“Wurrums is choice afther a flood; dough is shupayrior whin they’re leppin’ lively; but av all the baits that ever consaled a hook there’s non aiquail to corbait—it’s the choicest decoy goin’. A throut wud make a grab at a corbait av the rattles was in his troath an’ a pike grippin’ him be the tail.” Lanty Kerrigan was told off as cicerone, guide, philosopher, and friend. “I suppose I am safe in fishing these rivers. No bailiff or hinderance?” asked Percy Bingham of the landlord of the “Bodkin Arms.” “There’s no wan to hinder you, sir; so a good take to you,” was the reply. “I hope ye won’t come across old Miles Joyce, for if ye do there’ll be wigs on the green,” he added under his breath as he turned into the bar. A cook it was her station, The first in the Irish nation. Wud carvin’ blade she’d slash away to the company’s admiration, sang Lanty Kerrigan, prolonging the last syllable—a custom with his class—into a kind of wail, as he merrily led the way through a narrow mountain pass, inaccessible save to pedestrians, in the direction of the fishing-ground. It was a sombre morning. Nature was in a meditative mood, and forbade the prying glances of the sun. The white mists hung like bridal veils over hill and dale, mellowing the dark green of the pine-trees and the blue of the distant Atlantic, occasionally visible as they pursued their zigzag, upward course. A light breeze—“the angler’s luck”—gently fanned the cheek, and the sprouting gorse and tender ferns were telling their rosaries on glittering beads of diamond dew. “This is Lough Cruagh, yer honor, an’ there’s the boat; av ye don’t ketch the full av her, it’s a quare thing.” The lake, a pool of dark-brown water, lay in the lap of an amphitheatre of verdureless, grim, gaunt-looking mountains. It was a desolate place. No living thing broke upon the solitude, and the silence was as complete as if the barren crags had whispered the single word “hush” and awaited the awful approach of thunder. A road ran by the edge of the lake, but it was grass-grown and showed no sign of traffic, not even the imprint of a horse’s foot. “Now she’s aff,” cried Lanty, seizing the oars. “Out wud yer flies, an’ more power to yer elbow.” The sport was splendid. No sooner had his tail-fly touched the water than an enormous trout plunged at it with a splash like that of a small boy taking a header, and away went the line off the reel as though it were being uncoiled by machinery—up the lake, down the lake, across the lake; now winding in, now giving the rod until it bent like a whip; now catching a glimpse of the fish, now fearing for the line on the bottom rocks. “If the gut howlds ye’ll bate him, brave as he is,” exclaimed Lanty Kerrigan in an ecstasy of apprehension. The fish was taking it quietly—_il faut reculer pour mieux sauter_—preparing for another effort. Percy Bingham wiped the perspiration from his brow; his work was cut out for him.