"I hear him coming down-stairs," said the Squire.
"Then send off the salmon in a basket by one of the boys, Dick," said Murphy; "and you, Squire, may go about your canvass, and leave us in care of the enemy."
All was done as Murphy proposed, and, in something less than an hour, Furlong and Dick in one boat, and Murphy and his attendant gossoon in another, were afloat on the river, to initiate the Dublin citizen into the mysteries of this new mode of salmon-fishing.
The sport at first was slack, and no wonder; and Furlong began to grow tired, when Murphy hooked on his salmon, and gently brought it round under the water within range of his victim's observation.
"This is wather dull work," said Furlong.
"Wait awhile, my dear sir; they are never lively in biting so early as this—they're not set about feeding in earnest yet. Hilloa! by the Hokey I have him!" shouted Murphy. Furlong looked on with great anxiety, as Murphy made a well-feigned struggle with a heavy fish.
"By this and that, he's a whopper!" cried Murphy in ecstasy. "He's kicking like a two-year old. I have him, though, as fast as the rock o' Dunamase. Come up, you thief!" cried he, with an exulting shout, as he pulled up the salmon with all the splash he could produce; and suddenly whipping the fish over the side into the boat, he began flapping it about as if it were plunging in the death-struggle. As soon as he had affected to kill it, he held it up in triumph before the castle conjuror, who was quite taken in by the feint, and protested his surprise loudly.
"Oh! that's nothing to what we'll do yet. If the day should become a little more overcast, we'd have splendid sport, sir."
"Well, I could not have believed, if I hadn't seen it," said Furlong.
"Oh! you'll see more than that, my boy, before we've done with them."