CHAPTER VII.

THE WHITADDER AND BLACKADDER.

HESE Berwickshire Twins will stand compa

rison with any trouting-streams in the south of Scotland. The one is fair and gravelly, with rattling streams, and sometimes rocky banks; the other black but comely, sleeping in its alluvial bed amongst the moors, and breeding big trouts that are as strong and sportive in the water as they are flavoury on the table. Both come from the same hills, yet no two streams differ more in character. It is hard to tell which is the preferable; and the best way of solving the difficulty is to spend a summer in the skirts of the Lammermoors, and take them "week about."

The Whitadder rises at the White Well, near Johnscleuch, in Haddingtonshire, and for the first fifteen miles of its course winds its way through the bare valleys of the Lammermoors, the heathy sides of the hills being relieved and variegated by pleasant patches of green. In the first five or six miles of its course it receives but insignificant contributions from a few burns; but it and they are all swarming with small Above Millknow, in a flood, a boy with a pin may slay his dozens, and at all times the expert angler may fill his pannier, if it is of reasonable size, with trout-a few of decent proportions amongst them.

At Millknow the Whitadder is joined by the Fasney, a rocky and heathery-edged stream, than which there is no water that we know of that yields a greater quantity of trout to the fisher. Its bleak recesses are indeed but seldom explored, save by the shepherd looking after his flocks. The farm-house of Priestlaw stands near its mouth, but there is not another house or hut on its banks throughout its whole course. It is five miles, at its nearest point, from any inn or village, and that village is eight miles from any railway, or place reached by any public conveyance. Probably, since time began, no net has ever been drawn through it, unless a pout-net for sport in a flood; for there is no temptation in the way of a market for the trout, even if there were poachers ready with their implements. But indeed its rugged bottom would not allow of the effective use of any of the more deadly engines for destroying river-trout. We have never seen any drains-save from Priestlaw farm-running the rain too hastily from the hills into the stream-(a cause, by the way, which we have not yet mentioned, of the decrease of trouts and the falling off in angling.) While, therefore, there are of almost all the rivers which we have visited, complaints of evils that have reduced their trouting capabilities-over-fishing, netting, factory filth, hill-drainage-here is one free from them all, that is as good now as it was a hundred years ago, and that will probably continue so for ever. The desolate Fasney will, we trust, be an exception to the progress of the age," for to our mind it is "so aptly formed by Nature" as to be susceptible of no improve

ment. There is one drawback, indeed-the trout of

the Fasney are of the regular heather-burn species. The stream is a hill-burn magnified, and its inhabitants are black, large-headed, powerful of jaw, and poor of flesh. They are not, on the whole, so small as the trout usually are in such waters; for although a pounder is rare, there are many of half-a-pound, and the run is not much under a quarter. But the impression produced by a Fasney trout of half-a-pound is painfully suggestive of age and ravenousness. The head is much too big in proportion to the body, the teeth are long and sharp; and you might fancy that just as constant exertion develops the muscles of the blacksmith's arm, constant indulgence of voracity had exaggerated the masticating members of these fish. But the truth is, that the trout's head seems to continue to grow when the food is too scarce to carry forward the shoulders at an equal rate, and it is by its dentation and the length of its maxillary bones that the patriarch of a pool may often be detected, rather than by its weight. A two-yearold trout of the Blackadder is probably heavier than a ten-year-old trout of the Fasney-but lay their heads together, and see the verification of the adage about old crania and young shoulders! As might be inferred from our description, the Fasney is a late stream, the spring being far advanced before the trout in it will take fly or are worth catching. But in summer it is a certain producer; and we have fished it with worm on the worst of all sorts of days for worm-fishing, when a driving mist filled the lonely glen, and the whirr of the grouse getting up from amongst the heather was like the noise of thunder, and yet found our creel as full as we cared to carry home by the evening. Longformacus Inn, on

L

the Dye, which we will have to notice afterwards, is the nearest place to the Fasney where accommodation can be had. The very head of the Whitadder is nearest to Haddington of any railway station, from which town, however, Millknow is nine miles distant.

We could not imagine five miles of finer water than the Whitadder from the junction of the Fasney to the junction of the Dye. Gravelly streams, with here and there a rocky pool, where some aged predator lurks secure, often of no mean weight,-the gush of a little rapid occasionally, that makes eddies just adapted for fly, worm, or creeper,―pretty bends and shallow byruns by the edge of grassy banks, into which, in the hot summer days, dozens of trout crowd to watch for food -these are the characteristics of this stretch of the Whitadder, while there are fish enough for a legion of fishers daily. Nor is their size by any means contemptible in a flood a large average may be attained with minnow—we have known Geordie Hamilton (of whom anon) kill a three-pounder at Cranshaws, and he used to say he knew where others of even larger size had their haulds, from which he intended to abstract them the first favourable day; and a trout of a pound weight, and several of half-a-pound, may almost be relied upon by any one who fishes the water carefully with any of the other lures. We have heard that about a mile of the Whitadder near Cranshaws is supposed to be protected by the Marquis of Abercorn, but we have never experienced any interruption, although we have fished it frequently. This is the only point at which there is even the suspicion of preserving in the whole course of the Whitadder.

Bothwell-burn joins the Whitadder at St. Agness about a mile above Cranshaws Kirk. We have only tested the lower pools, but believe that it is throughout full of trouts; and it is a capital resort in a flood.

Dye-water debouches half-a-mile above Ellemford Inn. It has run nearly as far as the Whitadder at that point—that is, about twelve miles; but its volume of water is scarcely so great, its tributaries being few and small. In its head-waters trout are excessively numerous. Above Byrecleuch-which is a curious old house, used as a shooting-box by the Duke of Roxburgh, with a farm-steading and a few cottages beside it-the number of dozens that might be taken in a day are scarcely limited save by the possibilities of casting and pulling out. In a flood with fly in April or May, baskets have been filled with surprising celerity, and scarcely anywhere will the worm-fisher find larger profits or quicker returns for his expenditure of trouble and care. Its lower parts are scarcely inferior. There are large trout in the deep and rugged pools worn out in the rock; and, just at the turn of a flood, the minnow has often done great execution. In 1856 the prize basket at the annual competition of an angling club that exists in the village of Longformacus weighed 24 lbs., captured by minnow in the part of the water that is most fished, the last three miles of its course; while other takes were, we believe, upwards of or closely approaching 20 lbs. The principal tributary of the Dye is the Watch-water, a stream full of trout, but these of the very smallest size. We have captured dozens in it without getting one a quarter of a pound in weight. The Watch joins it a little above Long