We have never seen any
drains — save from Priestlaw farm — running the rain
too hastily from the hills into the stream — (a cause, by
the way, which we have not yet mentioned, of the de-
crease of trouts and the falling off in angling.) While,
therefore, there are of almost all the rivers which we
have visited, complaints of evils that have reduced
their trouting capabilities — over-fishing, netting, fac-
tory filth, hill-drainage — here is one free from them
all, that is as good now as it was a hundred years ago,
and that will probably continue so for ever. The de-
solate Fasney will, we trust, be an exception to the
" progress of the age," for to our mind it is " so aptly
formed by Nature" as to be susceptible of no improve-
ment. There is one drawback, indeed — the trout of

THE WHITADDER — THE FASNEY. 161

the Fasney are of tlie regular heather-burn species.
The stream is a hill-burn magnified, and its inhabitants
are black, large-headed, powerful of jaw, and poor of
flesh. They are not, on the whole, so small as the
trout usually are in such waters; for although a poun-
der is rare, there are many of half-a-pound, and the run
is not much under a quarter. But the impression pro-
duced by a Fasney trout of half-a-pound is painfully
suggestive of age and ravenousness. The head is much
too big in proportion to the body, the teeth are long
and sharp ; and you might fancy that just as constant
exertion develops the muscles of the blacksmith's arm,
constant indulgence of voracity had exaggerated the
masticating members of these fish. But the truth is,
that the trout's head seems to continue to grow when
the food is too scarce to carry forward the shoulders at
an equal rate, and it is by its dentation and the length
of its maxillary bones that the patriarch of a pool may
often be detected, rather than by its weight. A two-year-
old trout of the Blackadder is probably heavier than a
ten-year-old trout of the Fasney — but lay their heads
together, and see the verification of the adage about
old crania and young shoulders ! As might be inferred
from our description, the Fasney is a late stream, the
spring being far advanced before the trout in it will take
fly or are worth catching. But in summer it is a certain
producer; and we have fished it with worm on the worst
of all sorts of days for worm-fishing, when a driving
mist filled the lonely glen, and the whirr of the grouse
getting up from amongst the heather was like the noise
of thunder, and yet found our creel as full as we cared
to carry home by the evening. Longformacus Inn, on

L

162 THE BORDER ANGLER.

the Dye, which we will have to notice afterwards, is
the nearest place to the Fasney where accommodation
can be had. The very head of the Whitadder is nearest
to Haddington of any railway station, — from which
town, however, Millknow is nine miles distant.

We could not imagine five miles of finer water than
the Whitadder from the junction of the Fasney to the
junction of the Dye. Gravelly streams, with here and
there a rocky pool, where some aged predator lurks
secure, often of no mean weight, — the gush of a little
rapid occasionally, that makes eddies just adapted for
fly, worm, or creeper, — pretty bends and shallow by-
runs by the edge of grassy banks, into which, in the hot
summer days, dozens qf trout crowd to watch for food
— these are the characteristics of this stretch of the
Whitadder, while there are fish enough for a legion of
fishers daily. Nor is their size by any means con-
temptible : in a flood a large average may be attained
with minnow — we have known Geordie Hamilton (of
whom anon) kill a three-pounder at Cranshaws, and
he used to say he knew where others of even larger
size had their haulds, from which he intended to ab-
stract them the first favourable day ; and a trout of a
pound weight, and several of half-a-pound, may almost
be relied upon by any one who fishes the water care-
fully with any of the other lures. We have heard
that about a mile of the Whitadder near Cranshaws is
supposed to be protected by the Marquis of Abercom,
but we have never experienced any interruption, al-
though we have fished it frequently. This is the only
point at which there is even the suspicion of preserving
in the whole course of the Whitadder.

BOTHWELL-BUKN — DYE-WATEK. 1G3

Bothwell-burn joins the Whitaclder at St. Agness
about a mile above Cranshaws Kirk. We have only
tested the lower pools, but believe that it is throughout
full of trouts ; and it is a capital resort in a flood.

Dye-water debouches half-a-mile above EUemford
Inn. It has run nearly as far as the Whitadder at
that point — that is, about twelve miles ; but its volume
of water is scarcely so great, its tributaries being few
and small. In its head-waters trout are excessively
numerous. Above Byrecleuch — which is a curious old
house, used as a shooting-box by the Duke of Roxburgh,
with a farm-steading and a few cottages beside it — the
number of dozens that might be taken in a day are
scarcely limited save by the possibilities of casting and
pulling out. In a flood with fly in April or May,
baskets have been filled with surprising celerity, and
scarcely anywhere will the worm-fisher find larger
profits or quicker returns for his expenditure of trouble
and care. Its lower parts are scarcely inferior. There
are large trout in the deep and rugged pools worn out
in the rock ; and, just at the turn of a flood, the min-
now has often done great execution. In 1856 the prize
basket at the annual competition of an angling club
that exists in the village of Longformacus weighed
24 lbs., captured by minnow in the part of the water
that is most fished, the last three miles of its course ;
while other takes were, we believe, upwards of or
closely approaching 20 lbs. The principal tributary of
the Dye is the Watch-water, a stream full of trout, but
these of the very smallest size. We have captured
dozens in it without getting one a quarter of a pound
in weight. The Watch joins it a little above Long-

164 THE BORDER ANGLER.

formticus ; while a little below it a burn of a very dif-
ferent cliaracter enters. Blacksmill-burn, whicli flows
round the base of Dirringlon Law, and then through
some meadow-ground, yields trout of considerable size
and excellent quality. Although not worth fishing for
more than a couple of miles, in that space trout of
nearly a pound in weight may be taken — we have even
heard of one of three pounds being caught in a part of
the burn little more than a foot in width. And it occurs
to us here to mention a mode of burn-fishing, where
there are trout of a good size, that may be practised
with great success in a flood, just when the yellow
colour is going off the water. Take a large-sized worm-
hook with a pretty long shank, tied to strong gut, and
round the length of the shank beat a piece of lead such
as can be drawn into the body of a minnow. Have a
loop at the end of the strand of gut, and with a darning-
needle pass the gut up through the minnow and out at
the tail, leaving the hook projecting at one side of the
mouth. The lead acts as a sinker, and the angler can
work his bait in below banks and close to the bottom
in a way that is impossible with the spinning minnow.
Large trout take it readily ; and it is advisable to give
them plenty of time before striking, as they often seize
the body first, and so don't get the hook into their
mouth until they begin to swallow the bait. A large
minnow may be used. English anglers practise fishing
somewhat similar to this in clear water, with smaller
bait and delicate tackle.

