"Dash it!"[1] said the stranger, quoting the habitual phrase of poor Leyden, "I shall fish none to-day." [Footnote 1: This was a common expression of Leyden's, and, perhaps, was in some degree expressive of his headlong and determined character.] And I wonder not at his having so said; for it is not every day that we stand beneath the thatch-clad roof--or any other roof--where was born one whose name time will bear written in undying characters on its wings, until those wings droop in the darkness of eternity. The stranger proceeded up the Teviot, oftentimes thinking of Leyden, of all that he had written, and occasionally repeating passages aloud. He almost forgot that he had a rod in his hand--his eyes did anything but follow the fly, and, I need hardly say, his success was not great. About mid-day, he sat down on the green bank in solitariness, to enjoy a sandwich, and he also placed by his side a small flask, containing spirits, which almost every angler, who can afford it, carries with him. But he had not sat long, when a venerable-looking old man saluted him with-- "Here's a bonny day, sir." The old man stood as he spoke. There was something prepossessing in his appearance he had a weatherbeaten face, with thin white hair, blue eyes, that had lost somewhat of their former lustre, his shoulders were rather bent; and he seemed a man who was certainly neither rich nor affluent, but who was at ease with the world, and the world was at ease with him. They entered into conversation, and they sat down together. The old man appeared exactly one of those characters whom you will occasionally find fraught with the traditions of the Borders, and still tainted with, and half believing in, their ancient superstitions. I wish not to infer that superstition was carried to a greater height of absurdity on the Borders than in other parts of England and Scotland, nor even that the inhabitants of the North were as remarkable in early days for their superstitions, as they now are for their intelligence; for every nation had its superstitions, and I am persuaded that most of them might be traced to a common origin. Yet, though the same in origin, they change their likeness with the character of a nation or district. People unconsciously made their superstitions to suit themselves, though their imaginary effects still terrified them. There was, therefore, a something characteristic in the fables of our forefathers, which fables they believed as facts. The cunning deceived the ignorant--the ignorant were willing to deceive themselves; and what we now laugh at as the clever trick of a _hocus-pocus_ man, was, scarce more than a century ago, received as a miracle--as a thing performed by the hand of the "prince of the powers of the air." Religion without knowledge, and still swaddled in darkness, fostered their idle fear; yea, there are few superstitions, though prostituted by wickedness, that did not owe their existence to some glimmering idea of religion.