An extract from the Edinburgh Evening Post, Wednesday 07 November 1832.
Mr. WALTER THORNBURN was angling in the Tweed last week, and hooked a salmon at a place called the New Water, below Innerleithen. The fish proved remarkably camstairy from the beginning, refusing and despising all in manner of control. In short, he would neither turn nor wind, but just run where he pleased, so that Mr. THORBURN began to think ” the de’il was i’ the fish if ever he leevit amang water.” At length the fish took it into his head, or rather into his tail, to run straight down the river. Off he went, and WALTER after him full speed, with the line generally at or very near its full length.
There was no stop nor stay — down he went for the first mile ” like a fiery dragon,” about which time our breathless angler perceived with horror a huge tree lying in the midst of the river in deep water, and its branches extending half way from side to side. He dashed into the water, to conduct his line past this unmannerly interference. But, unluckily, in the eddy caused by the tree, the flood had formed a quicksand, in which Mr. THORNBURN instantly sunk, and stuck fast. The line was run out, and he had no shift but to fling the rod from him and let the unaccountable fish take it all to himself. Away went the fish, and away went the rod, and there was WALTER standing struggling, sunk to the waist in the quicksand. It was twenty minutes before he got himself extricated, and by that time he was quite forespent, and the fish, and the rod, and the grand reel, and all, straight on their course to Berwick-upon-Tweed. He, however, ran as fast he could, “and sent his voice before him as he flew,” never letting one cry of despair await the end of another. The whole district was astonished, not knowing what in the world was the matter with the young man. The shepherd left his flock on the hill, and ran toward Tweed-side; the ploughman left his plough in the middle furrow; and even girls and old dames left the potato-field, and hasted towards the river, saying to one another, ” Gudeness preserve us! what ails Wattie Thorburn the day; he’s surely gane dementit.”
At length his brother of Juniper Bank heard the unearthly cries, and, mounting his horse, galloped to his afflicted brother’s assistance. He then recovered the hold of his rod, and finally landed the salmon, after a chase of little short of four miles. He was a small fish, and hooked by the tail!
