THE TWEED ASHESTIEL. 63 



the nearest suitable point. Perhaps, as his Lordship 

 is a remarkably rigid Roman Catholic, he was afraid 

 that the humbler adherents of his creed might, if 

 poaching were strictly repressed, find some difficulty 

 in obtaining fish for dinner u on Fridays when they 

 fastit." , 



Below Innerleithen the valley of the Tweed for a 

 few miles preserves an intermediate character between 

 the pastoral hills and glens in which it begins, and 

 the rich and wooded lowlands to which it tends and in 

 which it ends. Holylee on the north side, and " Eli- 

 banks and Elibraes," Ashestiel,'and Yair House, on the 

 south, are so beautifully situated as to be of themselves 

 sights worth a walk down Tweedside from Innerleithen. 

 To the trout-angler, there is here a stretch of eight 

 or ten miles of water scarcely surpassed on the Tweed. 

 Rippling streams and pleasant pools, swarming with 

 trout of superior size, distinguish this part of the 

 river, and careful fishing will invariably produce ex- 

 cellent results. As Stoddart sings 



" Frae Holylee to Clovenford, 



A chancier bit ye canna hae ; 

 So, gin ye tak an angler's word, 



Ye'd through the whuns and ower the brae, 

 And work awa wi' cunnin' hand, 



Yer birzy hackles, black and reid : 

 The saft sugh o' a slender wand 



Is meetest music for the Tweed." 



We ought, perhaps, to remark that the " up-stream " 

 rule of fly-fishing ought not to be too pedantically 

 adhered to in the Tweed, after it has become a broad 

 and deep river suclr as it is here and for the rest of its 

 course. Mr. Stewart himself confesses that that mode 