The pretty village of Longformacus stands on the
banks of the Dye, about three miles from its junction
with the Whitadder, and the neat inn at this place

ELLEMFORD INN — GEOKDIE HAMILTON. 165

affords excellent facilities for fishing all these upland
waters. From no other place indeed can the upper part
of the Dye, the Watch, or the Fasney, be conveniently
got at, while the Whitadder is three miles, and the
higher portion of the Blackadder six miles, distant.

Half-a-mile below the confluence of the Dye, on the
Whitadder, stands Ellemford Inn, the most noted of
all the fishing hostels in these parts. Until within the
last five or six years, its landlord was the redoubtable
Geordie Hamilton, who as an angler had few equals,
and as an innkeeper was beyond all praise. He died
in 1856 ; but none of the fishing frequenters of the
Whitadder who had the luck to visit Ellemford in the
days of Geordie's glory can ever forget him. Rather
more than six feet in height, with the aspect of an
angling patriarch, coat and waiscoat of voluminous di-
mensions, corduroy knee-breeches, grey " rig-and-fur"
stockings, and fishing creel of the largest size, Geordie
was a sight to startle a cockney ; while the heartiness
of his laugh and language with those of whatever degree
whom he admitted among his familiars, his shrewd bor-
der-wit, his remarkable capacity for toddy, and his won-
derful fishing-stories, of themselves tempted anglers to
his lonely inn on the skirts of the Lammermoors, were
it but to spend a night in his company. At the water-
side he was an invaluable companion. Bred as a sal-
mon-fisher on Tweedside, he had studied the conditions
of air and water as affecting angling from his boyhood ;
and he knew the habits and temperaments of the sal-
monidse as if he had been brought up amongst them —
as indeed might partly be afSrmed. As a minnow-fisher
he was probably unequall-ed on the borders — as a worm-

166 THE BORDER ANGLER.

fisher he could only be compared with the masters. We
have heard him aver that upon one occasion when he

had engaged to fish Wee Willie L for a wager with

worm, he killed in the Whitadder near Ellemford 96 lbs.
of trout. At another time, when he wished to astonish
some strangers who had found their way to Ellemford,
he fished for a whole day in one stream above the Black
Weil, between Ellemford and Abbey St. Bathan's, and
when they came up to him, and saw him without his
great creel on his back, they fancied he had got nothing,
until Geordie pointed out thirty dozen of trout which
he had thrown out in heaps upon the water-side ! But
even granting that Geordie could use the long-bow as
well as the fishing-rod, he certainly accomplished ex-
traordinary feats. We have seen him, when fishing
with minnow just after the turn of a summer-flood, fill
a basket in an hour or two almost without stirring from
one spot ; and it was remarked as a singular fact that,
in the annual competition of the Ellem Fishing Club,
(the oldest and most extensive club of the kind in the
south of Scotland), the member was usually successful
who had Geordie as an attendant. After reigning many
years at Ellemford, Geordie quarrelled with his land-
lord, and flitted fifteen miles down the Whitadder to
Harden ; he afterwards took an inn at Eeston, on the
Eye water ; and finally died as host of the Cross-keys,
Dunse, where we believe his spouse Jean, a Berwick-
shire Tibbie Shiels, still lives. We saw Geordie a few
months before he died, and although greatly broken
down by dropsy and rheumatic gout, his heart still
panted for the water-brooks, and he speculated about
future fishing-days. He 1 amented the degeneracy of these

167

times in respect of salmon. " It 's just this time forty
years," he said, " that I was fishing the Kelso waitter ;
and atween twae o'clock on the Monday morning and
sax o'clock on the Tuesday morning, we killed saxteen
hundred salmon and grilse. G — d! there were as mony
fish killed in the Tweed in that ae week as are killed
in a hale year noo ! " He was criticising the manage-
ment of Ellemford Inn after he left it — for the tenant
has since then been changed yearly. " They dinna ken
hoo to chairge^^^ he summed up, as the climax of their
mistakes. Geordie's own tariff was according to his
estimate of his guest's means : when he knew that the
purse was ample, he kept a boy with a donkey flying
to Dunse for the viands of the season, gave dinners at
Ellemford that would not have disgraced a good Edin-
burgh tavern, and did not scruple to exact ample re-
numeration for his care and trouble. Others he satisfied
with more indifferent fare, and with the most moderate
charges. So throughout the season Ellemford was
usually full of anglers, all satisfied with their treat-
ment. His successors, he said, fed all alike and charged
all alike ; but we suspect that Geordie's absence was
itself one great reason of the falling-off of customers.
While on the subject, we may mention that even within
the last few years we have observed a great diminution
of the drinking at fishing-inns. Geordie often sat up
almost the whole night over his potent toddy ; and al-
though he himself rose punctually at five o'clock, no
matter how deep or late the carouse, his guests were
not always able to follow his example, or indeed to fish
very well after they got to the water- side. There is
nothing that the angler ought more to avoid than too

168 THE BORDER ANGLER.

much toddy overnight. In the morning the eye is less
keen, the hand less steady, the body is unfitted for pro-
longed exertion, the angling-animus is weakened, and
the enjoyment of the sport greatly diminished. Inn-
keepers are often heard to complain that now-a-days
the coffee-pot rather than the bottle is in requisition
amongst their guests, " and if they tak ae tumbler
afore gaun to their beds, they seldom tak ony mair ! "
— from which we infer that temperance notions have
found their way even amongst anglers, and also that
a new class has begun to go for recreation to unfre-
quented river-sides. The old roystering habits are fast
changing ; and (while, however, we only recommend
anglers carefully to keep within the limits of their
capacity — for what is more grateful than a steaming
tumbler as you are looking over your pocket-book after
a hard day's toil ?) — ^we rejoice at the reformation.

