AMONG THE BORDER STREAMS 197 



space. And yet, the place is so full of memories, 

 and stories, that pilgrims come from a long distance, 

 to see where certain jolly anglers exercised their 

 art. 



Loch Skene is at best a mountain tarn, yielding 

 indifferently fed fish. Few care to climb two 

 thousand feet, and pass through as ugly an array of 

 peat hags as ever I saw ; except, perhaps, for the 

 boast of having fished the highest lake in Scotland. 

 Last time I was there, a single devotee was at work, 

 amid a solitude, suggestive of glaciers that had 

 passed over as if but yesterday. He was on his 

 honeymoon, which he had elected to spend here, for 

 the sake of this inestimable privilege. We called 

 at the cottage in the glen, and found his young 

 wife, half tearful, and half pouting, at his notion of 

 enjoyment. He was eccentric. 



Hard by are the lakes, compared with whose classic 

 traditions, fishing on Loch Tay is raw, and a thing 

 of yesterday. On a neck of land, between the two 

 sheets of water, stood, and still stands, in an altered 

 form, Tibbie Shiels'. I used to visit Tibbie in 

 her last days, and hear her talk of Christopher 

 North, the Ettrick Shepherd, and many another of 

 her memory's guests. 



Until recently, lodging was hard to get, either 



