254 WHERE TWO KINGDOMS MEET 



throne of Scotland, he left his realm rich, his subjects 

 busy and prosperous, and in perfect amity with the 

 subjects of his nephew, Edward i. When, in 1603, 

 James vi. assumed the crown of both kingdoms, three 

 centuries of perpetual warfare had strained and drained 

 the resources of his northern realm to such a pitch 

 that the name of Scot had passed into a byword for 

 poverty among all the nations of the earth. 



How different it all might have been sua si bona 

 norint ; and yet, morals and economics apart, who that 

 knows and loves the borders would have it otherwise 

 would exchange for ages of cumulative prosperity the 

 store of legend and ballad which consecrates the valley 

 of the Tweed ? Who can bring himself to deplore the 

 stern, sharp schooling which has left such lasting traces 

 on the character, physical and intellectual, of its 

 people ? 



It is one of the chief charms of angling especially for 

 salmon that, in the intervals of action, one's thoughts 

 are free to gather up all that the neighbourhood has 

 to impart of its story ; and so this morning, as the 

 boatman, standing afar on the Scottish bank, allows 

 me at the end of his rope to drop foot by foot down 

 one of the most renowned casts in Tweed, and the 

 wavelets tinkle drowsily against the coble, my mind is 

 full of far-off days. I am in Scotland, but the building 

 on the further side of the bank is not a kirk, but an 

 English parish church. Every cast that I make sends 

 my fly across the frontier where two kingdoms meet 

 a line in mid-current as imaginary as that which once 



