ELLEMFORD INN GEOEDIE HAMILTON. 171 



with the Whitadder, and the neat inn at this place 

 affords excellent facilities for fishing all these upland 

 waters. From no other place indeed can the upper 

 part of the Dye, the Watch, or the Fasney, be con- 

 veniently got at, while the Whitadder is three miles, 

 and the higher portion of the Blackadder six miles, 

 distant. 



Half a mile below the confluence of the Dye, on the 

 Whitadder, stands Ellemford Inn, the most noted of 

 all the fishing hostels in these parts. Until within the 

 last five or six years, its landlord was the redoubtable 

 Oeordie Hamilton, who as an angler had few equals, 

 and as an innkeeper was beyond all praise. He died 

 in 1856 ; but none of the fishing frequenters of the 

 Whitadder who had the luck to visit Ellemford in the 

 days of Geordie's glory can ever forget him. Eather 

 more than six feet in height, with the aspect of an 

 angling patriarch, coat and waiscoat of voluminous di- 

 mensions, corduroy knee-breeches, grey " rig-and-fur" 

 stockings, and fishing-creel of the largest size, Geordie 

 was a sight to startle a cockney ; while the heartiness 

 of his laugh and language with those of whatever de- 

 gree whom he admitted among his familiars, his shrewd 

 border- wit, his remarkable capacity for toddy, and his 

 wonderful fishing-stories, of themselves tempted anglers 

 to his lonely inn on the skirts of the Lammermoors, 

 were it but to spend a night in his company. At the 

 water- side he was an invaluable companion. Bred as 

 a salmon-fisher on Tweedside, he had studied the con- 

 ditions of air and water as affecting angling from his 

 boyhood ; and he knew the habits and temperaments 

 of the salmonida3 as well as if he had been brought up 



