LETTER XXIV.

Spring Tides.-Hennessey and the Portmanteau.-Spilletfishing.-Coal-fishing.-Mackerel.-Sea-fowl.-A Failure.

-Preserving Gunpowder. -- An Explosion. Another Accident. A House burned.-The Dinner Signal.

THE springs have commenced, and the grey and lowering atmosphere which the influence of these tides occasions, has set in. Although the darkness would intimate a change, the fresh breeze and skyey appearances portend, as they tell me, good weather.

We are bound for the bay, to lay down spillets; and during the tedious interval, which of necessity occurs before they can be lifted, we shall kill coal-fish, shoot sea-gulls, smoke cigars, and, no doubt, have a further detail of atrocities from the Colonel, which would put the Newgate Calendar to the blush.

HENNESSEY AND THE PORTMANTEAU. 261

The main-sail is chalk-up,-the hooker has slipped her cables, and hangs by a single end to the pier,—we are waiting for a row-boat, which four sturdy peasants propel with might and main from the opposite shore. There is a man in the stern-sheets who engrosses the undivided attention of my cousin and his followers. The boat approaches, and, "Blessed Mary! can it be?" there sit Hennessey and the Colonel's portmanteau! The embassy has succeeded; the bustle of the boatmen is commensurate to the importance of the freight, and they give way in the full consciousness that they carry "Cæsar and his saddle-bags."

Mr. Burke has made the amende honorable; my cousin looks two inches taller, and hints slyly that feudal power in Ballycroy is not yet extinct; and well he may, for the Colonel's chattels are uninjured-no rude hand has undone a buckle-not a shirt is wanting, or even the fold of a neckcloth disarranged. There is a mysterious whispering between the ambassador and Pattigo; the commander rejoices over his wardrobe; my kinsman looks "every inch a king;" and I am probably the happiest of all, for I trust that the pleasant narratives which for two nights

robbed me of my rest, like the thousand and one' of Scheherazade, have at last drawn to a close.

Did a man wish to moralize upon the unrealities of human expectations, let him hang over a spillet, and be interested in its success. Conceive an eternity of line, with a thousand hooks at given distances; as every snoud is placed a fathom apart, a person less conversant with figures than Joe Hume, may guess the total. This endless continuity of hemp must be carefully taken up. Do it slowly, and the thing is worse than a penance to Lough Dergh; and if you attempt rapidity, the odds are, that the back-line breaks, and a full hour will scarcely remedy the mischief.

It would puzzle a philosopher to determine the state of affairs in ten-fathom water; and if you shoot in foul ground, you will probably lose the spillet, or with a world of labour, disentangle a moiety from rocks and sea-weed. Should it, however, have escaped those casualties, after a two hours' probation, while you listen to a Drimindhu from the skipper, and the exact state of the herringmarket from the crew, you proceed to raise it. Up it comes-that vibratory motion announces that a fish is fast upon the snoud; conjecture is

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busily at work, and there is a difference of opinion, whether the deceived one' be a codling or red gurnet. It appears--a worthless, rascally, dog-fish! A succession of line comes in-starfish, and, "few and far between," some solitary plaices and flounders-at last a victim-heavy and unresisting. An indistinct glance of a dark object, broad as a tea-tray, brings the assistant spilleteer, gaff in hand, to the quarter. Alas! the turbot in expectation, turns out to be a ray! Often have I shot a spillet under favourable circumstances, and in approved ground, and lost time, hooks, and snouds, and my whole reward was a boat-load of skates and dog-fish.

We ran quickly, with a leading wind, to the fishing-bank, and having shot the spillets-a tedious thing enough-stood for a rocky part of the coast, where the coal-fish are always abundant. This water-sport (viz. coal-fishing) is unknown to the many,' and yet to him whose hands are not unacquainted with rope and oar, it affords, at times, an admirable amusement.

The coal-fishing requires a stiff breeze, and if there be a dark sky it is all the better. In its detail, it is perfectly similar to mackerel-fishing, only, that the superior size of the coal-fish

makes stronger tackle and a heavier lead indispensable.

An eel of seven or eight inches long is the bait. The head being removed, the hook is introduced as in a minnow, and the skin brought three or four inches up the snoud. This latter is a fine line of two or three fathoms length, affixed to the trap-stick and lead, the weight of which latter is regulated by the rate of sailing.

The coal-fish, in weight, varies from two to fourteen pounds; it is finely shaped, immensely rapid, uniting the action of the salmon, with the voracity of the pike. If he miss his first dash, he will follow the bait to the stern of the boat, and I have often hooked them within a fathom of the rudder.

Four or five knots an hour, is the best rate of sailing for killing coal-fish, and upon a coast where they are abundant, the sport, at times, is excellent.

Like the pike, the coal-fish is very indifferent to the tackle used, which is generally very coarse. Not so the mackerel; he requires much delicacy of line and bait to induce him to take.

In light winds, or when the fish are out of humour, I have killed mackerel by substituting