SALMON ANOLINO IN IBELAND. 147 



wlioae lives were passed either in carrying off other people's goods or 

 defending their own. 



All sublunary things will come to an end if we have but patience, 

 and so at last did the Colonel's cigar ; but the sun was now shining 

 in his might, and the lake glowed like a sheet of molten silver. A 

 council of war being summoned, returned a unanimous verdict that 

 nothing could be done except with ground bait. The Colonel here 

 came out strong, and spoke something in this wise : The first great 

 object of fishing was to take fish ; if they would behave in a gentle- 

 manly way, and feed on the surface, well ; but if they refused what 

 was offered to them on the top, try the bottom. The second 

 important design of angling, he continued, was to produce health. 

 Now, what tended so much to nervous and physical integrity as a 

 cheerful frame of mind ? and what was more calculated to make a 

 man at peace with himself and the world around, than success ? If 

 they won't take fly or troll, give them the worm. These opinions 

 being adopted by acclamation, all hands set eagerly to work ^hazel 

 wands were cut and trimmed, and bait collected ; whilst Willie 

 opened a rural kind of " store," and gave out gut, bad hooks, wax, 

 and split shot, to the ship's company. Keeping near the shore, in 

 six or seven feet of water, half a dozen sections of cork once the 

 property of Messrs. Bass or Guinness soon dotted the surface of 

 the lake, for a moment or two lay motionless, and then commenced 

 dipping and diving in quick succession. The perch were our first 

 guests ; then came in a bream shaped like a pair of bellows, and 

 nearly as large as one of the fancy articles often seen hanging in a 

 lady's drawing-room ; then some little trout, bright as if they had 

 dined on a sunbeam. Hitherto the Colonel had not exchanged a 

 single shot with the enemy ; but now he was fiercely attacked. 

 With the point of his light trout-rod bent to the butt, the gallant 

 veteran resisted all the assaults of his foe. Tug, tug, tug I What 

 can it be ? John, who had been peering into the water, averred 

 that though the creature was kicking up a great dust at the bottom, 

 he caught a glimpse of something at least three feet long. My friend 

 opined it was a red salmon, or the devil. Little by little he neared 



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