SALMON ANGLING IN IRELAND. 260 



once more feeling the strain, dashed on towards some stronghold 

 which perhaps then rose clear in his fancy. I dared not give him 

 an inch of line for fear of again getting foul, but rushed madly on 

 over ground that in cool blood I would not have faced for a trifle. 

 One false step would have been equivalent to a broken bone. 



" There ain't no getting over this here, master." As my com- 

 panion remarked, there ivas a difficulty, for the rocks were abrupt, 

 far apart, and slippery as glass. Now came the tug of war. As the 

 fish shot against a strong column of falling water we gave him the 

 butt. For a brief space the forces were balanced and the onward 

 rush stayed ; a second more and he was weltering down, still 

 resisting the united action of the rod and the torrent. Willie 

 availed himseK of the opportunity, stepped lightly on a nearly sub- 

 merged stone, and as the salmon rolled past drove the steel home, 

 with just sufficient breath left to exclaim : 



" If we hav'nt paid the full price for you, 'tis a pity." 

 All hands had taken in enough water for one day, so, hauling the 

 boat up high and dry, we turned her over on the heather, deposited 

 the oars in the nearest cabin, and set off homewards in such a deluge 

 of rain as rarely descends on man's devoted head. 



The fairy web of night and day, 



called twilight in vulgar prose, was falling around us, yet we 

 floundered merrily across the spongy bog, and splashed along the 

 road towards the hotel, not distant, but more than half obscured by 

 the mist, the rain, and the growing darkness. 



What a wonderful thing is memory ! How vividly I now recalled 

 my earliest visit to Gweedore ! It seemed but yesterday that my first 

 season was drawing to a close. With the design of getting infor- 

 mation for the following year, I had been moving across a country 

 which to me was then a terra incognita, and had blundered by 

 chance into Dunfanaghy, to find Horn Head a delight, and M'Swine's 

 gun a perpetual excitement. How keenly I now remembered my 

 first introduction to the Midges, that close, sweltering night when 

 we drove under Muckish, on our way to Lord George's. How vividly 



