WHITEADDER AND LAUDERDALE 



and blessed me then and there upon the swaying 

 bridge. ' To think of it ! ' he cried ; ' I 've been a 

 whole year down yonder without a notion that there 

 was a trout within a hundred miles, and would have 

 been another year but for you, and now look at this ! 

 Glory be to God ! ' We felt like successful explorers 

 who had reached a longed-for but uncertain goal, 

 I in the character of promoter and organiser, the 

 Irishman as a half-doubting but loyal lieutenant. A 

 friendship commenced upon that day which grew 

 intimate beyond the common, and lasted till a quarter 

 of a century later, when the speaker fired his last shot 

 and threw his last fly in my company among his own 

 Irish moors. We had still, however, three miles to 

 travel up the river bank to our inn, our enthusiasm 

 growing as each fresh pool or rocky run displayed 

 itself to our eager gaze. And, indeed, even at this 

 day, as I wander betimes, with or without a rod, up 

 those three miles of unencumbered open water be- 

 tween Abbey and Ellemford, I feel ready at all times 

 to make an oath that there is no finer-looking bit of 

 trout water in the whole kingdom. 



However that may be, we found our inn, which we 

 came afterwards to know so well ; a simple-enough 

 little hostelry by the river bank, now long closed, 

 but in those days not without some modest fame 

 among anglers from Edinburgh to Newcastle. Nowa- 

 days both the bed and board it then afforded would 

 be scouted by the average angler, but we weren't so 

 fastidious in the early seventies. It was owned by a 

 couple in delicate health, but managed by their sister, 

 a rare specimen of the blunt, honest, ready-tongued, 



35 1 



