154 A YEAR OF LIBERTY ; OR, 



looks sometliing like, generally meets with the damper, '' May he 

 it is ; your Honour should know best ; but hick's all." 



CHAPTER XXn. 



Ballyshannon Salmon Leap ^White Trout Evening The Grass Yard 

 How Pat was brought to Life The Colonel Tries on his Boots, and John 

 doth a Tale unfold. 



June 23. 

 The real run of fish in these water, though enormous, is very 

 limited in point of time. Taking the average of different seasons, 

 it may be said to extend from the 1st of June to the end of July : 

 a few hundred stragglers are, however, caught during the next twenty 

 days, and some earlier salmon are secured in May, together with a 

 few in April. 



An idea may be formed of the numbers which enter the river 

 from the fact that during the height of the season it is not 

 uncommon to secure six or seven tons a day, the greater part of 

 which are taken in the pool below the falls by draughting. The 

 high grassy banks, which there rise from the water's edge, form a 

 favourite resort of strangers as well as residents, who appear year 

 after year to watch the operation with undiminished interest. Eas- 

 Aodh-Ruaidh, or Eed Hugh's Fall, called with more brevity and 

 less dignity "the leap," extends across the entire bed of the river, 

 and at low water has a perpendicular height of 12ft. All fish that 

 pass are safe, for no net ever robs the Erne of its treasures. 

 Thanks to the falls there is always a noble stock to benefit the 

 property and rejoice the sportsman ; a stock ever increasing through 

 the season, and only diminished by the angle. In most of the other 

 Irish fisheries the upper waters depend on rain for their supply ; but 

 here fresh salmon are continually entering the river, and at spring 

 tides himdreds pass every twenty-four hours. At such times it is 



