CLEAR WATERS 



Rede, with all the bloody and romantic tale its streams 

 repeat for those who have ears to hear. And thus 

 continuing by a somewhat lessened stream for the 

 burns that it has lost, though still a broad one, you will 

 arrive at Bellingham. A big village much frequented 

 by sheep and collie dogs, and the metropolis of the dale, 

 is this, set in a wide-open bare country still thick with 

 Charltons, Robsons, Hedleys, Telfers, Dodds, and all 

 the old fighting and raiding names that ring down the 

 whole garland of Border song. There is a good inn at 

 Bellingham, and higher up the river towards Falstone 

 and Scotland there are, or were, some miles of as- 

 sociation or ticket water. I once spent a prodigiously 

 hot fortnight here. For two days the thermometer 

 stood at ninety degrees in the shade, which for a place 

 high up in the heart of the southern Cheviots was a 

 trifle disconcerting. Fishing, except with a worm, 

 was out of the question. However, I admit, and with- 

 out the slightest shame, a partiality for clear water 

 worming for trout, having done a great deal of it as 

 a young man in the clear mountain streams of the 

 southern Alleghanies, where the thick foliage exalts 

 it into something of an art. 



Indeed, it is esteemed very much of an art in this 

 north country, not on a level with fly-fishing, to be 

 sure, but by no means to be dismissed from discussion 

 as a mere pot-hunting or poaching business. But 

 then one fishes with a worm, or ought to at times 

 and seasons when the fly is practically useless, and only 

 then upon rivers which are suitable for it. I should 

 never, for example, have the slightest desire to worm 

 the Kennet or the Wylie even if I had otherwise 



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