meant by having been a master fisherman in those days, I shall simply state that Mr Weatherly had taken a lease of a particular spot on one side of the Tweed, and which was in length about two hundred yards, and on that space he had the right of casting out and dragging in his nets. He had this river-farm at a very small sum annually; though, within a mile from the spot where he held it, we have known a lesser portion of fishing right in the river let for nearly two thousand pounds sterling per annum; and that, too, when the wisdom of the present generation (perhaps I ought to put the generation in the past tense) almost threw a _dyke_ across the mouth of the river, which built up what was called the _Meadow Haven_, and which haven was a gut in the rocks, by which the fish, coming in shoals from the north, entered the river; and this being built up by the _dyke_ or _pier_ aforesaid, after running their noses against a stone wall, instead of meeting with the _natural_ entrance to the river which _nature_ dictated to them to pursue, they were left, like a pack of fox-hounds that had been thrown off their scent, to seek the artificial entrance where they might find it, or for another river if they chose. Thus, the good old Tweed being half blocked up, fishing waters, in the present day, do not abound with the silver-mailed salmon, as they did in the days of Mr Weatherly. Besides, the river was then _fished_, not _harried_! It is not, therefore, wonderful that the father of Marion became a man of property.