THE LEADER AND ITS FEEDERS. 130 



is very good. Below St. Leonard's Mill, a mile and 

 a half from Lauder Brig, the trout are rather scarcer 

 than in the water above, but they average five or six 

 ounces in weight, and will repay careful fishing. The 

 Leader is a stream exceedingly well suited for the use 

 of the minnow. Near St. Leonard's the Boon-water 

 comes in from the east, and although but a small 

 stream, it contains plenty of good-sized trout. Two 

 of the streams which unite to form it, Blyth- water and 

 the Boonreigh, come rapidly down from the Lammer- 

 moors, while another oozes out from the moors of Gor- 

 don, and has pools in which there are trouts of large 

 size. 



This part of the Leader can of course be very con- 

 veniently fished from Lauder, which is a small old 

 " burrows- toon," with a comfortable inn. Over Lauder 

 Brig the Scotch Barons on one occasion hanged, in 

 their rough way, all King James the Third's favourites, 

 because his Majesty took more delight in music and 

 the fine arts, than in hunting, hawking, and fighting. 

 Such tastes were looked upon as disgraceful in a Scot- 

 tish King ; for although his grandfather was a sweet 

 poet, and wrote The King's Quhair, he was also a po- 

 litic ruler, and a hard rider of the Border nobles and 

 the Highland chiefs, and it was for that that they 

 finally murdered him cruelly at Perth. The high- 

 spirited nobles, who may be pardoned for their con- 

 tempt of science and art, seeing that they were too 

 ignorant to know anything about these things, could 

 not brook that a " mason," as Pitscottie terms one 

 Cochrane an architect, who was made Earl of Mar, 

 should presume to rank with them, so, after a mid- 



