INTEODUCTOET AND EGOTISTICAL. 15 



was, would be unable to turn : this I did, and coming to a 

 very narrow part of the drain sooner than I expected, let 

 fall both rod and net, flung myself down on the grass, put 

 both my arms deep into the water, and threw out, ten 

 feet into the field, a fine, fresh salmon, weighing ten 

 pounds ! ! ! 



I shall not attempt to describe my triumphant feelings 

 as I proceeded to my inn, nor my exultation when on my 

 arrival in the hall of that comfortable little hostelry, I 

 overheard my old friends Knipe and Eice Thomas assuring 

 two newly arrived piscators that there was no sport to be 

 had in the neighbourhood ; that the river was too low for 

 trout-fishing ; that the salmon had not yet run up ; and 

 that the only stray fish which had essayed to do so, had 

 been that morning wounded and lost by the awkwardness 

 of a young wild Irishman. Nor will I delay to narrate 

 how I refuted all their arguments, dissipated all their 

 facts, and macadamised all their theories, by marching into 

 the room where they sat in all the comfort of after-dinner 

 ease, throwing my salmon on the sideboard, with the 

 small broken fly still in his lip; calling lustily for dish 

 after dish, and filling them from my basket and my pockets 

 with as numerous a collection of beautiful trout as I ever 

 saw killed in a day in North Wales.* 



* Since these events tie Tweed and the Tay, the Erne, the Moy, the 

 Bush, and the Shannon have yielded victims to my more experienced angle. 



