as frequent as castles on the
Rhine. Each has its tradition, its memory of lawless times, which have
become beautiful in the magic of poetry and the mist of the past. First
comes Neidpath Castle, with its vaulted "hanging chamber" in the roof,
and the rafter, with the iron ring to which prisoners were hanged, still
remaining to testify to the lawless power of Border lords. Neidpath has
a softer legend of the death of the lady of the house, when her lover
failed to recognize the features that had wasted with sorrow for his
absence. Lower down the river comes Clovenfords, with its memories of
Christopher North, and Peebles, where King James sings that there was
"dancing and derray" in his time; and still lower Ashiesteel, where Scott
was young and happy, and Abbotsford, where his fame and his misfortunes
found him out. It was on a bright afternoon in late September that he
died there, and the mourners by his bed heard through the silence the
murmuring of Tweed How many other associations there are by the tributary
rivers! what a breath of "pastoral melancholy"! There is Ettrick, where
the cautious lover in the old song of Ettrick banks found "a canny place
of meeting." Oakwood Tower, where Michael Scott, the wizard, wove his
spells, is a farm building--the haunted magician's room is a granary,
Earlstone, where Thomas the Rhymer dwelt, and whence the two white deer
recalled him to Elfland and to the arms of the fairy queen, is noted "for
its shawl manufactory." Only Yarrow still keeps its ancient quiet, and
the burn that was tinged by the blood of Douglas is unstained by more
commonplace dyes.

All these changes make the "Rivers of Scotland" rather melancholy
reading. Thirty years have not passed since Lauder died, and how much he
would miss if he could revisit his beloved water! Spearing salmon by
torchlight is a forbidden thing. The rocks are no longer lit up with the
red glow; they resound no longer with the shouts and splashing of the
yeomen. You might almost as readily find a hart on Harthope, or a wild
cat at Catslack, or a wolf at Wolf-Cleugh, as catch three stone-weight of
trout in Meggat-water. {6} The days of guileless fish and fabulous
draughts of trout are over. No sportsman need take three large baskets
to the Gala now, as Lauder did, and actually filled them with thirty-six
dozen of trout. The modern angler must not allow his expectations to be
raised too highly by these stories. Sport has bec