CLEAR WATERS 



of them, on retailing whisky and groceries, coupled 

 with much profitable usury. 



There was one particular entry which always gave 

 us food for reminiscence. It ran 'June 1st, 1871 : 



Fished Dye. Self 32, B 44 : two fish over a pound.' 



The Dye is a beautiful stream running down from the 

 moors about Longformacus, and thence rippling over 

 pasture lands to join the Whiteadder at Ellemford. 

 It wasn't for the numbers, which, though rather 

 flattering to the diarist, were not otherwise note- 

 worthy. But we had traversed some thirty miles that 

 day, otter-hunting down in the Merse of Berwickshire ; 

 and it was only after a belated meal at about four 

 o'clock that we left our inn for the Dye, a mile distant. 

 For some reason, I remember that afternoon with 

 extraordinary clarity. I can almost smell it now the 

 fragrance of the gorse and quickening meadow grass, 

 the odour of recently penned sheep, with faint whiffs 

 of peat smoke from the cottages, all accentuated by a 

 warm sun bursting out between plumping showers. 

 The drake was up, and we caught, as the chronicle 

 relates, some seventy and odd fish far above the average 

 Whiteadder size,>and were back at the inn by sunset, 

 pretty well exhausted with so prodigious a day, which 

 had begun at four in the morning. 



Far up in the heart of the moors, beyond the famous 

 sheep farms of Cranshaws, with its noble peel tower, 

 and of Priestlaw with its sweeps of solitude, the Fasney 

 water, a large troutful burn comes pouring down 

 its peaty streams into the Whiteadder, and the two 

 large burns uniting become at once a quite respect- 

 able river. There are a few large fish even thus high 

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