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.
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