370 A MORNING AT BALLYSHANNON. 



u At length the pale dawn tinged the 

 eastern sky, and the fairy lamps grew dim, 

 and the fairy forms vanished, and the sound 

 of music ceased, and the light, half-heard 

 flutter of fairy wings, told that the hall was 

 ended ; and Pat, released for the first time 

 from his self-imposed task, was rubbing his 

 eyes and gazing round him in stupid won- 

 der, when a low voice, soft and musical as 

 the whistle of the golden plover, whispered 

 as it passed him, — 'Take that for your 

 wages, Pat Gallagher!' But Pat saw no- 

 thing, and felt nothing but the light brush 

 of the fairy wings on his arm. 



" As, however, he pursued his way to Bel- 

 leek, he saw by the increasing light of 

 morning a small piece of tying silk, or what 

 ladies call sewing silk, sticking to his coat 

 sleeve ; and wanting that morning to catch 

 a salmon, he employed it in tying a fly. 



"Wherever that fly fell — in pool or in 

 rapid, in sunshine or in shade, in the live- 

 liest ripple or the stillest calm, there rose a 

 fish ; and far more than Pat could carry 

 were his spoils that day. 



" And not that day on y, but the next 

 day, and the next ; and the next week, and 



