STOEY OF A GOLD EING. 187 



" Come, Bishop, draw it mild; you can tell some 

 whoppers yourself about fishing. What was that story 

 you told me, at the sandbank in the Manitou last summer, 

 about a salmon and a gold ring ? " said the Captain. 



" I told you a plain unvarnished fact," replied the Priest, 

 ee and there are persons alive, though it is long ago, who can 

 substantiate every word of it." 



" Come, Bishop, let us have the story ; the Captain is 

 querulous to-day with this east wind, and we are not all 

 such infidels as he." 



"Well," said the Priest, " it is no such wonderful matter 

 after all ; and if the Captain will promise to hold his tongue 

 while I am speaking, and to retie this dark claret for me, 

 I'll tell it to you." The Captain having nodded assent, and 

 unlocked the box containing his portable stock of silks, 

 colours, wax, gut, feathers, &c. &c., the Priest proceeded 

 as follows. 



"On the 6th of August 1834, I was on a visit, with Mr. 

 and the Hon. Mrs. Drew, at a lodge which they occupied 

 near Doonass, on the banks of the Shannon, and on the 

 morning of that day went salmon fishing with the Hon. 

 William Massey, the brother of Mrs. Drew, who was anxious 

 to get a fish for Mrs. Cuffe Kelly, with whom we were to 

 dine, to meet a party given in honour of Miss Crosbie of 

 Ballyheigh Castle in the county of Cork, to whom the said 

 William Massey was about to be married. Well, we fished 

 and we fished, we changed our flies, and in every direction 



