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 