We have as yet said nothing as to the proper pabu-
lum with which an angler ought to store his pockets ;
and we apprehend that that must in great measure be
according to what can be had. Sandwiches are the
never-failing rations out-of-doors ; we have seen cold
fowl and buffalo tongue exhibited with great effect by
the water-side ; we have fished and walked eighteen
hours a-day on bread-and-eheese. Of course, portable-
ness is the chief object to be kept in view. The meat-
pies sold at railway refreshment rooms are very con-
venient for anglers starting in the morning from a
place where they ai-e to be had. In the way of liquids,
we know of nothing comparable to whisky-and-milk
in equal proiX)rtions, and if a soda-water bottle-full
should be judged insufficient^ the angler can have his

HINTS ON REFRESHMENTS. 169

flask filled with the spirit, and will probably find milk
at some farm-house, wherewith to renew the compound.
In a hot summer-day, when he sits down to luncheon
at the river-side, he ought to immerse his bottle for a
few minute in a shady part of the stream, or better,
in a spring or covered runner, if it is to be had ; and
a cool and grateful, as well as strengthening beverage,
will thus be obtained. These minute instructions are,
of course, trivial, but the want of " gumption" on the
part of the anglers who, usually " in populous cities
pent," escape for a day or a week to the country, is
often astonishing. We have met some who did not
even know how to wash their hands, and had either
to eat their food with fingers embrued in the blood of
trouts and encrusted with the entrails of worms — im-
pervious to any amount of rubbing with simple water
— or to go without. Cold water by itself, even with
soap, is ineifectual to produce cleanliness in such cases ;
but a handful of sand from the edge of the water, or
even of mud or earth, will in a couple of minutes
make them as fit for the dinner-table as if the ablution
had been performed in hot-water with a cake of patent
Windsor. The angler should not neglect refreshment ;
for although we have fished sixteen hours without eat-
ing, and experienced little stomachic inconvenience
save for a little at the recurring hours for meals w^e are
of opinion that it heightens the effect of the fatigue
afterwards. Neither, if the angler intends to fish next
day, should the exertion, unless for some special object,
be too long kept up. Ten or twelve hours angling
ought to satisfy any reasonable mortal, and allow of
intervals of rest. Celebrated anglers are often distin-

170 THE BORDER ANGLER.

guished by great powers of endurance ; but they also
carefully husband their strength and energies. He who
goes too eagerly to his sport in the morning, usually
flags by the afternoon.

And if the angler loses the inward impulse to sport,
he loses everything. There is no taskmaster standing
over him, he may be careless of glory when not fishing
for a wager, and, unless he is a James Baillie, his
bread is not likely to depend upon his efforts. Any
drooping of the spirits, therefore, caused by loss of
strength or reaction from over-exertion, alters his
whole view of his amusement, and he turns despond-
ingly inn-wards just as his neighbour is getting into
the full tide of excitement in the middle of a " take."

Ellemford commands the whole upper part of the
Whitadder, and is still well frequented. " It was a
merry place in days of old," when annual bands of
Newcastle anglers, forsaking their native Tyne and
the Coquet, sought the Whitadder, when their com-
peers of Edinburgh met them from the North, and an
occasional omnibus from Berwick brought regiments
from the mouth of the Tweed. But even yet, although
you may haply only meet a militia captain, an India
surgeon on furlough, or a wandering inspector of re-
gisters with his rod disguised as a walking-stick, and
a game-bag slung under his coat instead of a creel,
most pleasantly and profitably may the time be passed
at Ellemford. It is six miles from Dunse, which is
the terminus of a branch of the North British, and
about seven miles from the Grant's-House station on
the main line. The last way is ordinarily chosen ; a
conveyance can be had at Grant's if required, while

THE WHITADDER. 171

by following a rough road over the hills, the pedestrian
comes upon the Whitadder after four miles walking,
at Abbey St. Bathan's, three miles below Ellemford,
to which place he can fish up.

From the mouth of the Dye to Abbey St. Bathan's
— a distance of nearly four miles — ^is the part of the
water most fished by visitors, but it swarms with trout,
some of them of large size. There are several pools
in this part of the river, where, when a clear day and a
low condition of the water enable one to get a glimpse
into their secrets, the number of trout that may be
seen is truly astonishing. With minnow or May-fly a
very satisfactory average weight may be had ; and the
recollection of the satisfaction with which, after Geor-
die Hamilton had given us our first lesson in minnow-
fishing, we landed a trout approaching closely to 2ibs.
in Greenhope Weil, still remains after many days. A
few sea-trout find their way up so far by every flood
after the middle of June, and, when they are in the
water, the Black Weil and Greenhope are sure to have
their share, so that a cast for them in those places
with a special lure — a whitling or very small grilse-
fly — is sometimes worth trying. They are often, how-
ever, taken by the trout-fisher with fly or worm. The
last tenant of Ellemford Inn used to capture them,
after the water had got so clear as to let him know
their " haulds," by working three large hooks, tied
together, back to back, and leaded so as to sink
them under the fish, and by a sudden jerk hooking
it by the body — when of course it made great play.
Monnynut-burn comes in a little above Abbey St.
Bathan's, and contains considerable store of trout.

172 THE BORDER ANGLER.

The angler should always betake himself to such small
waters when he finds the larger stream yielding him
sport relucantly.

Abbey St. Bathan's is a pretty little village, an
oasis amongst the desert Lammermoors, deriving its
name from an ancient conventual establishment dedi-
cated to St. Bothan. It is, as we have said, four miles
from the Grant's-House station of the North British
railway. Formerly Mattie Pringle's rude little hos-
telry there used almost to rival Ellemford, having
been indeed, we believe, of older date ; but when she
died, her daughter Maggie scarcely kept up the charac-
ter of the house, and finally ran off with a soldier or
a navvy — (how the ways of men and women are the
same in the lonely village amongst the hills as in the
seething factory- town !) — and the licence was with-
drawn. It is now, however, again under respectable
management — there is a cleanly double-bedded room
— and as to the licence, why, 'tis not far to Dunse. The
most picturesque part of the Whitadder is the stretch
of four miles below the Abbey. The rugged banks
are finely wooded, and at the Copper-mines (that
metal having been anciently wrought here), the water
labours through a rocky channel — in one part so con-
tracted that it may almost be stepped over, in another
boiling out into a " Devil's Cauldron," popularly
deemed unfathomable — as if the stream born of the
hills were making great efforts to break through the
iron barrier that prevented its descent into the plain
below. The angling in this portion of the water is
admirable, and in the deep eddying pools there are
trout of the largest dimensions. At last, winding round

ABBEY ST. batman's — DUNSE-LAW. 173

the base of Cockbnrn-Law, the Whitadder leaves the
Lammermoors for the rich low-lying Merse. It is here
most readily got at from Dunse, which is two miles
distant from the Whitadder. (On Dunse-Law, under
which this douce little town is built, General Lesly,
afterwards Earl of Leven, twice encamped with a
large army of Covenanters, — the first time dictating
terms to King Charles I., who lay with his forces at
Berwick, the second time making his way by New-
castle into Yorkshire, where he concluded a favourable
treaty. The remains of the godly camp on Dunse-law
are still pointed out.*) Dunse has two excellent inns ;
and the Cross-Keys, kept by Geordie Hamilton's widow
although a second-rate one, might do for many an
angler.

