INTRODUCTION ix 



Man and Time have wrought many changes on 

 Tweedside since Scrope stood among its sounding 

 woods. Trains rumble along the " Waverley Route," 

 and thousands throng among scenes once peopled 

 by few except fishermen and shepherds ; yet if he 

 were to return, rod in hand, on some early autumn 

 day, he would stand in need of no guide to show 

 him where to seek his sport. Still, season after 

 season, the great fish rest in the Willowbush, 

 Craigover, the Webbs, the Bloody Breeks, the 

 darksome Haly Weil, and the roaring Gateheugh, 

 and, resting, show the same caprice in refusing, 

 the same incaution in seizing, the angler's lures. 

 Different, indeed, are the lures which find favour 

 with the modern Tweed fisher to the sober-tinted 

 simulacra prescribed by Scrope ; but human nature 

 has changed no whit ; there is as confident dogma 

 in prescribing, as tremulous anxiety in selecting, the 

 shade and hue of a salmon fly as there was of yore. 

 Long may it remain so ! In this fond image- 

 worship may the truth never prevail. Salmon 

 fishing would be reft of half its poetry and charm 

 if we lost our faith in the peculiar attractions of 

 Jock Scott, of Wilkinson, or the Dandy, which 

 have usurped the ancient prestige of Meg-in-her- 

 braws, of Toppy, and Kinmont Willie. 



Changes other than these may be noted also, 

 some for the better, more for the worse. The 

 growth of manufacturing towns Hawick, Gala- 

 shiels, St. Boswells have grievously stained the 

 fair streams of Tweed and Teviot with manifold 

 pollution. The remnant of spring and summer 

 fish which succeeds in eluding the incessant netting 



62 



