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 