From Preston Bridge, the nearest point to Dunse,
down to Chirnside, the Whitadder is a good deal fished,
chiefly by local anglers ; but that it has abundance of
trout will be demonstrated to any one who happens to

* " Lesly's March," a ditty that records these triumphant
performances of the Scotch Presbyterians, under their able
Generals, the two Leslies, has, considering its origin, remark-
ably little of the savour of grace in it. Indeed it begins,
" March ! March !
WJvj the devil do you na march ? "
and while it professes the object of the marching to be " true
gospel to maintain," it has the following naive declaration of
national conceit : —

" "When to the Kirk we come,
"We'll purge it ilka room,
Frae popish relics and a' sic innovation.
That a' the xvarld moy see,
There 's nane in the right but tve
Ofthecmld Scottish ncitioyi."

Yet Professor Blackie thinks it his mission to teach his conntrj--
men to estimate themselves a little more highly than they do !

1 74 THE BORDER ANGLER.

be on its banks in April or May, when a " take " comes
on. The trout, for the rest of the Whitadder, below
this point, are on the whole larger than in the npper
portions ; and fly-fishing may be practised a week or
two earlier in the season. It is equally adapted for all
kinds of angling. At Chirnside, which is a station on
the Dunse branch from the North British, there is a
comfortable village inn. A paper-mill here, however,
spoils the fishing somewhat for a couple of miles, and
the angler following the river need not grudge an
hour or two to take a peep at Ninewells, the birth-
place of David Hume, and where he sometimes stayed
after he had acquired fame. (Some of his comical
hoaxes and jeux d' esprit, addressed to his friends in
London — all the more comical as coming from such a
philosopher — are dated from Ninewells. He was one
of the Berwickshire Homes, but altered his name to
make it accord with the border pronunciation, for with
Mersemen of all degrees the Earl of Home is the Earl
of Hume.) It is not until it reaches Allanton Bridge
that the Whitadder reacquires its character. Here it
is joined by the Blackadder. Allanton has an inn, or
respectable public-house ; but it has changed its occu-
pants since, sleeping there on one occasion, we were
astonished in the morning by a charge of eighteen-
pence, the pajTuent of which was in full of all demands
for bed, breakfast — a Scotch breakfast — and a glass of
toddy. " She didna chairge onything for the bed,"
the hostess said, and could with difficulty be prevailed
upon to accept half-a-crown. We fear that the old
body is dead.

THE BLACKADDER — TWINLAW-CAIRNS. 175

Springing from the breast of Twinlaw-Caims, the
Blackadder is at first a heather-burn, with most ancient
and hardly fish-Hke inhabitants. Once, when tracing
it to its source, our hist cast, where the infant stream,
two feet broad, makes its way down the hill-side, pro-
duced an animal so black and grim-looking, albeit a
•quarter of a pound in weight, that we bolted incon-
tinently over the shoulder of the hill to the head of the
Watch- water, where the trout, although pigmies, have
bright yellow sides and starry backs. After it gets to
the foot of the hill, and flows through the upland mea-
dows, the farmers have made most lamentable intro-
missions with its windings for several miles both above
and below Wadderlee — have straightened its course,
destroyed the well-worn banks in which trout harbour,
and given it a bed of clay, for such guests unmeet.
We caught a stalwart Merseman in flagrante delicto^
" sheughing" a new run for the juvenile Blackadder;
and but that he gave us the legend of the Twinlaw-
Cairns — a black hill with two pyramidal piles of stone
on the top of it — we should not have passed him by
without a left-handed blessing. We cannot retail the
particulars of his story ; and indeed it smelt, we opined,
a good deal of Mackay Wilson ; but it was to the effect
that in some foray from the Merse into England, an in-
fant was brought away, and reared by a family of the
Humes ; and that, when he had grown to be a man,
his name and lineage remaining unknown, a " return
match" came off, an English army having found its
way to the head of the Blackadder; the nameless youth
stepped forward and challenged any of the Southron
host to single combat ; an opponent came out to meet

176 THE BORDER ANGLER.

I
him — they fought — and both fell ; when it was dis-
covered that each had slain his twin brother ; where-
upon the Cairns were erected to commemorate the fra-
tricidal catastrophe, and hence the name of the hill or
law. But while miles of water are spoiled by the
straightening of the water-course, there are occasional
places where trout still remain. From a hole below
Wadderlee, left somehow, or wrought out somehow, in
the straight bed that had been cut, we once took a
trout considerably more than a pound in weight, and
never did fish fight more gallantly for his life. Except
for curiosity, however, the Blackadder is not worth fol-
lowing above its junction with a water about its equal
in size, that comes in from the direction of Westruther,
of the angling capabilities of which we cannot speak.
It is here, indeed, that the stream begins to assume its
peculiar character, and that long sluggish pools termi-
nate and give rise to short lively streams, into which
large trout move at feeding-time. There is no long
rippling channelly flow of water in the Blackadder,
there being more slow pools than fast streams. In
these pools, save when fly-fishing with a wind, or
minnow-fishing after a flood, it is of no use to angle ;
so attention should be chiefly directed to the runs and
occasional by-places. The district is lonely : with the
exception of a single farm-house and a herd's cottage
or two, for five or six miles above Greenlaw there is
no sign of human life. But if the fishing life is not
so exuberant as in the AYhitadder and its other tribu-
taries, the size of the trout makes ample amends. No
water, however, requires greater care on the part of
the angler. Small flies and the very finest tackle, or

GREENLAW — THE PROTECTIONIST SYSTEM. 177

red and lively worms, and much creeping and caution,
are necessary to tempt fish the abundance and excel-
lence of whose ordinary feeding is manifested in the
pinkness and firmness of their flesh when cooked. The
Fangrist-burn, which flows in from Dogden-moss, has
much of the character of the Blackadder itself, but of
its inhabitants we are hardly entitled to speak from one
unsuccessful trial.

