CLEAR WATERS 



is no stream in the county more calculated to do so. 

 Salmon and sea trout are, I believe, more plentiful 

 than of old, and to this fact some attribute the noto- 

 rious decline over much of it of a once great trout 

 river. If this indeed be so, it is a pity. The few days 

 on which * sea fish,' as they call them in Northumber- 

 land, afford sport are a poor exchange for the months 

 in which trout give pleasure to a greater number, 

 and, on the whole, demand more skill in the catching. 

 The once fine water from Rothbury down is now full, 

 I am told, of fingerlings and samlets, and respectable 

 fish are hard to come at. The Coquet has been the 

 treasured haunt of many famous north countrymen. 

 Bewick, the great wood engraver, for one was a keen 

 fisherman, and its constant habitue; so were Roxby, 

 Joseph Crawhall, Henderson, Doubleday, and others. 

 Its streams and pools are beautiful, and its waters 

 carry to the sea the fine colour of their Cheviot 

 source. There are no grayling, nor, I think, any coarse 

 fish here, nor is there any contamination, nor any 

 serious poaching. And it is as melancholy, as well as a 

 little mysterious, that so renowned a stream should 

 have fallen away so deplorably, as all its friends report. 

 Any one familiar with the Great Northern route to 

 Edinburgh will recall that beautiful glimpse of the 

 Coquet where the train strides it a few miles south 

 of Alnwick, and what a fine view seaward you get 

 just here of Warkworth castle, whose noble ruins are 

 reflected in the lowest reach of the river. 



Coquet for Northumbrians, like the Scots, often 

 drop the article in alluding to their rivers, conveying 

 therein a pleasant suggestion of intimacy and affection 



3H 



