152 WATERSIDE SKETCHES. 



again softly. At length, however, he was propitiated, for I 

 proposed we should take a nip of "the crathur" for luck, 

 fill our pipes for heart, and go in for the biggest fish in the 

 lake. Then the good-humoured Patrick overhauled my 

 spinning nights, selected one that would hold a whale, and 

 adjusted it through and round about a "jack pike" of quite 

 a pound weight. The plan was to trail it say forty yards at 

 the stern of the boat, and I must confess that although it 

 wobbled a good deal, and made a tremendous commotion 

 in the water, it looked a most attractive mouthful for any 

 pike-ish ogre that might be lurking near. 



It so happens that Lough Gill is charged with glorious 

 scenery, and while the pickerel was wobbling steadily after 

 our boat I forgot the chances of sport, and became lost in 

 poetical contemplation of one of the sweet wooded islets 

 that bestud the water. 



The moralist tells you truly indeed that in beauty there is 

 fatality. Had this been a mere Dagenham pond who knows 

 what a contribution would not have been made to the South 

 Kensington Museum? 



My knowledge on this point is vague, but shall I ever 

 forget that savage pull which bent the top of my rod swiftly 

 into the water, or that mighty swirl far away in our wake 

 when the giant, snapping my thickly plaited silk as though 

 it were cotton, went off with hooks, trace, and twenty 

 yards of line, leaving me lamenting, and Pat a third time 

 making astronomical investigations and screwing up his lips ? 

 It would have gratified me to have received a little consola- 

 tion from my humble companion, but he was not going to 

 belie his conscience for any one just then. And that was 

 what came of admiring the beauties of nature, and not 



