One cannot reproduce the charm of the strong river in pool and stream, of the steep rich bank that it rushes or lingers by, of the green and heathery hills beyond, or the bare slopes where the blue slate breaks through among the dark old thorn-trees, remnants of the forest.  It is all homely and all haunted, and, if a Tweedside fisher might have his desire, he would sleep the long sleep in the little churchyard that lies lonely above the pool of Caddon-foot, and hard by Christopher North’s favourite quarters at Clovenfords.

However, while we are still on earth, Caddon-foot is more attractive for her long sweep of salmon-pool—­the home of sea-trout too—­than precisely for her kirk-yard.  There will be time enough for that, and time it is to recur to the sad story of the big fish and the careless angler.  It was about the first day of October, and we had enjoyed a “spate.”  Salmon-fishing is a mere child of the weather; with rain almost anybody may raise fish, without it all art is apt to be vain.  We had been blessed with a spate.  On Wednesday the Tweed had been roaring red from bank to bank.  Salmon-fishing was wholly out of the question, and it is to be feared that the innumerable trout-fishers, busy on every eddy, were baiting with salmon roe, an illegal lure.  On Thursday the red tinge had died out of the water, but only a very strong wader would have ventured in; others had a good chance, if they tried it, of being picked up at Berwick.  Friday was the luckless day of my own failure and broken heart.  The water was still very heavy and turbid, a frantic wind was lashing the woods, heaps of dead leaves floated down, and several sheaves of corn were drifted on the current.  The long boat-pool at Yair, however, is sheltered by wooded banks, and it was possible enough to cast, in spite of the wind’s fury.  We had driven from a place about five miles distant, and we had not driven three hundred yards before I remembered that we had forgotten the landing-net.  But, as I expected nothing, it did not seem worth while to go back for this indispensable implement.  We reached the waterside, and found that the trout were feeding below the pendent branches of the trees and in the quiet, deep eddies of the long boat-pool.  One cannot see rising trout without casting over them, in preference to labouring after salmon, so I put up a small rod and diverted myself from the bank.  It was to little purpose.  Tweed trout are now grown very shy and capricious; even a dry fly failed to do any execution worth mentioning.  Conscience compelled me, as I had been sent out by kind hosts to fish for salmon, not to neglect my orders.  The armour—­the ponderous gear of the fisher—­was put on with the enormous boots, and the gigantic rod was equipped.  Then came the beginning of sorrows.  We had left the books of salmon flies comfortably reposing at home.  We had also forgotten the whiskey flask.  Everything, in fact, except cigarettes,