JANUARY 11 



breathless vicissitudes of the stalk to the moment of 

 triumph or of hopeless chagrin ; yet your guide is 

 never so entirely absorbed hi the sport as to forget 

 the story which gives historic dignity to crag and 

 waste, to glen and moor. There is a great deal in The 

 Art of Deer-stalking besides the stalking of deer, and 

 the book was nobly illustrated by its author, and by 

 Edwin, Charles, and Thomas Landseer. 



Excellent, however, as was Scrope's first essay in 

 letters, his second and last was better. There was 

 not one salmon-fisher in his day for fifty there are in 

 our own ; there were, on the other hand, many more 

 salmon, so there is no lack of sport to be described. 

 Scrope had cast angle in many waters, but in Days 

 and Nights he recounted only his experience on the 

 Tweed; what land so fascinating as Tweedside for a 

 mind like his ? He rented the Pavilion near Melrose 

 for many years, and naturally grew into friendship 

 with ' The Shirra',' of whom his pages are full of 

 reminiscence. Nor the Shirra' alone, but Tom Purdie, 

 Scott's immortal henchman, is brought before us as he 

 lived ; we hear his own quaint phrases, even as Scrope 

 heard them in far-off summer days. Magni nominis 

 umbra sons have failed the line of Abbotsford, but 

 still the stem of Purdie flourishes, inseparable from 

 Craigover, the Webbs, Bloody Breeks, and other famous 

 salmon casts where Scrope found his delight 



Ercildoune and Cowdenknowes, 



Where Homes had ance commanding, 



And Drygrange, with its milk-white ewes, 

 'Twixt Tweed and Leader standing. 



