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 



