Highways and Byways in the Border - Andrew Lang

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than six castles, Chambers tells us,—John's Cleuch, Gamelshiel, (the lady of which was killed by a wolf as she walked near her home one evening in the gloaming) Penshiel, Redpath, Harehead, and Cranshaws. Except in the case of Cranshaws, there are now few traces left standing of these strongholds. Cranshaws, a building of the sixteenth century, is in good preservation; of Gamelshiel there remains a bit of wall, of Penshiel a fragment of vaulting; of the others no stone. Cranshaws of old, it is said, was long the haunt of one of those Brownies, or familiar spirits, that were wont in the good old days of our forefathers mysterious ly to do by night, when the household slept, all manner of domestic or farm work for those who humoured them and treated them well in the matter of food, or other indulgence affected by their kind. There was nothing a Brownie would not do for the family he favoured, provided that he was kept in good humour; otherwise, or if he were laughed at or his work lightly spoken of, it were better for that family that it had never been born; their sleep was disturbed o' nights, malevolent ill-luck dogged them by day, until he was propitiated. But leave out for him each night a jug of milk and a barley bannock,—they were not luxurious in their tastes, those Brownies,—and at dawn you would find

      ".... how the drudging goblin sweat

      To earn his cream bowl duly set;

      When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,

      His shadow'y flail hath threshed the corn

      That ten day-lab'rers could not end;

      Then lies him down, the Lubber-fiend,

      And stretched out all the chimney's length,

      Basks at the tire his hairy strength;

      And crop-full out of doors he flings

      Ere the first cock his matin rings."

      They tell that this particular Brownie at Cranshaws, being offended at some reflection made on his work, the following night took up an entire crop that he had thrashed, curried it to the Raven Craig, two miles down the river, and threw it over the cliff. Belief in the Brownie died hard in the Border I am not sure that in remote "up the water" districts he did not survive almost till the advent of motor cars and bicycles.

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      But a step over the moor from Waich Water, across by Twin-Law Cairns and down by the Harecleuch Hill we come to the head-waters of the most considerable of Whitadder's tributaries—Blackadder, "vulgarly so pronounced," says the old Statistical Account. Its real name is "Blackwater," according to that authority, because it rises out of peaty swamps that impart to its waters a look of sullen gloom. I am unable to say what now may be its reputation as a trout stream, but long years ago it abounded with "a particular species of trout, much larger than the common burn trout, and remarkably fat." The Statistical Account mentions a notable peculiarity of Blackadder, on the accuracy of which one would be inclined to throw doubt. It says that though every other stream in the country which eventually mingles its waters with Tweed, swarms with salmon in the season, yet into Blackwater they do not go; or if they enter at all, it is found that they die before they can ascend many miles. The swampy source of the stream "is commonly ascribed as the reason why the fish cannot frequent the river," says the Account. Drainage, one would be inclined to think, has long ago removed that fatal nature from the water, if it ever existed. Trout throve on it, at all events, red-fleshed beauties, "similar," says the clerical writer of the Statistical Account of the Parish of Fogo—a man and a fisher, surely—"to those of Eden Water, which joins Tweed three miles below Kelso. The Eden rises also in a marshy district, which may be the cause of this similarity of the fish." But most Border streams take their rise in more or less marshy districts, though they may not flow direct from a swamp.

      Was it in the Eden that Thomson, author of "The Seasons," learned to fish? Or was it in Jed? He was born at Ednam,—Edenham,—a village on the Eden, and he may have loved to revisit it in later years, and to catch the lusty speckled trout for which the stream has always been famous. Probably, however, he learned to throw a fly on Jed, for he passed his boyhood at Southdean—to which parish his father had been transferred as Minister long ere the son was fit to wield a rod—and he himself got his early education at Jedburgh. In Jed or in Eden, then, and perhaps in Teviot and Ale—he was much at Ancrum—he learned the art; and not unskilled in it indeed must he have been. Where in all literature can one find a description of trout-fishing so perfect as the following?

      "Just in the dubious point, where with the pool

      Is mix'd the trembling stream, or where it boils

      Around the stone, or from the hollow'd bank

      Reverted plays in undulating flow,

      There throw, nice judging, the delusive fly;

      And, as you lead it round in artful curve,

      With eye attentive mark the springing game.

      Strait as above the surface of the flood

      They wanton rise, or, urged by hunger, leap,

      There fix, with gentle twitch, the barbed hook;

      Some lightly tossing to the grassy bank

      And to the shelving shore slow dragging some

      With various hand proportion'd to their force.

      If yet too young, and easily deceived,

      A worthless prey scarce bends your pliant rod,

      Him, piteous of his youth, and the short space

      He has enjoy'd the vital light of heaven,

      Soft disengage, and back into the stream

      The speckled captive throw; but, should you lure

      From his dark haunt, beneath the tangled roots

      Of pendent trees, the monarch of the brook,

      Behoves you then to ply your finest art.

      Long time he, following cautious, scans the fly,

      And oft attempts to seize it, but as oft

      The dimpled water speaks his jealous fear.

      At last, while haply o'er the shaded sun

      Passes a cloud, he desperate takes the death

      With sullen plunge: at once he darts along,

      Deep struck, and runs out all the lengthen'd line,

      Then seeks the farthest ooze, the sheltering weed,

      The cavern'd bank, his old secure abode,

      And (lies aloft, and flounces round the pool,

      Indignant of the guile. With yielding hand

      That feels him still, yet to his furious course

      Gives way, you, now retiring, following how,

      Across the stream, exhaust his idle rage,

      Till floating broad upon his breathless side,

      And to his fate abandon'd, to the shore

      You gaily drag your unresisting prize."

      Many a long day of Spring and Summer must the man who could paint so perfect a picture have passed, rod in hand and creel on back, by the hurrying streams and quiet pools of some Border Water, many a time have listened to the summer breeze whispering in the leafy banks, and heard, as in a dream, the low murmur of Jed or Ale. And what sport must they have had in the old days when Thomson fished—and even in the days when Stoddart fished—when farmers were ignorant, or careless, of the science of drainage, and rivers ran for days, nay, for weeks after

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