CHAPTER VIII ST. BOSWELLS GREEN, MELROSE, DARNICK, ABBOTSFORD, AND THE ELLWAND
All the way up Tweed from a mile below Mertoun Bridge, up past the cauld where the pent water spouts and raves ceaselessly, along the bank where lies St. Boswells Golf Course, round that noble sweep where the river holds Dryburgh lovingly in the crook of its arm, up by the boulder-strewn streams above, and round the elbow by the foot suspension-bridge, past the lofty red scaurs and the hanging woods to the Monk's Ford, trout fishing—at least from the right bank—is free. And though it goes without saying that pool and stream are "sore fished," yet it is not possible by fair angling to spoil Tweed. Many a fisher may depart, empty and downcast, but if he persevere, some day he shall have his reward. To him who patiently teaches himself to know the river and the whims of its inhabitants, to him who studies weather and time of day—or, may be, of night—there must at length come success, for many are the trout, and large. The writer has known a yellow trout of 8 lbs. 12 ozs. to be killed with fly hard by the golf course. The weight is of course exceptional, but many a beauty of 2 lbs. and over is there to be taken by him who is possessed of skill and patience; and to me is known no more enticing spectacle than one of these long swift pools of a summer evening, in the gloaming, when the water is alive with the dimples of rising trout.
And what a river it is, however you take it! And what a river it is, however you take it! What a series of noble views is there for him who can withdraw his attention from the water.
[Original]
Let him climb, in the peaceful evening light, to the top of the red and precipitous Braeheads behind the long single street of St. Boswells Green, pleasantest of villages, and there gaze his fill at the beautiful Abbey far beneath his feet, sleeping amongst the trees across the river. Or let him go farther still, up by the leafy path that overhangs the rushing water, till he come to the little suspension-bridge. And let him stop there, midway across, and face towards the western sky and the three peaks of Eildon that stand out beyond the trees clear-cut against the warm after-glow. At his feet, mirroring the glory of the dying day, a broad shining sweep of quiet water broken only by the feeding trout; on his left hand, high in air the young moon floating like lightest feather; above the fretful murmur of some far-off stream, a bird piping to his mate. And over all, a stillness that holds and strangely moves the very soul. I think that if there be one with him attuned to his mood, an hour may pass and the gloaming have deepened almost to dusk, and neither of them shall have spoken a word, or noticed that the time has sped. And still they will linger, unwilling to break the spell.
At Leaderfoot the river is crossed by two stone bridges, one, the lofty naked viaduct of the Berwickshire Railway; the other, older and more pleasing, carries the picturesque road that, breaking out from the leafy woods of Drygrange and leaving on its left hand the hallowed site of Old Melrose, leads past St. Boswell's Green and the Kennels of the Buccleuch Hunt, over by Lilliard's Edge to Jedburgh. Between, and immediately above, the bridges at Leaderfoot are some glorious salmon casts, where nigh on a century ago Scrope was wont to throw a fly. Strange that during twenty years, in all that magnificent water fished by him, from Kelso to Caddonfoot, he never once landed a salmon of thirty pounds, and but few as heavy as twenty. There may have been more fish in his day,—one cannot judge; they got more, but then they took them not only with fly, but by "sunning" and by "burning" the water, and by many another means that now is justly considered to be poaching. But they seldom caught a salmon approaching in weight those which are now commonly taken in Tweed every season. Thirty pounds is a weight by no means noticeable now-a-days, and scarcely a year passes that fish of forty pounds and over are not taken by some fortunate angler; even above Melrose cauld, an obstruction that checks the ascent of many big fish, they have been got, far up the river, as heavy as thirty-eight pounds. Floors Water, at Kelso, I believe holds the record as regards size; in 1886 a fish of fifty-seven and a half pounds was captured. And as to numbers, though it is of course possible to labour for a week or more in Tweed—as elsewhere—even with the water apparently in good order, and with plenty of fish up, fresh from the sea, and meet with no manner of success, on the other hand there is on Makerstoun Water the pleasing record of twelve, fourteen, fifteen and sixteen salmon killed by one rod on four consecutive days; fifty seven fish in all, and seventy-three for the week.