WHITEADDER AND LAUDERDALE 



of the Tweed, and an otherwise pleasant prospect 

 was not a Uttle clouded by the report of an old comrade 

 and most skilful angler, with two years' experience of 

 my future quarters, that there was no fishing within 

 reach. Now to go to Scotland and leave all trouting 

 behind seemed an absurd anachronism, keen fisherman 

 and hardy soul as I knew my friend to be, and not few 

 the miles that we had tramped together after trout. 

 But I took some comfort in the recollection that he 

 was not of an inquiring mind, nor alert for things 

 outside the range of a day's compass, though he could 

 make this a pretty wide one. So I reached out for 

 the map, and was at once relieved to find that I had 

 measured him correctly; for within a dozen miles 

 by surface scale of my future domicile there showed 

 dark upon the map the expansive uplands of the 

 Lammermuirs, honeycombed with the thin trail of 

 streams. Even at one-and-twenty I was at once 

 topographer and angler enough to know that on the 

 Scottish border those streams spelled trout, and that, 

 humanly speaking, nothing not easily surmountable 

 would prevent my some day or other getting at them. 

 And thus of course it proved. When after a long 

 winter day's journey and a late arrival I looked out 

 in the morning from my bedroom window over the 

 flat East Lothian land, there they were sure enough, 

 the hills of the map sweeping the whole horizon — 

 dark rolling masses, obviously grouse moors, riven at 

 intervals with deep ravines, and, distant though they 

 were, eloquent to any fisherman's eye of potential 

 trout streams. That was January, and such a cold 

 one. I well remember that the roar of the curling- 



335 



