A BORDER BOYHOOD 23 



no means easy, especially if the water is heavy. 

 You get half-drowned, or drowned altogether, 

 before you discover your danger. Many of the 

 pools have this peculiarity, and in many, one step 

 made rashly lets you into a very uncomfortable 

 and perilous place. Therefore expeditions to 

 Tweedside were apt to end in a ducking. It was 

 often hard to reach the water where trout were 

 rising, and the rise was always capricious. There 

 might not be a stir on the water for hours, and 

 suddenly it would be all boiling with heads and 

 tails for twenty minutes, after which nothing was 

 to be done. To miss ' the take ' was to waste the 

 day, at least in fly-fishing. From a high wooded 

 bank I have seen the trout feeding, and they have 

 almost ceased to feed before I reached the water- 

 side. Still worse was it to be allured into water 

 over the tops of your waders, early in the day, 

 and then to find that the rise was over, and there 

 was nothing for it but a weary walk home, the 

 basket laden only with damp boots. Still, the 

 trout were undeniably there, and that was a great 

 encouragement. They are there still, but infinitely 



