SALMON ANGLING IN IBELAND, HI 



CHAPTER XXm. 



The Colonel takes Command of an Expedition Through many Dangers we 

 arrive safely at Beleek, and troll on the Lake for anything we can catch 

 After Mess the Crew cut their Sticks, but subsequently return to Duty A 

 desperate Character Westward Ho ! 



Jtme 27. 

 My stout old friend the Colonel, though fast verging towards the 

 fatal " three score years and ten," is yet hale and hearty ; place him 

 in a boat, and he will work as well as the youngest ; but he finds 

 the world rougher than it used to be, and detests all unnecessary 

 pedal locomotion. Without 



Larding the lean earth as he walks along, 



the commander yet agrees with honest old Jack, that '* eight yards 

 of uneven ground is three score and ten miles a foot with me," and 

 in this mood proposed, as we strolled towards the town, that we 

 should visit Lough Erne. To me his wish is law. So it was settled 

 then and there, under the quiet stars, that we should start early on 

 the following morning for Beleek, and declare war against the trout 

 and pike. 



We had been busily engaged in preparing tackle for the expedition ; 

 had finished the morning meal ; packed up a basket of provender ; 

 and yet it was not eight o'clock, at which hour the Colonel had 

 covenanted to be at my door with chariot and horse. With him 

 " promise " and " perform " were synonymous, and, as I conjectured, 

 on the last stroke of the hour he drove up. What a conscience that 

 man must have, to expect one wretched animal to drag a lady, five 

 stout men, three baskets, and two heavy hampers all the way to 

 Beleek ! But so it was to be. With the exception of the Colonel, 

 we walked up the steep street, and then rolled heavily along the old 

 road, past the pretty villa of Laputa by heath and moorland by 

 rock and coppice ; came to a stand from a fractured trace, near the 



