30 AN EVENING AT BELLEEK. 



It was at the close of a wild and stormy 

 day in July, that two men were sitting over 

 a bright turf fire in the upper room of this 

 hostelry : the one a jolly, red faced, bald- 

 headed English squire ; the other a well- 

 dressed, not to say dandified, young fellow, 

 with a pleasant and gentlemanlike, but withal 

 somewhat vacant, expression of countenance. 



They neither of them seemed the most 

 appropriate figures for such an interior, but 

 there could be no doubt what had brought 

 them there, for one whole side of the great, 

 rambling, low-roofed room was fitted up with 

 brackets, and on these were ranged at their 

 full length every variety of fishing-rod in- 

 vented, from the great twenty-foot cart-whip- 

 looking affair from Ellis Quay, to the light, 

 elegant trout-rod from Bell Yard ; while on 

 a sort of side-table, hastily run up of un- 

 planed deals, lay, " in wild confusion tost," 

 reels, gaffs, baskets, pike-litches, fly-books, 

 material-books, cross-lines, and otters, all the 

 paraphernalia of fair and unfair fishing. 



Across the room, and dividing it into two 

 unequal parts, was stretched a dingy red- 

 and-white checked curtain, which, as it 

 waved to and fro in the currents of wind 



