176 THE BORDER ANGLER. 



be too long kept up. Ten or twelve hours' angling 

 ought to satisfy any reasonable mortal, and allow of 

 intervals of rest. Celebrated anglers are often distin- 

 guished by great powers of endurance ; but they also 

 carefully husband their strength and energies. He who 

 goes too eagerly to his sport in the morning, usually 

 flags by the afternoon. 



And if the angler loses the inward impulse to sport 

 he loses everything. There is no taskmaster standing 

 over him, he may be careless of glory when not fishing 

 for a wager, and, unless he is a James Baillie, his 

 bread is not likely to depend upon his efforts. Any 

 drooping of the spirits, therefore, caused by loss of 

 strength or by reaction from over-exertion, alters his 

 whole view of his amusement, and he turns despond- 

 ingly inn-wards just as his neighbour is getting into 

 the full tide of excitement in the middle of a " take." 



Ellemford commands the whole upper part of the 

 Whitadder, and is still well frequented. " It was a 

 merry place in days of old," when annual bands of 

 Newcastle anglers, forsaking their native Tyne and 

 the pleasant Coquet, sought the Whitadder, when 

 their compeers of Edinburgh met them from the North, 

 and an occasional omnibus from Berwick brought regi- 

 ments from the mouth of Tweed. But even yet, al- 

 though you may haply only meet a militia captain, an 

 India surgeon on furlough, or a wandering inspector 

 of registers with his rod disguised as a walking-stick, 

 and a game-bag slung under his coat instead of a 

 creel, most pleasantly and profitably may the time be 

 passed at Ellemford. It is six miles from Dunse, 

 which is the terminus of a branch of the North British, 



