“Hurry up, Jim—it’s the best fun since we went bombing!” said Wally. “Gives you a feeling like nothing on earth, and the little rod’s just a live thing in your hands. Glory! there’s one at you—ah, the brute!” as a big trout rose at Jim’s fly, missed, and went down, giving a full view of his beautiful speckled side.
“Cast over him again, Mr. Jim—that one’ll come back,” Patsy whispered. “Gently—ah, that’s the lovely throw!” The flies settled gently on the water, but the trout failed to respond. “Thry him again, sir—that’s it; dhraw them back quiet, now. Begob, he have him—howld him, sir! Hark at the little wheel singing: isn’t that the fine run he made! Wind him in—don’t check him sudden.” Mr. Burke babbled on happily until the third big trout lay gasping in the landing-net.
“Didn’t I tell you there’d be trout in Lough Nacurra?” he demanded. “Oh, the beauties! them’s the grand fish, entirely, no matter where you’d be fishing. Let ye cast out again, sir. Aisy, Miss Norah, let be—sure I’ll have it for ye quicker than ye would yourself. There’s the terrible tangle now; ye’d not get it in a knot like that, not if ye tried for a week. And is it in Australia you’d get them like that, with a stick and a sinker and a lump of bait? and play them too, same as ye did them there? Well, well, that must be the fine country!”
Mr. Linton laughed.
“Oh there’s plenty of good trout-fishing in Australia, Patsy, and plenty of people who use the proper tackle. But it doesn’t happen to be in our part of the country.”
“Ye’ll not beat Irish trout, anywheres in the world,” said Mr. Burke, shortly. “Them new countries is all very well in their way, but give me the ould places I’m after knowing all my life.” He drew a long breath. “There—I have them untwisted at last: and more by token, here we are at the end of the lough.” He fixed Wally with an inquiring gaze. “It was here you wanted to be landed, sir, wasn’t it? Will I take down the rod and put you ashore?”
Wally grinned in appreciation.
“It’s your game, Patsy,” he admitted, cheerfully. “I take it all back. If you’ll just hand me that rod again, you won’t get me off this lough before dark!”
CHAPTER VII
LOUGH ANOOR
“A capital ship for an ocean trip