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iiiul exclaimed: "Blessed Saints; did you su the baste?" 

 I had not seen the " baste," and to tell the truth, I did not 

 believe that Mike had seen a salmon rise ; but yielding- to 

 his vehement protestations, I fished over the spot and at the 

 second cast up came a nice little fish of about ten pounds, 

 and we bagged him. On Tuesday the river was still too 

 high, both as to volume and colour, and Mike went bog 

 trottino- with me in the forenoon, and retrieved five or six 

 brace of snipe out of bog holes, often up to ms waist m 

 water — in the absence of a dog. Later on, we had another 

 go for a salmon, when a glorious old Bann trout, of four 

 pounds' weight, took the salmon jiy, and after a stubborn 

 fight, was gaffed by Mike; who, whilst giving him the 

 ■■ coup de grace " by wacking his skull with a boulder, 

 called him all the " owld bastes" and "ugly devils" 

 that he could think of. On Wednesday we poled 



a cot over the foaming waters of the weir tail, 

 and had some good sport under the falls. First a 

 wretched pike, of six or seven pounds, came up 

 Avitli a " boil," like a salmon, and when struck, he 

 bolted down stream, necessitating our following, in order 

 to save the casting line. The hard labour of an hour was 

 thus wasted, and the fresh water shark, when killed, proved 

 to have mangled a new " Black ranger " into a shapeless 

 mass of fur and feathers. How the boatmen anathematized 

 him, and how Mike kicked him savagely at intervals, after 

 he was dead, may easily be imagined ; for had not all hands 

 to toil, push, and groan over the getting of our cot back 

 again ? Resting when three parts of the ascent had been 

 made, I mounted one of Dan O'Fee's famous " golden 

 olive" flies, and at the very first cast up came a spanking 

 ten pounder, as bright and clean as when he left the sea, 

 and as the steel was driven home, away he went for the 

 falls at racing speed. His first intention apparently was 

 to try to get over the salmon ladder, but the pressure of 

 seventy yards of line, in a wild race of water, brought him 

 to his senses, and he was eventually got down on a short 

 line and cleverly gaffed as the current bore him past the 

 boat. Then came the celebration of those funereal rites. 



