THE COOKER} OF THE SALMON 197 



of Berwick, past Ashestiel and Abbotsford, Dry burgh 

 and Melrose, with all the phantom forms fancy 

 summons up, from Scott and Scrope down to Tom 

 Purdie and Rob Kerse. On the Tay from Taymouth, 

 where Eachin Maclan was inaugurated chief of the 

 Clan Quhele, when, by the way, the Tay salmon 

 figured in barbaric profusion, down to the Palace of 

 Scone, and past Campsie Linn, where Lord Hunting- 

 don wished himself back when sick of playing the 

 courtier. To the Spey, that too often flows crystal- 

 clear, though draining half the watershed of the 

 Grampians, perpetually shifting pools and gravel- 

 banks towards the estuary, or to the still swifter 

 Findhorn with its heronry and single-arched bridges, 

 a smaller but more unbridled torrent than the Loire, 

 for its rushes after heavy rainfall would burst any 

 barrier of cruives. Or to the Aberdeenshire Dee, with 

 its gravelly bed, sweeping round the royal residence 

 of Balmoral, and beneath the clean-stemmed giants 

 skirting the Forest of Ballochbuie. So we might 

 follow the fancy to Ireland — to Gweedore, beneath 

 the glistening cone of Errigal and beyond the sugges- 

 tively named Bloody Foreland ; to famed Ballyshannon 

 on the beautiful Erne, where Lord Castlereagh was 

 scared by the spectral apparition ; to Galway town, 

 where the passing pedestrian sees the salmon jostling 