Greenlaw is the county-town of Berwickshire, and
is eight miles from Dunse and ten from Coldstream,
without any public conveyance running from either of
these places. It is, therefore, out of the way, and is
scarcely a resort of angling tourists ; but it is never-
theless well worth a visit, as from it only can the head
of the Blackadder be conveniently fished. It has a
large and commodious inn.

For two or three miles below Greenlaw, the angling
in the Blackadder is open to the public ; but for the
rest of its course it is almost all carefully preserved by
the different proprietors through whose land it flows, —
Sir Hugh Campbell of Marchmount, Mr. Swinton of
Kimmerghame, Mr. D. M. Home of Wedderburn (who
even tries to preserve the Tweed at Milnegraden and
Paxton !) Mr. Buchan of Kelloe, Sir George Boswell of
Blackadder, and others. By some of these, however —
chiefly by Professor Swinton, younger of Kimmerghame
— ^leave is, we understand, prettily liberally given,
and a visitor at Dunse might probably find little dif-
ficulty in obtaining permission to have a day in the
lower parts of the Blackadder, where the trout are even
bigger and better than in the upper waters. Geordie

M

178 THE BORDER ANGLER.

Hamilton used to talk, more suo, about "trailin' theni
oot wi' the mennon, twae-punclers and three-punders/'
We are not distinctly informed as to some small por-
tions of the water in which the angling is not restricted,
and hesitate to recommend anglers to go on chance to
a stream where the cordon of gamekeepers is scarcely
if at all broken. This protectionist system is quite of
recent date.

From Allanton, where the Blackadder joins, the
Whitadder's course to the Tweed is about nine miles
in length. It receives no other tributary of any note,
not even a burn that is worth investigating. From
Allanton-bridge, to Hutton-bridge, a distance of about
five miles, a day's fishing of the very best description
may be had. At the Blue stane -ford there is a stream
famous amongst the anglers of the district, and every
two or three miles there is a deep mill-dam where
large trout are bred, and which is a sort of reservoir
for the supply of the streams above it. The trout are
of good average size, and still numerous, although not
to be compared to the swarming populations of the
upper streams. Such continues the character of the
Whitadder to its mouth. Although for the final two
or three miles of its course it is very much fished by
the anglers of Berwick and of neighbouring villages,
there are still trout enough for all, and, even within
the last few years, very great takes have been got.
We have known of one or two trout upwards of three
pounds in weight being taken from the Whitadder; but
of course even pound fish are exceptional, although the
chance of one or two is almost always offered to the
expert angler. We have captured an eel upwards of

ANACHARIS ALSINASTRUM. 179

2ft)S. and another about 41bs. in the lower part of the
Whitadder.

Of late years a considerable nuisance and obstruc-
tion to angling has arisen in the Whitadder. The
Anacliaris Alsinastrum, the weed that has almost
choked up the canals of Lincolnshire and others of
the midland English counties, first made its appearacce
in this kingdom in Dunse Castle loch, where it was
discovered about seventeen years ago by the late Dr.
George Johnston of Berwick (who was a keen angler
as well as an eminent naturalist.) The intruder found
its way into the Whitadder, and has established itself
in most of the mill-dams, threatening almost to block
them up. It seems not to be particular about what
sort of root it gets, but spreads with amazing rapidity,
until in several places it has almost stretched across
the Whitadder. A sprig of it put into a tumbler of
water will indeed in a very short time fill the vessel
without taking any root at all. Large trout hooked
in the neighbourhood of a bed of this weed make a
dash into it, and if the angler is fishing with fly, he
may be thankful if he recovers his cast, without much
regretting the certain loss of the trout. Fortunately
the recurring floods help to repress its extension, and
it cannot obtain a footing in the streams. In no other
Scotch river that we know of has this annoying in-
vader presented itself.

It is stated that, some thirty or forty years ago,
salmon freely entered the Whitadder ; but singularly
enough, considering how many must pass its mouth,
scarcely a specimen of the grown salar ever ventures
into it now. Even in the most plentiful seasons, very

180 THE BORDER ANGLER.

few grilse visit it either. Hosts of bull-trouts, how-
ever, swarm into it in the spawning- time, and a
favourable flood spreads them throughout its waters,
almost to its source. A pretty high cauld about a mile
from its mouth prevents their getting up if the flood is
only a low one, and thus in the dam at Cantie's Bridge
many hundreds of them are kept throughout the win-
ter. In the old kelt-killing days, when the occupier
of the public-house at the bridge leased the fishing in
this pool, murderous slaughter used to be committed
in it every spring ; but of late years it has been pre-
served, and the abortive experiments to ascertain the
rate of the kelt's growth have been made here.

( 181 )
CHAPTER VIII.

THE EYE, THE TYNE, AND THE ESKS.

|HE pedestrian angler passing from Grant's
House to the Whitadder is sorely tempted
by a burn with some pretty pools and runs
that he has to cross ; and indeed most people put up
their rods and take a cast. This is the Eye-water.
It rises amongst the hills behind Abbey St. Bathan's,
but almost from its source flows through upland mea-
dows that are rich enough to provide feeding equal to
that of most waters that flow at a lower altitude. The
trout are both numerous and of good size, and if there
has been a flood the night before, the angler bound
for the Whitadder cannot do better than devote his
forenoon to it, either immediately above Grant's, or
above the point where the road to the Abbey crosses
it. Half-a-mile or so above Grant's (the Eye flows
within a few hundred yards of the railway station)
there is a part of the water that seems to have been
straightened or cut at some time ; above that it runs
in a very narrow bed, down which the angler can fol-
low his worm without being seen ; farther up there
are pools and good holes. Between Grant's House
and Eeston, the next station on the North British,
the fly-fisher is greatly interrupted by trees — (we once
lost almost a whole day by persisting in trying to fish
with fly from Eeston upwards.) There is, however,

182 THE BOEDER ANGLER.

a mile of water nearly clear from wood below Grant's,

— but a General Somebody, who rents a bouse in tbe

neigbbourbood, bas set up a claim to preseiwe part

of it. It is less tban a quarter of a mile in extent,

and is not a very cboice piece of water ; so before tbe

bulking plougbman wbo acts tbe gamekeeper can get

down to tbe trespasser, be will probably bave pretty

well ransacked tbe General's treasures, and can eitber

make an apology or not, as be tbinks proper, before

walking off. Tbe worm, used witb a sbort line, and

dropt into tbe streams from bebind trees, is, bowever,

effective in tbe Eye ; and in a flood, we sbould tbink

a basket-full of very good trout migbt be got witb tbe

dipping-minnow, wbicb we bave already described —

(see tbe T>ye^ in Cbapter VII.) — and wbicb could be

wrougbt under tbe tree-roots, wbere tbe large fisb lie

on tbe look-out. Tbere are some bleacbing-mills or

otber works a little above Reston, wbicb spoil tbe Eye

in tbe immediate neigbbourbood of tbat village ; but a

little fartber down it in great measure recovers itself.

