Salmon Fishing. 225 



capacious, coach-like, and half omnibus (it 

 was made to stow away, alas, for the poor 

 horses! from thirty to forty passengers), every 

 individual of the crowd I found myself in the 

 midst of was a perfect stranger to me ; when I 

 left it, there was hardly one I had not the 

 pleasure of exchanging a friendly greeting with. 



On the second or third evening, when seated 

 at the dinner-table with a large party, I could 

 riot help singling out one, not only as the 

 most demonstrative, but by far the most 

 loquacious of all. One peculiarity of his, I 

 think, must have struck all who heard him, 

 and that was the excessive loudness of his 

 voice. He seemed to be impressed with the 

 notion, that everyone in the room laboured 

 under a distressing attack of deafness, so 

 exceptionally high did he pitch his voice. 



The chief burthen of his talk with me, for 

 I was the favoured party he chiefly addressed 

 himself to, was the strange, adventurous life 

 he had lately led in the high-ways and bye- 



