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CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART
CONTENTS
AN ANGLER’S IDYLL.
IN ALL SHADES.
OUR DOMESTICATED OTTER.
A GOLDEN ARGOSY.
SNOW-BLOSSOM.
OCCASIONAL NOTES.
AT WAKING.
No. 108.—Vol. III.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 23, 1886.
AN ANGLER’S IDYLL.
I am once more at the water’s edge. It is theTweed, silver-voiced, musical, its ripples breakinginto liquid crystals as the rushing streamleaps into the breast of the softly-circling pool.Here, in its upper reaches, amid the pastoralhills of Peeblesshire, its volume of fair water isuntainted by pollution. It has miles and milesyet to run ere it comes up with the floatingscum and dismal discoloration of ‘mill-races’and the refuse of the dye-house. And, there!—isnot that Drummelzier Castle on the oppositebank above, its gray walls powdered withthe yellows and browns of spreading lichens,and its shattered bastions waving here and therea crest of summer’s greenest grass? The fierceold chieftains who wrangled Border-fashion inits halls are silent to-day; the wild Tweediesand Hays and Veitches have had their roughvoices smothered in the churchyard dust. Fromthe shady angle of the old tower steps out a greatbrindled bull, leading his following of milkydames to where the pasture is juicy in thehaughs below. I am thankful the broad deepstream is between us, for as he lifts his headand sees me where I stand, he announces hisdispleasure in a short angry snort and a suddenlashing of his ponderous tail. Perhaps it isonly the flies tormenting him. In any case, itis well to be beyond his reach.
Above me and around are the great brown hillsof Tweed-dale. They have this morning a dreamylook. The soft west wind plays about them, andthe sunlight weaves a web of mingled glory andgloom over their broad summits and down theirfurrowed sides. The trees wave green branchesin the soft warm air; but I hear them not—onlythe swish and tinkle of the waters. Thesheep that feed upon the long gray slopesmove about in a kind of spectral stillness;I almost fancy I hear them bleat, but maybe mistaken, so far-off and dream-like is thesound. A distant shot is heard, and a flock ofwhite pigeons rise with swift wing from thesummit of the battered old keep, and wheelquick circles round the tower, then settle downas still and unseen as before. And somethingelse is moving on the farther side. It is a milkmaid,tripping down the bank towards the river,her pitchers creaking as she goes. She pausesere dip