ar the river
referred to in the feminine gender) has so many admirers, who pledge
her in a life-long devotion. It is indeed a winsome river, and the
scenery, never tame, is in many parts lovely. Where can there be a
more beautiful place than Sir Richard Waldie-Griffith's park at
Hendersyde, as it shows from the other bank of the river? The autumnal
tints are in advance of those farther south, and the beeches glow ruddy
from afar. This borderland is admirably wooded, and the Tweed valley
is pre-eminent in that respect. The historical associations are so
numerous and so interesting that the mind, if you allow it to run riot,
will become overburdened with them. For myself, to assist in the
development of the ripe fruit of patience, I kept mostly to musings
that had Abbotsford for its centre, and re-read Lockhart on the spot
with which that ponderous volume is so closely concerned. Thanks to
Mr. David Tait, I secured one of the early editions, where are to be
found all the references to fishing and other sports which are not
included in other editions.

The Wizard of the North lived awhile at Rosebank, a short distance
below Kelso, and the old tree, I believe, was still flourishing in
which he used to sit and take pot shots at herons as they flew over the
Tweed, which rolled beneath his leafy perch. Driving down to Carham,
"Tweedside," who was my companion, showed me Rosebank across the broad
stream, and, while I was reminding him of Walter Scott's gunnery, we
saw in an adjacent ploughed field three herons standing close together,
apparently in doleful contemplation. On this drive also we crossed a
burn which divides English from Scottish soil, and it was tumbling down
in angry mood. Scores of other rivulets on either side were pouring
their off-scourings into the vexed river, each precisely as gracefully
described in the lines:

Now murmuring hoarse, and frequent seen,
Through bush and briar no longer green,
An angry brook, it sweeps the glade,
Brawls over rock and wild cascade.
And, foaming brown with double speed,
Hurries its waters to the Tweed.

The morning, however, comes at last when John, who has been to the
station with the early train, meets you as you descend to the
coffee-room with "She'll fush the day." But you will not forget that
Tweed has been out of order for twelve days, rising and falling, never
settled. Still, though the chance is very much an off one, it has to
be taken.