114 PISH AND FISHING IN SCOTLAND. 



at the vast mountain range before you : it is purple. Soft west 

 winds, as they sweep gently over this field of purple heather, 

 bring with them mellifluous odours surpassing far the new mown 

 hay. The hour is worth an age of common existence. On the 

 slope of the hill, or rather mountain, which closes in the scene 

 on the left, and just as I was about to cross the neck or gorge in 

 which the road lay, a flock of sheep which had crossed the pool 

 beneath were climbing by their narrow walk the mountain side. 

 Some ten or twelve stood still in a row and looked at me. At 

 once rushed upon my mind the passage in the Hebrew record, 

 which I had read when young, but understood not ; or possibly 

 imagined to be an Eastern hyperbole ; beyond nature, extrava- 

 gant. But the proof that it was not so was now before me. 

 There they stood in Indian file, as the Hebrew poet described 

 them, comparing them to the teeth of his beloved. " Her teeth 

 were as a flock of sheep newly come from the -washing pool." 

 They stood in a line upon their narrow path, level, equi-distant, 

 all alike ; white, square, like the most beautiful human teeth.* 



Descend we now the Whitadder, on a warm summer or 

 autumnal day, after floods, a fleecy sky, south-west winds gently 

 blowing, and between Fastna Foot and Cranshaws you may fill 

 many baskets. But you cannot rest here, for there is no place 

 for you to refresh, and your road must be onwards. Descending 

 the river as far as Elmsford, you boldly cross the stream and 

 reach the Cottage, the first of all angling stations in Scotland. 

 At this point you are six miles from Dunse. 



THE LONE TEOUT, THE SOLE TENANT OF THE POOL- 

 AN EPISODE. 



We sometimes hear of the lone star of the east or west, I 

 know not which, at whose dread name tyrants blanch and grind 

 their teeth with rage monarchs tremble, and courtiers grow 

 sick with apprehension but of this I speak not. Members of 

 " the order" fish in troubled waters. Whatever is lonely or alone 



" Her teeth were like a flock of sheep, 



With fleeces newly washen clean, 

 That slowly mount the rising steep. " 



BURNS. 



