“I thought every landowner about here had gone to the war,” Mr. Linton said.
“Begob, Sir John ’ud give the two eyes out of his head to be gone, too,” said Patsy, shortly. “But they won’t take him. ’Tis—’tis weakly he is. He have the spirit of ten men in him; them ould German’s ’ud find their hands full, and they to be tackling him in a tight place. Well, well—some people don’t get much luck.” He stopped short, and rowed violently for some time.
“Do you get many salmon here?” Jim asked, idly. It was evident that Mr. Burke did not wish to pursue the subject of Sir John O’Neill.
“In the river—but only a few,” replied the boatman. “ ’Twouldn’t be worth your while getting a licence, sir. Sure it’s them ’ud give you a different idea of fishing. I got one in Lough Illion, in Kerry, one time when I was staying in them parts. That was the fish! He tuk me four and a half hours to kill.”
“Whew—w!” said Jim, respectfully. “He must have been a big fellow.”
“Well, he was not that big at all; but he tuk the fly as if he meant it, and down he went to the bottom like a shtone. An’ there he lay, and I going round and round him in the boat, trying any ways to shift him, and he sulking in the weeds. Banging my rod I was, and pelting at him all the bits of rock I had in the boat, and I couldn’t shtir him. I was famished out, for it was pegging hailshtones and sleet. At last he come up; and then he thought better of it, when he saw the sky above him, and he was going down again, and I let a dhrive at him with the gaff, and got him just near the tail—great luck I had with him, to be sure.”
“It was about time you did have some luck,” Jim remarked.
“There’s not many of them ’ud sulk like that,” said Patsy. “Generally they’d be tiring themselves with the runs they’s take at the first. And if they thrun a lep or two—’tis the lep takes most out of them: it breaks their courage. There’s nothing like a salmon, to my way of thinking, though there’s a lot of the gentry do be sticking to the little brown trout. Will ye be for Lough Nacurra in the morning, sir?”
“We will—if you’ll promise us fish,” Jim responded.
“It ’ud be a bold man to promise anything this weather,” said Patsy, looking with disfavour at the clear sky and the placid lough. “Still-an’-all, ’tis a good lough; if they’re rising anywhere it’ll be on Nacurra.”