A BORDER BOYHOOD 33 



ing goes. It had, and probably deserved, a great 

 reputation, and some good trout are still taken in 

 the upper waters, and there must be monsters in 

 the deep black pools, the ' dowie dens ' above 

 Bowhill. But I never had any luck there. The 

 choicest stream of all was then, probably, the Aill, 

 described by Sir Walter in ' William of Deloraine's 

 Midnight Ride '— 



Where Ail!, from mountains freed, 

 Down from the lalves did raving come ; 

 Each wave was crested with tawny foam, 



Like the mane of a chestnut steed. 



As not uncommonly happens, Scott uses rather 

 large language here. The steepy, grassy hillsides, 

 the great green tablelands in a recess of which the 

 Aill is born, can hardly be called ' mountains.' 

 The ' lakes,' too, through which it passes, are much 

 more like tarns, or rather, considering the flatness 

 of their banks, like well-meaning ponds. But the 

 Aill, near Sinton and Ashkirk, was a delightful 

 trout-stream, bet^\'een its willow-fringed banks, a 

 brook about the size of the Lambourne. Nowhere 

 on the Border were trout more numerous, better fed, 



D 



