A BOOK OF FISHING STORIES 



sold the young bay horse — a grand lepper — to Colonel H 



at his own price ; and how a new master — out of England — 

 is coming to hunt the hounds next season. Of how Paddy 

 Mack has built himself a new house ; and how Bessie Kennedy 

 has been left a fortune in America. And then we talk business ; 



and we hear that Mrs. E killed the first fish of the season 



yesterday off Fool's Island, and how Mr. D lost a monster 



in the evening by Clondegoff , and nearly went into the lake 

 after it. Followed by a chorus of good wishes for our success 

 at the dapping, we drive on again. 



Our road lies through an undulating country magnificently 

 cultivated, chequered with patches of brown, where the rich 

 soil is ploughed for the turnip crop ; the rest a study in greens, 

 where barley, oats, and potatoes alternate with grass fields 

 well stocked with cattle and sheep. Scattered all about are 

 the houses of the people, their little gardens gay with flowers, 

 in nearly all of them the inevitable bee-hive — truly a land 

 flowing with milk and honey. Our horizon is bounded by 

 hills — some green, some grey, some cut into fantastic shapes ; 

 others with dark masses of woodlands on their sides — ^while 

 as far as the eye can reach Celtic raths and duns, and battered 

 Norman towers sentinel the greater eminences. And the air 

 is heavy with the scent of may and lilac and gorse, and over 

 all broods the languorous haze of an Irish summer's day. 



We climb a steeper gradient on our road, and away to the 

 left glitters a silver crescent between two rock-capped hills. 

 I take off my hat to it, for that is our Mecca — incomparable 

 Lough Derg. 



52 



