since, with the strongest
loch-trout I ever encountered. It was on Branxholme Loch, where the
trout run to a great size, but usually refuse the fly. I was alone in a
boat on a windy day; the trout soon ran out the line to the knot, and
then there was nothing for it but to lower the top almost to the water's
edge, and hold on in hope. Presently the boat drifted ashore, and I
landed him--better luck than I deserved. People who only know the trout
of the Test and other chalk streams, cannot imagine how much stronger are
the fish of the swift Scottish streams and dark Scottish lochs. They're
worse fed, but they are infinitely more powerful and active; it is all
the difference between an alderman and a clansman.

Tweed, at this time, was full of trout, but even then they were not easy
to catch. One difficulty lay in the nature of the wading. There is a
pool near Ashiesteil and Gleddis Weil which illustrated this. Here Scott
and Hogg were once upset from a boat while "burning the water"--spearing
salmon by torchlight. Herein, too, as Scott mentions in his Diary, he
once caught two trout at one cast. The pool is long, is paved with small
gravel, and allures you to wade on and on. But the water gradually
deepens as you go forward, and the pool ends in a deep pot under each
bank. Then to recover your ground becomes by no means easy, especially
if the water is heavy. You get half-drowned, or drowned altogether,
before you discover your danger. Many of the pools have this
peculiarity, and in many, one step made rashly lets you into a very
uncomfortable and perilous place. Therefore expeditions to Tweedside
were apt to end in a ducking. It was often hard to reach the water where
trout were rising, and the rise was always capricious. There might not
be a stir on the water for hours, and suddenly it would be all boiling
with heads and tails for twenty minutes, after which nothing was to be
done. To miss "the take" was to waste the day, at least in fly-fishing.
From a high wooded bank I have seen the trout feeding, and they have
almost ceased to feed before I reached the waterside. Still worse was it
to be allured into water over the tops of your waders, early in the day,
and then to find that the rise was over, and there was nothing for it but
a weary walk home, the basket laden only with damp boots. Still, the
trout were undeniably _there_, and that was a great encouragement. They
are there still, but infinitely