182 AN IRISH SALMON-RIVER 



he was ; but if anything crassed him, or if I was to spake 

 what it wasn't his pleasure to hear, wouldn't it make a 

 man thrimble to hear the swearing he 'd employ ! 



' There was one day Lord Randolph was for fishing the 

 Angler's Throw your honour 's just come off. There was 

 a good sup o' water in her that day, nine inches more 

 than ye see at the present, so there was no wading to be 

 done. He was come to the place where he should have 

 come off the side, round yon big rock ye see there fore- 

 ninst ye, be rason that he culdn't follow a fish if he 

 hooked one in that spot. So I called to him that it was 

 a dhangerous place for losing a fish, and that he should 

 come away to where I 'd show him. 



' " Be dam ! " he cried. " Paddy," says he, " d 'ye think I 

 haven't fished far bigger wathers than this in Canada ? 

 Hould yer gab," says he, " till I ask ye, and don't be 

 interfering." 



' The word wasn't past his lips when a fish came to the 

 fly in the very sthrict o' the sthrame. I noticed the tail 

 of him as he turned, and wasn't he as nate a pattern of 

 thirty pounds as a man might see ? 



' " Hould to him, me lord ! " I cried ; " if he do pass the 

 gray stone, it's niver on this side of Assanroe we'll 

 behould that fish again." 



' He held to him royally, and I came down and tuk the 

 rod from him the time he would get round the big rock, 

 and have a clear run before him. Well, he got round it, 

 and I passed the rod back to him, the big fish all the 

 while wavering in the strong wather like a flag. His 

 lordship scarcely got a hoult of the rod before the fish got 

 his broadside to the sthrame, and away he raced, the reel 

 scraining out like a woman in her throes. 