Tbere is still, in tbe four miles between Reston and

Ayton, a good deal of interruption to angling caused

by wood ; but mucb of it is open, and may be fisbed

profitably witb fly. Tbe worm, bowever, is tbe most

effective lure, tbe stream running favourably for its

use. Tbere is also a paper-mill at Ayton, wbicb bas

anytbing but a beneficial efiect upon tbe angling.

Below tbat little town, tbe Eye flows tbrougb tbe

grounds of Ayton Castle, and is probably preserved,

altbougb we bave fisbed it witbout interruption, but

so early in tbe morning tbat perbaps tbe gamekeeper

bad not got up. Tbere are capital trout in tbis part

THE EYE — THE TYNE. 183

of the water. These grounds, however, extend to
within a mile or so of the mouth of the Eye, and it
would not be worth any one's while to miss the pre-
served water in order to fish what is left, if indeed that
is not preserved also. This little Berwickshire river
enters the sea at the fishing- village of Eyemouth.

At Grant's House, Keston, and Ayton, all needful
accommodation may be obtained ; and these stations
are so conveniently situated, that there is just a quiet
day's fishing, between the morning and the evening
evening trains, from one to another.

The Haddingtonshire Tyne is noted for the size and
quality of its trouts, for the strictness with which it is
preserved, and for a highly unsatisfactoiy decision in
law which has given a colouring of legality to the ex-
clusion of the public from angling in it.' Its sources
are on the verge of the vale of Gala — the Tyne and its
principal tributary, Cakemuir- water, rising close to
each other, although separating widely before they meet
again near Saltoun House. So rigidly is the exclusion
of the public enforced, that it is almost an aqua incog-
nita to modern anglers who do not possess the privilege
of acquaintanceship with any of the proprietors of its
banks. The Tynehead station, on the Edinburgh and
Hawick line, receives the angler near its source, and
we believe that for a few miles, while it is but a burn,
no restriction is attempted. At that part, however, it
is not of so much value as a trouting stream, althougli
it has already acquired the peculiar character that dis-
tinguishes it throughout its course. There are, how-
ever, a good many trouts, and it is much frequented
by anglers who are acquainted with it. Gorebridge

184 THE BORDER ANGLER.

station also suits for catcliing it a little further down
at Crichton by a walk of a couple of miles. From
Tynehead station Cakemuir-water may be reached.

. In the neighbourhood of Haddington a mile or two
of the Tyne may be fished by the public, and the trout
are of large size ; but of course there is too much local
fishing to allow of great temptation to the roving ang-
ler. From thence to Tyningham, the river is literally
shut up, and the utmost pains are taken to exclude un-
privileged rods. Until lately, fishing nsed to be allowed
from Linton np to near Hailes Castle ; but that too has
been stopped, and we believe some of the lower parts
are rented for trout-fishing — a thing entirely unparal-
leled in the south of Scotland. We have heard that a
newly formed angling-club in Edinburgh has a vague
notion of leasing a part of the Tyne ; but we trust that
its members will think better of it, and offer no pre-
mium to the churls who, if they do not greedily reserve
to themselves a sport that so salutarily might be free
to all, a,t least play the miserable parts of dogs in
mangers. Landed proprietors who can act so may
be supposed to be actuated by very mean motives, and
we have no doubt would eagerly let their waters ; but
certainly angling clubs ought to be the last of all to
give them any encouragement.

There is much of baronial magnificence and tra-
dition in the vale of the Tyne. At its very source
stands Crichton Castle : —

" That Castle rises on the steep

Of the green vale of Tyne ;
And, far beneath, where slow they creep,
From pool to eddy, dark and deep,
Where alders moist and willows weep,

You hear her vale repine.

THE NORTH AND SOUTH ESKS. 185

Crichton ! though now thy miry court
But pens the Lazy steer and sheep,
Thy turrets rude and tottered keep

Have been the minstrel's loved resort."

Winton, Salton, Letliington, Hailes Castle — the hold of
the Hepburns — and Tyningham, the seat of the Earl
of Haddington, speak of the richness of the valley
through which the Tyne flows.

Pressmennan-loch, within reach of Linton station,
is well stocked mth trout, of the celebrated Lochleven
breed, we believe ; and while the late Mrs. Ferguson
of Biel was alive, permission to angle it was pretty
freely granted. Her heir is Mr. R. Dundas Christopher
Hamilton-Nisbet, who we hope is equally liberal. The
Burn of Biel, which flows partly through the same estate,
and partly through that of Mr. Balfour of Whitting-
hame, is also said to be populous with good trout.

While the Tyne is thus almost blotted out from the
Scottish Angler's map by encroachments upon ancient
rights, other causes have conduced to render both the
Esks equally unknown to him, and something very
different from trouting-streams. The North Esk is a
mere factory drain ; and though the South Esk is not
so much polluted, and contains some trouts, it is care-
fully shut up from the public. At the meeting of the
Commissioners of Supply for the county of Edinburgh
in January 1858, we find the newspapers reporting
the following discussion : —

" The Duke of Buccleuch, in reference to the statement in
Mr. List's report as to the sanitary condition of the villages,
said the state of the rivers, and more especially the North Esk,
was rapidly becoming a very serious and was alrelidy a very

186 THE BOEDER ANGLER.

grievous evil. At present, the North Esh was so polluted that
the water could no longer he used for drinhing purposes, nor
indeed for any household purpose whatever. It was not even
fit for cattle and horses, and in Dalkeith Park he had had to
erect fences along the stream to keep them from drinking of it.
The effect on the fish was such that, while up to within a few
years they had abundance of salmon trout in it, these had al-
most entirely disappeared, though formerly the trout there were
some of the f nest in the south of Scotland ; and, even when they
vjere caught, dressed, and put upon the table, the smell they
emitted had been such that they had had to be sent out of the
room. On the South Esk there was only one factory, but on
the ISTorth Esk the bleaching works and other factories were
very numerous. He did not know whether the evil was alto-
gether due to them, but he had no doubt it was so in a large
measure, and he trusted that these factories would do as those
at Hawick, Selkirk, and Galashiels had done, where, under the
pressure of the Tweed Commissioners, they had made arrange-
ments by which the water was so filtered that the poisonous in-
gredients were prevented getting into the river.

