SALMON ANGLING IN IRELAND. 99 



hail ; " Pray keep farther off, sir ; I have got a splendid trout, and 

 would not lose him for the world." We lay on our oars, and shortly 

 after saw a very nice fish secured. ** I have to beg your pardon," 

 said my new acquaintance, whose neat dress and neater appoint- 

 ments savoured strongly of dear old London, " for calling to you just 

 now : pray excuse me ; in the excitement of the moment, I may 

 have been a little delirious. But do just look here ; did you ever 

 see such a beauty?" It was certainly a capital specimen of a 

 Belviderian, weighing from 4^1b. to 51b. Never but once before had 

 I seen mortal creature so happy. He trembled all over with 

 pleasurable excitement, and his voice shook whilst inviting me to 

 admu-e the goddess of his idolatry. Had I at that moment announced 

 him heir to 1000/. a-year, I do not believe he would have cared one 

 farthing for the intelligence ^he was so full of joy, there was no 

 room for more. I was reminded of my first salmon, which, speaking 

 coiTectly, was but a miserable grilse of 41b., yet the world never 

 held such a glorious creature. I dared not touch my prize, lest I 

 should defile it. Shape, colour, all came back to me now, with the 

 happy exaggeration of that hour. The pocket handkerchief was again 

 wetted, and the immortal one carefully swathed therein. No young 

 mother ever carried her firstborn so tenderly as I bore that wi'etched 

 little brown fish home. Placed in the largest dish the house con- 

 tained, I worshipped him. Had a painter been near 1 0/. would have 

 been cheap for his likeness. I wanted to have him embalmed. I 

 longed passionately to take him to bed. Ah me ! I shall never 

 again meet such another. The redskins in their happy hunting 

 grounds enjoy for ever and ever the zest of the first chase, 

 and now here, in this work-day world, stood a man feeling what I 

 once felt. How I envied him ; yet had his story been known to me 

 then, perhaps my envy had been less. 



That night, over a quiet cigar, he told me that ten years had 

 elapsed since he had touched a rod. "I was in Cumberland then," 

 he said, '' with my brother ; over-fatigue brought on fever, 

 which ended fatally, and then I lost the dearest friend I ever had, 

 or ever shall have. Till to-day I never dared to look at it, 



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