ANGLING REMINISCENCES. 185 



blue eye, reflecting nature in its joyous sphere? 

 by the forehead, solemn and lofty, in which the mind 

 performs its mysteries, where the fragment of divi- 

 nity in man upholds him in communion with his 

 Maker? This is not a small creel pendant from his 

 shoulders, and it is filled to the saugh-lid with clear, 

 star-sided fish, elf-dolphins, a fairy gift from a kind 

 water-sprite to our Shepherd-bard. 



A DAY'S ANGLING WITH THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD. 



I dream ! This is a past irrevocable vision yet 

 I remember it as of yesterday ! Does it not seem 

 like yesterday when we twain set forth from 

 under the roof of Tibby Shiels, our hostess on St 

 Mary's Loch, to angle together far up among the 

 hills in the burn of Winterhope? It was a half- 

 drizzly, half-rainy morning, with a dash or two of 

 wind at intervals, which considerably agitated the 

 sheet of water, along whose margin, at outset, our 

 road lay. Thick masses of mist floated across the 

 heights, and the distant ravines, giving egress to a 

 number of small torrents, mingled their continuous 

 roar with the occasional gusts of the dying storm. 

 An uncharitable sort of day it seemed for our ang- 

 ling excursion ; but we had the expectation and 

 trust that matters would mend, and so trudged on, 

 in teeth of the weather. 



After leaving the loch-side, our way led up a small 

 glen, bisected by a black, mossy brook, on reaching 



