1 72 THE BORDER ANGLER. 



amongst them as indeed might partly be affirmed. As 

 a minnow-fisher he was probably unequalled on the 

 borders as a worm-fisher, he could only be compared 

 with the masters. We have heard him aver that upon 

 one occasion, when he had engaged to fish Wee Willie 

 L for a wager, he killed with worm, in the Whit- 

 adder, near Ellemford, 96 rbs. of trout. At another 

 time, when he wished to astonish some strangers who 

 had found their way to Ellemford, he fished for a 

 whole day in one stream above the Black Weil, be- 

 tween Ellemford and Abbey St. Bathan ; s, and when 

 they came up to him, and saw him without his great 

 creel on his back, they fancied he had got nothing, 

 until Geordie pointed out thirty dozen of trout which 

 he had thrown out in heaps upon the water-side ! But 

 even granting that Geordie could use the long-bow as 

 well as the fishing-rod, he certainly accomplished ex- 

 traordinary feats. We have seen him, when fishing 

 with minnow just after the turn of a summer-flood, fill 

 a basket in an hour or two almost without stirring 

 from one spot ; and it was remarked as a singular fact, 

 that in the annual competition of the Ellem Fishing 

 Club (the oldest and most extensive club of the kind 

 in the South of Scotland), the member was usually 

 successful who had Geordie as an attendant. After 

 reigning many years at Ellemford, Geordie quarrelled 

 with his landlord, and flitted fifteen miles down the 

 Whitadder to Harden ; he afterwards took an inn at 

 Eeston, on the Eye-water ; and finally died as host of 

 the Cross-keys, Dunse. We happened to see Geordie 

 a few months before he died, and although he was then 

 greatly broken down by dropsy and rheumatic gout, 



