The Project Gutenberg eBook, Lost Leaders, by Andrew Lang, Edited by W.
Pett Ridge

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Title: Lost Leaders

Author: Andrew Lang

Editor: W. Pett Ridge

Release Date: August 14, 2005 [eBook #16529]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOST LEADERS***

Transcribed from the 1889 Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. edition by David
Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

LOST LEADERS
by
ANDREW LANG

LONDON

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1889

PREFACE.

These articles are reprinted, by the permission of the Editor, from the
_Daily News_. They were selected and arranged by Mr. Pett Ridge, who,
with the Publishers, will perhaps kindly take a share in the
responsibility of republishing them.

LOST LEADERS.

SCOTCH RIVERS.

September is the season of the second and lovelier youth of the river-
scenery of Scotland. Spring comes but slowly up that way; it is June
before the woods have quite clothed themselves. In April the angler or
the sketcher is chilled by the east wind, whirling showers of hail, and
even when the riverbanks are sweet with primroses, the bluff tops of the
border hills are often bleak with late snow. This state of things is
less unpropitious to angling than might be expected. A hardy race of
trout will sometimes rise freely to the artificial fly when the natural
fly is destroyed, and the angler is almost blinded with dusty snowflakes.
All through midsummer the Scotch rivers lose their chief attractions. The
bracken has not yet changed its green for the fairy gold, the hue of its
decay; the woods wear a uniform and sombre green; the waters are low and
shrunken, and angling is almost impossible. But with September the
pleasant season returns for people who love "to be quiet, and go
a-fishing," or a-sketching. The hills put on a wonderful harmony of
colours, the woods rival the October splendours of English forests. The
bends of the Tweed below Melrose and round Mertoun--a scene that, as
Scott says, the river seems loth to leave--may challenge comparison with
anything the Thames can show at Nuneham or Cliefden. The a