" Viscount Melville said that he also was one of the sufferers
from this grievance. There could be no doubt that deleterious
liquids were allowed to find their way from these factories into
the stream ; this was shown by the white/oam that came down
daily from the mills at Lasswade ; and at one mill opposite to
Mavisbank he thought the nuisance perfectly unjustifiable. The
mischief that these mills had created was past all belief, and he
hoped that something would be done to remedy the evil.

" Mr. C. Cowan said that, from the extent to which manu-
facturing had increased upon the banks of the North Esk, they
could scarcely expect that the stream should be as pellucid as
it was in the days of their forefathers. He wished, however, to
state, for his partners and himself, that they had adopted and
continued to enforce, as much as possible, every means for re-
ducing the evil to its lowest possible amount ; and he believed
it was the general wish of all his brethren in the trade, from
Penicuick to Dalkeith, to do everything in their power for that
purpose. They must bear in mind, however, that papermaking

POLLUTION OF THE XORTII ESK. 187

was not the only cause of the evil now complained of. There
were coal-wastes along the stream, the refuse from which he be-
lieved to be most destructive to animal life. Gas-tar was also
another pernicious ingredient that found its way into the
stream. In addition to that, they had found a practice prevailing
of stealing chloride of lime from their works for the purpose of
destroying fish — a practice which it was by no means easy to
ensure them against. He did not deny that there was ground
of complaint, but he was afraid that much of it was inseparable
from the growth of manufactures and the extent to which they
were carried on. He believed, however, that the construction
of reservoirs for storing water for the summer season would tend
in a considerable degree to meet the evil.

" Mr. Scott MoncriefF said that ever since he knew the river
it had been the receptacle of the sewage of the little towns on
its bank ; but it was only of late that poisonous ingredients had
flowed into it from the paper factories. There used to be abun-
dance of trout in both rivers ; now there were none. There was
a great change for the worse, which he could not attribute to
anything but the extension of the paper works, and he could
not but think that through the exertions of the proprietors of
these mills the nuisance might be diminished.

" Sir W. Gibson-Craig thought the question was not purely a
local one, because it referred to all the rivers in the county, in-
cluding the Water of Leith. He thought it a matter of public
interest, and one which, as a County, they ought to take up.

" The Duke of Buccleuch said he also looked on this not as
a local, and still less as a personal question. It was a matter
of serious inconvenience to a large body of the people that the
water should have become so unfit for use ; it was a matter that
affected their personal health and comfort.

" On the motion of Sir W. Johnston, the subject was remitted
to the General Committee."

This is a miserable condition for a classic stream like
the Esk to be reduced to; and these facts are sufficient
of themselves to suggest the necessity for the autho-
rities to use every vigilance and precaution to prevent

188 THE BORDER ANGLER.

any of ttie border-streams that yield tribute to the
Tweed from being similarly spoiled. No exertion
ought to be spared to enforce such preventives as will
keep the Teviot from becoming a huge and offensive
ditch. Cost and care, so long as they do not actually
become incompatible with the existence of the factories,
ought to be no element in the question of keeping our
border waters pure and sweet.

The upper waters of the Esks, however, above the
mills, have still abundance of trout. The sources of
South Esk are in the Moorfoot Hills ; and Gladhouse-
water, Moorfoot-burn, and Borthwick-burn, have all
pools containing numbers of trout (not of large size),
and may be fished successfully after a flood. They are
all attainable from Gorebridge, Fushie-bridge, or Tyne-
head station. They lie high, however, and the trout
are late in getting into condition. We do not know
precisely at what point the protection of the Esk begins
— probably it is in the neighbourhood of Arniston.

The North Esk comes from the Pentlands. The
true source of the stream is above Carlops, towards
which place it flows from the hills straight south, and
then bends suddenly to the north-east by Penicuick.
It is perhaps hardly worth while to begin fishing below
the Powder-mills, about two miles above Penicuick ;
but either in the Esk or in the Nine-mile Burn, above
that point, quantities of small trout may be taken,
especially in a flood. The only tributary of any note
received by the North Esk is Logan-house-water or
Glencorse-burn, which crosses the roads about six
miles from Edinburgh. In the neighbourhood of Glen-
corse it is probably preserved, and we remember to

COMPEXSATIOX-rOND — HABBIE's HOWE. 189

have fislied it from the Biggar-road up to the Compen-
sation-pond with an impression on our mind that we
were dabbling among stolen waters, — whether derived
from having read some threatening placard, or from the
prima facie notion of trespass suggested by climbing
over a wall, we cannot now say. It is a pretty burn,
with nice little pools. The reservoir, which is fully a
mile in length, belongs to the Edinburgh Water Com-
pany, who do not permit " permiscuous" fishing in it;
and the men who look after it and the more recently-
formed one farther up the glen have, we believe, in-
structions to put queries to any angler about his right
to fish. The run of the water between the two reser-
voirs is not, however, preserved, and we have managed
to pick out a few trout from it with worm. After a
flood, we should imagine numbers of fish would ascend
from the lower pond into the burn. There are large
trout in the reservoirs, and we have heard of an ave-
rage of a pound being attained in it with fly. No one
need go to Loganhouse-water for solitude. Probably
he has just got his rod put up, when half-a-dozen of
long carts, full of people, with flags flying and a
couple of fiddles or a pair of bagpipes playing, assail
at once his eye and his ear. A cab or two may also
whud past. For the road up the glen leads to Habbie's
Howe, where the canny citizens of Edinburgh love to
pic-nic. In all likelihood, a few carts-full will estab-
lish themselves half-way up on the edge of the water ;
the grown-up folks will commence dancing to the
aforesaid musical instruments within sight of the trouts
that have already been horrified by the procession
along the banks, and the juveniles of the party will

190 THE BORDER ANGLER.

amuse themselves by rushing up and down the burn
throwing stones into it. What Job — supposing him to
have been an angler, as is highly probable from his
character — would have done under such circumstances
we cannot say ; but the angler who has not leave to
fish in the ponds must make up his mind to amuse
himself for the day in some other way than by angling.
There are no trout in the little burn that comes down
from the reputed Habbie's IIoAve, and feeds the upper
pond. It is, however, a beautiful spot. The green
Pentlands rise sheer up on each side ; the glen narrows
to a pass ; the streamlet drops from one side of the
hill, forming tiny cascades ; and if the angler climbs
up by the linns, he will see below each fall a clear
rocky pool, of considerable depth, but apparently with-
out a single fishy inhabitant. We have thrown in a
worm in vain, and turned over the stones fruitlessly —
so have come to the conclusion that these pools are
tenantless, and probably have always been so. There
is not, however, any such tempting place for lasses to
bathe in as is described in Allan Ramsay's beautiful
pastoral. This must be sought for at New Hall, five
or six miles farther on the road to Dumfries.

