182 THE BORDER ANGLER. 



and but that he gave us the legend of the Twinlaw- 

 Cairns a black hill with two pyramidal piles of stone 

 on the top of it we should not have passed him by 

 without a left-handed blessing. We cannot retail the 

 particulars of his story; and indeed it smelt, we opined, 

 a good deal of Mackay Wilson ; but it was to the effect 

 that in some foray from the Merse into England, an 

 infant was brought away, and reared by a family of 

 the Humes ; and that, when he had grown to be a man, 

 his name and lineage remaining unknown, a " return 

 match" came off, an English army having found its 

 way to the head of the Blackadder; the nameless youth 

 stepped forward and challenged any of the southron 

 host to single combat ; an opponent came out to meet 

 him they fought and both fell ; when it was dis- 

 covered that each had slain his twin brother ; where- 

 upon the Cairns were erected to commemorate the 

 fratricidal catastrophe, and hence the name of the hill 

 or law. But while miles of water are spoiled by the 

 straightening of the water- course, there are occasional 

 places where trout still remain. From a hole below 

 Wadderlee, left somehow, or wrought out somehow, in 

 the straight bed that had been cut, we once took a 

 trout considerably more than a pound in weight, and 

 never did fish fight more gallantly for his life. Except 

 for curiosity, however, the Blackadder is not worth fol- 

 lowing above its junction with a water about its equal 

 in size, that comes in from the direction of Westruther, 

 of the angling capabilities of which we cannot speak. 

 It is here, indeed, that the stream begins to assume its 

 peculiar character, and that long sluggish pools termi- 

 nate and give rise to short lively streams, into which 



