DAVID HUME THE BLACKADDER. 181 



Mersemen of all degrees the Earl of Home is the Earl 

 of Hume.) It is not until it reaches Allan ton Bridge 

 that the Whitadder reacquires its character. Here it 

 is joined by the Blackadder. Allanton has an inn, or 

 respectable public-house ; but it has changed its occu- 

 pants since, sleeping there on one occasion, we were 

 astonished in the morning by a charge of eighteen- 

 pence, the payment of which was in full of all demands 

 for bed, breakfast a Scotch breakfast and a glass of 

 toddy. " She didna chairge onything for the bed," 

 the. hostess said, and could with difficulty be prevailed 

 upon to accept half- a- crown. We fear that the old 

 body is dead. 



Springing from the breast of Twinlaw- Cairns, the 

 BLACKADDER is at first a heather-burn, with most 

 ancient and hardly fish-like inhabitants. Once, when 

 tracing it to its source, our last cast, where the infant 

 stream, two feet broad, makes its way down the hill- 

 side, produced an animal so black and grim-looking, 

 albeit a quarter of a pound in weight, that we bolted 

 incontinently over the shoulder of the hill to the head 

 of the Watch-water, where the trout, although pigmies, 

 have bright yellow sides and starry backs. After it gets 

 to the foot of the hill, and flows through the upland 

 meadows, the farmers have made most lamentable in- 

 tromissions with its windings for several miles both 

 above and below Wadderlee straightening its course, 

 destroying the well-worn banks in which trout harbour, 

 and giving it a bed of clay, for such guests unmeet. 

 We caught a stalwart Merseman in flagrante delicto, 

 44 sheughing" a new run for the juvenile Blackadder; 



