WHITEADDER AND LAUDERDALE 



ances. But twelve months perhaps had weakened 

 their effect, and, moreover, he had himself long lost 

 interest in fishing. So when in Edinburgh I turned 

 into Hardy's (Mrs. Hogg, I found, had passed into 

 oblivion) to get some flies, and still somewhat sceptical 

 asked the manager if the waters of Whiteadder were 

 still free, and if so, whether there were any trout left. 



' Free ? ' said the blunt Scot, ' what else would they 

 be, but for a trifle of water here and there in the 

 policies ? Any trout left ! I killed sixteen pounds 

 to my ain rod on the zist of May last between Abbey 

 and Ellemford. Aye, yon 's a gran' wee river yet ! ' 



If I suspected some licence of speech at the time, 

 I soon came to understand that there was no ground 

 whatever for such doubts. It was then, as I have said, 

 August, and I did not expect to kill sixteen pounds 

 or anything approaching it. But while up there we 

 had one great rain. And when the flood had run off 

 I took a day on the stretch above Abbey St. Bathans, 

 so familiar to me in youth. A companion was with 

 me, and together we nearly filled my basket, which 

 held about fourteen pounds of this class of trout or 

 grayling. We had nothing up to a pound, though 

 there are plenty very much heavier than that in the 

 river, but a goodly number of sizeable third- and 

 half-pounders were among the lot, and as the interest 

 of the matter lies in its being a heavily fished open 

 river, not in our particular doings, it may be worth 

 stating that we returned probably a hundred small 

 fish to the water. I have fished the Whiteadder many 

 times since then, but my own doings are of no im- 

 mediate purport. It is more to the point here that 



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