76 DAYS AND NIGHTS OF SALMON FISHING 



date. Thus we are, as may be seen, of an amphibious 

 nature, and respond to the fat knight's description, 

 when he compared Hostess Quickly to our namesake. 

 That this predilection for humidity is with me an 

 instinct, may be seen from the following brief notice 

 of my infant propensities. 



When I was an urchin I stole off, and wandered 

 up the stream that came winding through the 

 verdant meadows of my native valley, till I arrived 

 at the foot of the Castle Hill ; following the little 

 path that dived into a thicket, and wound round its 

 base near the margin of the river : thence, amongst 

 irregular clumps of thorn bushes, holly trees, and 

 other wild wood, stopping a while to gather the 

 cowslips and white violets that dappled the sunny 

 slopes, I pursued my way through a tangled thicket, 

 whose branches overhung the stream. I remember 

 even now that the sunbeam glittered on the leaves, 

 struck through the masses here and there, and 

 pierced to the surface of the water, which shone in 

 spots through the gloom like the fragments of a 

 broken mirror : these lucid touches caught my 

 childish fancy ; but my favourite spot was not yet 

 attained. Not until I had rounded the rib of the 

 promontory on which stood the grey castle, and 

 came to another face of it, did I obtain the object 

 of my ramble. At this turn of the stream I found 

 myself in a small lonely meadow sprinkled with 

 cowslips, upon which opened two wooded valleys, 

 each watered by a small stream, which at their 

 junction washed out a deep hole ; and at the foot 

 of the hole a small gravel heap was thrown up, 



