But I never had any luck there. The choicest stream of all was
then, probably, the Aill, described by Sir Walter in "William of
Deloraine's Midnight Ride"--
Where Aill, from mountains freed,
Down from the lakes did raving come;
Each wave was crested with tawny foam,
Like the mane of a chestnut steed.
As not uncommonly happens, Scott uses rather large language here. The
steepy, grassy hillsides, the great green tablelands in a recess of which
the Aill is born, can hardly be called "mountains." The "lakes," too,
through which it passes, are much more like tarns, or rather, considering
the flatness of their banks, like well-meaning ponds. But the Aill, near
Sinton and Ashkirk, was a delightful trout-stream, between its willow-
fringed banks, a brook about the size of the Lambourne. Nowhere on the
Border were trout more numerous, better fed, and more easily beguiled. A
week on Test would I gladly give for one day of boyhood beside the Aill,
where the casting was not scientific, but where the fish rose gamely at
almost any fly. Nobody seemed to go there then, and, I fancy, nobody
need go there now. The nets and other dismal devices of the poachers
from the towns have ruined that pleasant brook, where one has passed so
many a happy hour, walking the long way home wet and weary, but well
content.
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