90 A BLANK FISHING DAY. 



active-minded dog, and his torpidness is alarming. We promptly 

 separated him from his companions, and have chained him in na 

 adjoining cabin, under the especial observation of old Antony. 

 The otter-killer is preparing to use his leechcraft, and I trust 

 with good effect. Canine madness is a frightful visitation, and 

 no caution can be too strict to guard against its melancholy 

 consequences. 



Who shall say that success in angling can be calculated upon 

 with any thing like certainty ? If a man were gifted with the 

 properties of a walking barometer, the weather of this most 

 capricious corner of the earth would set his prognostics at 

 defiance. Never did a morning look more favourable ; it was 

 just such a one as an angler would swear by ; a grey, dark, 

 sober, settled sky, without any vexatious glare of threatening 

 sunshine to interrupt his sport. The otter-killer was not so 

 sanguine of this happy promise of good weather as we were. 

 He observed certain little clouds, to which he gave some Irish 

 name. " The wind, too, had shifted a point southerly since 

 daybreak, and the pinkeens* were jumping, as they always 

 jump, when they expect more water." We laughed at him , 

 but Antony was right. 



We tried some beautiful pools ; the fish were rising fast ; 

 they sprang over the surface of the water frequently, and no 

 worse omen can threaten the fishermen with disappointment. 

 If they did condescend to notice our flies, they rose as if they 

 wished merely to reconnoitre them, or struck at them scornfully 

 with their tails. 



Still hoping that a change in the temper of the fish for 

 a lady is not more fanciful might yet crown our efforts with 

 success, we proceeded down the river and pushed on for Pull- 

 garrow. To angle here with the water clean and full, and the 

 wind brisk from the westward, would almost repay a pilgrim- 

 age. For its extent, there is not a better salmon haunt in 

 Christendom. The fish were rising in dozens, and where the 

 river rushes into the neck of the pool, the constant breaking 

 of the surface by the rolling or springing of the salmon, was 

 incredible. The number of fish collected in this pool must 

 have been immense, for in every part of it they were rising 

 simultaneously. But not one of them would touch the fly. 

 I hooked a salmon accidentally in the side, and after a short 



* The usual name among the peasantry for samlets and trout fry. 



