FREDERICK SHOBERL, JUNIOR,

PRINTER TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT, 51, RUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET, LONDON.

CAPTAIN O'SULLIVAN.

CHAPTER I.

I AM DETACHED TO BALLYSALLAGH-LOCAL SKETCHESINTRODUCTION TO MR. RYAN, THE SUB-SHERIFF -LAW OF DEBTOR AND CREDITOR IN CONNAUGHT.

What money have you got about you, Master Mathew? SHAKSPEARE.

It was a mild, dark, windy day, in the first week of April, when, after a morning muster of my "charge of foot," I set out for Loughnacurragh, to kill a kreel of trouts, could I but persuade them to shake off their general torpidity, and rise at sundry seductive-looking flies, which I had recently imported from the metropolis. The "lonely tarn" to which I

VOL. I.

B

directed my steps was a huge pond of leadencoloured water, situated in the centre of a barren moor; and from a rocky knoll, halfa-mile distant, a few runlets trickled down the hill, and, creeping through the morass, united with the dark waters of the Lough; while, on the other side, a drowsy dyke went twisting through the bog, and carried off the surplus supplies which occasionally came down in torrents from the neighbouring high grounds.

It was a place and water, however, to which neither the angler nor the artist would resort, as it afforded little on which to exercise painting or piscatorial skill. The scenery was wild and sterile, but without any traits of savage grandeur to redeem it; while the Lough was fringed with reeds-and, to be enabled to cast a fly beyond them, it was necessary to wade knee-deep through mud, having the tenacity of bird-lime. No caution could save the fisherman from loss; and on my last visit, I had left a casting-line behind