( 493 ) 

 COQUET SIDE, 



AND THK LEGEND OF ROUGH-RIDING WILL. 



" There's raony a salmon lies in Tweed, 



And mony a trout in Till ; 

 But Coquet, Coquet still for me, 



If I may have my will. 

 Full freshly from his mountain-holds 



Comes down the rapid Tyne ; 

 But Coquet's still the stream o' streams, 



So let her still be mine." T. D. 



IP there be a stream in the United Kingdom on which an angler 

 would bestow his best affections, that stream is assuredly the Coquet. 

 If one of our border valleys is richer than another in the remains of 

 antiquity if one is hallowed more than another by the " hills where 

 dwelled holy saints " if one is rendered more romantic than another 

 by the visible presence of those old stone-keeps and impregna- 

 ble fastnesses, whence the moss-troopers issued to harry the herds of 

 their foes, that valley is Coquet-dale ; and from Cushit-Law and Che- 

 viot, which look down on the infant fountains of the pastoral stream, 

 to Warkworth, where, sweeping round the base of one of the noblest 

 strongholds of the old border barons, it calmly seeks the sea, in wild- 

 ness, in savage and stern beauty, in soft and pastoral sweetness, or in 

 warmly wooded and cultivated richness, there flows not the stream 

 whose banks we have trod which can surpass those of the salmon- 

 haunted Coquet. At the head are the first breed of the pepper-and- 

 mustard terriers, immortalized by Sir Walter, kept and bred by a few 

 of the finest specimens of border-troopers that ever trod the heather ; 

 at the foot exists one of the finest salmon and trout fisheries in the 

 world, down all the vale, remains of the Romans and Celts, old 

 abbeys, keeps, castles and caves, crags, scaurs, cataracts, wild 

 mountains and broad moors, with the wind " howling in the wilder- 

 ness," combine to render it a favourite haunt of the poet and the an- 

 tiquary ; black pools, which the breeze, winnowed through the cool 

 alder-leaves, curls into forms which the angler loves, stream-throats 

 and circling eddies, where the monarchs of the stream lie sullenly, 

 eagles and ravens among the cliffs plovers, moor-game, red and 

 black, down the heathy hill sides and the speckled trout springing 

 in the smaller burns, that roll down into the maternal bosom of the 

 Coquet, all, all are here; and here, too, is the old famous hospitality 

 which makes the rambler forget his fire-side, and soothe the hours of 

 weariness and depression, which violent sports and mental excite- 

 ment leave behind. The border sports and spirit are here; and here, 

 many and many a time, you will fall in with some old crone, who, in 

 the pauses of her pipe, will recite you in a dreamy voice, that sounds 

 like the echo of the olden time, snatches of ballads which Dr. Percy, 

 the Ettrick Shepherd, and Sir Walter himself seem never to have 

 M.M. No. 107. 3 S 



