216 Salmon Fishing. 



to them, or perhaps you wont be let off so easily 

 as now." 



Well backed up all the time by my com- 

 panion, who looked not only most indignant, 

 but the very picture itself of injured innocence, 

 I could hardly help bursting with laughter. 



The upshot of the matter was that being 

 secretly pleased with the keeper's zeal for his 

 master's interests, and his stern refusal to allow 

 me to have a shot or two in the covert at any 

 price, I could not help presenting him with 

 half-a-crown, to console him, for not getting 

 hold of the rascally poachers. 



When he caught sight of the glittering 

 coin, he looked me hard in the face, and 

 out came, I believe, his honest sentiments. 

 "Well, if you arn't a gintleman, I never 

 clapped eyes on one afore," and so we parted, 

 he in great good humour, and I, v cowed 

 inwardly by the faint calling to me of a 

 little voice, that in reality punished me perhaps 

 more than a month's incarceration in a jail 



