CHAPTER I. 



AN EVENING AT BELLEEK. 



Belleek — Mother Johnstone's — The Characters intro- 

 duced — The Return from Fishing — The Dinner — 

 St. Columba at Rose Isle — Legend of the Monk's 

 Ford — Legend of the Cursed Throw — The Gauger 

 of Kinloch — Drowning the Lily. 



There is nothing very new in the com- 

 parison between the course of a river and 

 the life of a man — the leaping, sparkling, 

 rushing eccentricities of childhood, the calm 

 majestic utilities of middle life, and the 

 quiet imperceptible gliding of old age into 

 the waters of eternitv, are images fami- 

 liar to every one : but the Erne, being an 

 Irish river, seems perversely to have begun 

 its life at the wrong end, starting with the 

 quiet calmness of old age, and finishing off 

 with the beauty and playfulness of childhood. 

 It leaves its parent lake a broad, calm, 

 deep, brimming river, beautifully meander- 

 ing among green and pleasant pastures, till, 

 about half its course being completed, its 



