SALMON ANGLINO IN raBLAND. 123 



it drew to the windows of the ' Port ' had never been seen at three 

 a.m. in the memory of man. The general opinion was that the 

 cholera had * tuk the pegs.' It startled the Captain ; what wonder 

 that it woke old Tom ? He saw the state of afifairs at once ; dared 

 not encounter the jokes of the delighted John ; modestly observed, 

 if St. Patrick was to order it, he'd not watch the bridge again 

 if that bom devil, the Captain, was within twenty miles of it ; 

 turned tail, and fairly bolted. Next morning Tom was reported 

 absent. For a whole week my servant returned the old 

 fellow non est. I was growing seriously anxious on his account 

 when, late on the ninth evening, he made his appearance 

 in the coffee-room. I hardly knew him, so pale and gaunt had 

 he become. By degrees I learned that, knowing the merciless 

 quizzing he must endure, he dared not return, but had been wandering 

 in the Leitrim mountains from one cottage to another, till the 

 present moment, when he hoped the affair had blown over and been 

 forgotten. T ordered him to call me early. * I'll do it, your honour; 

 but och. Colonel dear, niver breathe the laste taste in life about the 

 bridge.' Welladay ! Many a pleasant hour have I passed on this- 

 spot with friends I shall never see more." Here the soldier brushed 

 half an inch of white ash from his cigar a silent comment, perhaps, 

 on the perishing nature of sublunary things, and continued : " Tom 

 had a tenacious memory ; he owed the Captain * one,' and was not 

 likely to forget it. He was biding his time. Now, the commander 

 and myself were next-door neighbours. One stormy night, about 

 eleven, Tom placed himself under the Captain's window, hemmed, 

 coughed, whistled snatches of a song, and, pausing between whiles, 

 listened intently. If the Captain slept like a lynx, he was wary as a 

 hawk, and Mr. Lightly was afraid of over-acting. The bait took; he 

 heard his victim bounce out of bed and cautiously approach the 

 window to hear what was going on. ' Hist, hist, your honour,' said 

 Tom, addressing his sleeping master, but so softly that, though per- 

 fectly audible to the ambushed commander, it would hardly have 

 waked a watch dog. ' Hist, hist, your honour, if ye arn't down in 

 five minutes, bedad but we'll lose it,' adding, in a yet lower tone, 



