ROB OF THE TROUGHS 189 



Kerse has long been a distinguished character on 

 the Tweed. At a secluded spot, where the woods 

 and rocks dip down to the margin of the river, and 

 where its current is opposed by a rocky barrier 

 through which it has worn its way in frightful gorges, 

 the gaunt figure of auld Rob of the Troughs has 

 been seen any time these forty years. He is very 

 tall and bony, and when working his boat with the 

 canting pole amongst the rapids, or looking down 

 on the water from a jutting rock with his leister 

 aloft ready to strike, he cuts a most formidable 

 Salvator Rosa-like appearance. Rob is now highly 

 seasoned with the saltness of time, being nearer 

 eighty than seventy years old ; drinks whiskey like 

 water, his native element ; and to this day runs 

 after the hounds, when they come near, like a boy 

 of fifteen. He is a genuine lover of all sports, and 

 has begot numerous sons and daughters : of the 

 former four are game keepers, and fishermen on 

 Tweed, Tiviot, and Ettrick, to the Duke of Buc- 

 cleuch, Lord Lothian, and Lord Home. They are 

 remarkable as claiming a regular descent from Saxon 

 ancestors in the most remote times, and are an 

 active, athletic, clean-limbed race of men, keen of 

 eye, and swift of foot, of good pluck, and altogether 

 amphibious, loving the heather and mountain flood 

 better than the street and servants' hall. Stalwart 

 men would they have been in a Border Foray had 

 they lived in the time of Johnny Armstrong. Such 

 and so great are the Kerses ; but they will not go 

 down to posterity like the Purdies, " carent quia 

 Vate sacro " : neither could the old river god Rob 



