13 



regainin*;' his old gTouiul, takes to somersault and vaulting, 

 showing him-self to he a grand twenty pounder. ])oggedly 

 he hores to the bottom aud " sniggers " the lim' in a fashion 

 which nearly always indicates an insecure hold on the part 

 of the hook. With another wild dash, he goes tearing the 

 line out — sixty, seventy, eighty yards go oft", as he hugs 

 the opposite bank, and there is a horrid rock in the river, 

 only tliirtj' yards below him. If once he gets beyond it, 

 he will trump my trick, and win the game. Butt him all 1 

 dare, he holds on his course ; the rod creaks beneath the 

 heavA' strain to no purpose, and in another minute he is 

 behind the snag, gets a dead pull, and the line comes back 

 — the hook has drawn ! There are some griefs too deep and 

 sacred to be laid bare to the public gaze ; and the veil is 

 drawn over the utter desolation of a man who lost in this 

 wa}' the only big salmon that had rewarded three weeks of 

 incessant labour ! 



For three weeks we have been getting either south or 

 westerly gales in Ireland, accompanied by occasional smart 

 showers, and a leaden sky. One or two bright days only 

 have we had, and these have occurred when the wind 

 chopped round to the north-east ; but the old Cornish fisher- 

 man's proverb, "When the wind goes round agin' the sun, 

 don't ])ay no heed, for back she'll come," proved true — back 

 "she" did come. But the fishing has been fairly good, 

 notwithstanding the salmon's objection to rise to a fly if 

 there is "water over them." That is the way in which 

 Mike describes the presence of rain clouds overhead. He 

 ])layed a mean trick one day this week on a jealous angler. 

 This fisherman set a bank line at a spot reputed to be the 

 haunt of one of those fabulous giant pike, Avhich are said to 

 exist in almost every bit of water in this watery island. 

 Our old frieiid had been beguiled by his attendant — Mike's 

 I'ival — into having a go for the capture of this mythical 

 monster, and Mike having induced me to shoot him a 

 comorant — under the pretence of wanting some feathers 

 for fly-dressing — he, quite unbekno^^•n to me, attached the 

 bird to the bank line of the aforesaid angler. The bait wa.s 

 thrust down the bird's throat, and the hooks were so artis- 



