OVER THE BORDER 53 



worth while. And in any event you will enjoy 

 going to bed ! 



As the water was not right at the time at 

 Canonbie, a move was made for brown trout at 

 Tushielaw, near Ettrick, Selkirkshire. Here is 

 an approach to the humorist's ideal of " trout- 

 fishing, plenty of it, preserved, free." Adjoining 

 it is the homely inn, capably conducted, where 

 they know how to fry trout with oatmeal for 

 breakfast. If your bedroom window overlooks 

 the river, you can see the trout rising. The 

 views you get, the health-giving air, the whole- 

 someness of it all, are worth the visit, apart from 

 the trout fishing. And that, as I have hinted, is 

 good. The Ettrick is not, in the nature of 

 things, over-fished, because it is fifteen miles 

 away from a town (either Selkirk, or Hawick in 

 Roxburghshire). Men slip down from Edinburgh 

 to Tushielaw for a quiet two or three days' 

 fishing, for a brief respite in the open air. They 

 leave their desks and their business cares behind 

 them, fish hard all day, and then "in slippered 

 ease" at the inn foregather, over maybe just a 

 little "wine of the country." The trout run 

 about half-a-pound, but with the water right you 

 may get them three-quarters of a pound or more ; 

 indeed, by the bridge at Tushielaw there lives, 

 unless he has been caught napping, a two-pounder. 

 The gamekeeper's son declared him to be nearer 

 three pounds. Whatever his weight, this trout 

 did much to encourage concentration. A Sheffield 

 doctor burned midnight oil over him, as it were, 