At the very mouth of the Esk, notwithstanding the
Duke of Buccleuch's statement, sea-trout are still to
be taken. On a Saturday afternoon in April 1857,
when the river was actually opaque from the stuffs
let off from the mills at Lasswade and other places
(which are cleared weekly), we caught a pretty fish,
upwards of a pound in weight, while experimenting
with a very small grilse-fly, and raised another. We
believe one or two are to be had almost every day of

BANKS OF THE ESKS. 191

tlie year ; and certainly, when dressed and put upon
the table, they do not emit such a smell as to require
them to be sent out of the room.

The banks of the Esks, however, will continue to
be frequented, even although every specimen of the
salmonida3 in them should be utterly destroyed. From
Habbie's Howe to Musselburgh, almost every step is
interesting.

" Sweet are the paths, oh ! passing sweet,
By Esk's fair stream that run
O'er airy steep, through woodland deep,

Impervious to the sun.
From that fair dome where suit is paid,

By blast of bugle free,
To Auchiudiunys hazel shade,
And haunted AVoodhouselee.
Who knows not Melville's beechy grove.

And Roslin's rocky glen,
Dalkeith, which all the virtues love
And classic Ilawthornden ? "

( 192 )

CONCLUSION.

iISHING is a kind of hunting by water, be it
with nets, weeles, baits, angling, or otherwise,
and pelds all out as much pleasure to some
men as dogs or hawks. " When they draw their fish
upon the bank," saith Nic. Henselius Silesiographise,
cap. 3, speaking of that extraordinary delight his
countrymen took in fishing and making of pools.
James Dubravius, that Moravian, in his book de pise.
telle th how, travelling by the wayside in Silesia, he
found a nobleman, " booted up to the groins," wading
himself, pulling the nets, and labouring as much as
any fisherman of them all : and when some belike
objected to him the baseness of his office, he excused
himself, " that if other men might hunt hares, why
should not he hunt carps ?" Many gentlemen in like
sort with us will wade up to the arm-holes upon such
occasions, and voluntarily undertake that to satisfy
their pleasure, which a poor man for a good stipend
would scarce be hired to undergo. Plutarch, in his
book de soler. animal, speaks against all fishing, " as
a filthy, base, illiberal employment, having neither
wit nor perspicacity in it, nor worth the labour." But
he that shall consider the variety of baits for all sea-
sons, and pretty devices which our anglers have in-
vented, peculiar lines, false flies, several sleights, &c.,
will say that it deserves like commendation, requires

CONCLUSION. 193

as much study and perspicacity as the rest, and is to
be preferred before many of them. Because hawk-
ing and hunting are very laborious, much riding and
many dangers accompany them ; but this is still and
quiet : and if so be the angler catch no fish, yet he
hath a wholesome walk to the brookside, pleasant
shade by the sweet silver streams, he hath good air,
and sweet smells of fine fresh meadow flowers, he
hears the melodious harmony of birds, he sees the
swans, herons, ducks, water-horns, coots, &c., and
many other fowl, with their brood, which he thinketh
better than the noise of hounds, or blast of horns, and
all the sport that they can make.

Be not dismayed, long-suffering reader, by our un-
expected erudition, and the sudden gravity of the style
of this little book. These words were written nigh
two hundred- and fifty years ago by Eobert Burton,
the Anatomist of Melancholy, and in his remarkable
work, part 2, sec. 2, mem. 4, you may find them for
yourself. They comprise the philosophy of our sport,
and prettily point out, in the general, the attendant
pleasures of its practice, which in the particular, as
regards the streams of these Border counties, we have
feebly endeavoured to expound. " If so be the angler
catch no fish," — which may unluckily happen to the
best of our craft — Nature is at hand to minister to
him consolation ; and history, tradition, and song, —
the mouldering tower or abbey, the battle-field, and
the broomy knowe — by their associations compensate
him for disappointment. Without weakening our ad-
monitions to diligence in his calling, we may yet re-
commend the angler to keep his eyes and his ears open

N

194 THE BOEDER ANGLEE.

by our river-sides. We never grudge a few minntes
to look for the nest of the sand-piper or the water-
owzel — to have a helter-skelter chase down the stream
after a brace of flappers which with a despairing quack
finally run their heads into some hole or bush, whence
they may be drawn — or even to watch the sly water-
rat as he swims boldly across the pool, and then
catching a sudden glimpse of the onlooker dives like
lightning, and may be seen running along the bot-
tom to his hole. The angler, it is true, to be success-
ful must resume as far as possible original instincts,
constant alertness, vigilance of eye, readiness of hand,
craft and cunning. If a man, with his fly in the water,
is dreaming about a mathematical problem or the last
change of government, it is a second or so before he
recalls his thoughts sufliciently to remember that that
tug at his line ought to have been the signal for in-
stant striking ; he raises his rod clumsily and in a
hurry, but the fish is gone. When he is fishing, there-
fore, let nothing divert him from it, and let him work
as " a poor man for a good stipend," with his master
superintending him. But lay down the rod occasion-
ally and look about you ; " mingle with the universe"
as well as you may, and take your pleasure out of this
beautiful earth as your capacity enables you. Kemem-
ber the reverent hearts with which the old anglers went
to their recreation ; and read sometimes the memorable
conversation of the father of your craft with his pupil,
— the best of all sermons on the text " the meek shall
inherit the earth" — which terminated within sight of
Tottenham High-Cross : — " And this, and most other
blessings, we enjoy daily. And for most of them, be-

FINIS.

195

cause tbey be so common, most men forget to pay
their praises ; but let not us, because it is a sacrifice
so pleasing to Him that made that sun and us, and
still protects us, and gives us flowers and showers, and
stomachs and meat, and content and leisure to go

A-FISHING."

PUINTED BV liOBEliT HARDI8 AND COMPANT,
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