202 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



the fly-fisher derives from the practice of his more refined 

 sport. 



Of Tibby's lodgers, those I have named were amongst the 

 earliest : but her cottage had previously, by all the sportsmen 

 round about, been held in repute for its hospitality, and it quickly 

 acquired a celebrity which has continued for forty years to invest 

 it, making it a sort of headquarters for anglers, and the ren- 

 dezvous in summer and autumn of pic-nic parties from the 

 watering-places of Moffat and Innerleithen, betwixt which vil- 

 lages, at the distance from each of about a dozen miles, it is 

 situated. 



My introduction to this snug retreat dates the 10th of July 

 1828. It was recommended to me by the Ettrick Shepherd, 

 with whom I had previously become acquainted, and who at that 

 time lived at Mount Benger, a farm lying along the banks of the 

 Yarrow, about three miles from the lower end of the lake. Con- 

 sequent on my first visit to Tibby's cottage, I was in the habit, 

 for a number of years, of spending several weeks at St. Mary's 

 Loch, accompanied usually by one or two, sometimes by as many 

 as five or six, of my College companions, all of whom, more or 

 less, entertained a fondness for the sport of fly-fishing, which, 

 with those who survive, remains undiminished. Among these, 

 as a practical hand, my friend W., eldest sou of Professor 

 Wilson, was unrivalled. In streams particularly, from the Tweed 

 in its fulness down to the smallest of its tributaries, brooks of 

 a step in width, he excelled in the laying on of his gauzy lure, 

 causing it to fall like a snow-flake on the desired spot, and 

 managing a line of extraordinary length and fineness with a 

 degree of elegance and precision I never saw surpassed, or even 

 equalled. In loch-fishing the merits of anglers cannot properly 

 be tested. There are circumstances in connexion with the some- 

 what monotonous application of the fly- cast, implied in this par- 

 ticular branch of the sport, which help frequently to give the 



