AND ANGLING SONGS. 4<DI 



panions and fellow-anglers. I did so in the cheering knowledge 

 that the friends I spoke of were still on the sunny side of 

 the hill, strong and active, having the hope before them of 

 lengthened days and increased honours. The anticipation also 

 of again meeting and renewing together our river-side comrade- 

 ship was blended with this assurance, and made pleasant the 

 penning of these early reminiscences. 



Since the task, however, of putting together and arranging 

 for publication this volume, was commenced, the reunion so 

 fondly looked forward to, has been made impossible by the occur- 

 rence of events, not less startling than melancholy, which has 

 left me almost the sole survivor of a circle once so animated. 



In the recent withdrawal from this earthly scene of Professor 

 Aytoun and Sheriff Gordon, the loss sustained by our northern 

 capital was one of no common order. A poet and an eloquent 

 man, ornaments to a city renowned in art and literature, were 

 summoned, in the hey-day of life, from their exalted places. 

 Personally speaking, I have been deprived by this withdrawal of 

 two old friends, with whom for a term of years it was my 

 wont, the third of a century ago, to stroll rod in hand among our 

 Border valleys, and under the roof of their gifted father-in-law 

 to spend many and many a happy day. Preceded shortly before 

 by the demise of Professor Ferrier of St. Andrews, this double 

 stroke has been felt by me all the heavier. 



But the crowning sorrow was still in reserve. Following hard 

 upon these bitter losses, has been the recent removal from a 

 home made dear to me as its annual visitor by many a fond 

 association, of the companion in hundreds of rambles over moor 

 and mountain, by the loch and river-side, of a true, generous- 

 souled friend, endowed with qualities of mind far above the 

 common order, possessed of a fine taste in arts and literature, 

 a sportsman whose keenness was of that kind which showed more 

 delight in the success of another than his own ; a naturalist, 



2 c 



