SALMON ANOLINO TN inKLAND. 55 



hurroo for the salmon." But no, you could not be vulgar. You 

 would lay a hand on your waistcoat, and murmur softly " Believe 

 me, my dear Mrs. Salmon, yours faithfully, till death " 



And quite right too. But most vows are conditional. For the last 

 four days I have fished slaved would be more correct from 9 a.m. 

 to 7 p.m., with certainly not ten minutes' rest, and for these forty 

 misspent hours have only two fish to show. Well, there is no 

 knowing what a man may do when he is vexed. I am vexed, and 

 shall go trouting. This was resolved on last night, but there was 

 a little difficulty about bait, which we overcame in this wise. Archy 

 and I set out in the twilight to look for a boy, and soon found one. 

 The negotiation was left in his hands : " An-ah, Patsy," to a shoeless 

 mass of rags, " come here. Is it a throut ye'd know, if ye seen it 

 as long as this ?" Here Archy marked the exact length of the animal 

 required, with the end of his pipe, on the knuckle of his forefinger. 

 Patsy felt hurt by the implied doubt, so he did not answer, except 

 by grinning from ear to ear. " Hurry, ye young villin ; hurry off 

 wid ye at the fust light, and be shure ye come back before the 

 master's up ; sorra a cross yell get else, and Holy Peter, won't I lash 

 ye ; mind, I'm telling." At the conclusion of these energetic 

 instructions, Patsy made his bow and departed, to meditate on the 

 doctrine of rewards and punishments so forcibly laid down. 



The young scapegi-ace returned in time to win his sixpence, and 

 escape a "lashing" and brought twelve or thirteen baits, so with 



these we started The reader knows, of course, he is at 



Lough Melvin, but, from any description of mine, he has not " the 

 least idea in life " what sort of place that may be, except a kind of 

 debatable water between the counties Leitrim and Fennanagh. 



Wonderfully lovely is the lake with its sparkliug wavelets breaking 

 in the sunshine, and its islands tinted with the green and pink, grey 

 and yellow, of the coming spiing. How charming these little worlds 

 look in the undress of this morning of their immortal lives ; nor is 

 space wanting, for our lake is rather more than seven miles Jong by 

 three broad. Of course it is not a first-class water, for, comjjared 

 with its neighbour Lough Erne, with Lough Neagh, Lough Corrib, 



