240 SPORTING REMINISCENCES 



mon." Two men on the shore and a land com- 

 missioner who was taking measurements, rushed 

 down to watch, for Patsy was now yelling saamon 

 loudly. 



Knowing Patsy I waited. ** Row, will you, row," 

 very bitterly, tried to get up caught in my 

 mackintosh and went down on my knees, quite 

 bewildered, for my line was still going out. 



The land commissioner bellowed row, the 

 fishermen on shore begged Patsy for once not to 

 be a something fool and my scattered wits re- 

 turned. I began to reel in. Alas, what had gone 

 so quickly came as fast. The voices began to calm 

 and with what dignity I could I got hold of a six- 

 ounce brownie hooked in the back. 



We rowed on somewhat silently ; equally silently, 

 the excited land commissioner made his way to 

 his motor while the fishermen commented audibly 

 on Patsy as a man of sense. 



Connemara with her jumble of stony peaks 

 ranged as though in array of battle, defiant, 

 nosing into the mist, as mountain battalions 

 marching and countermarching, spurning the 

 boggy lands at their feet, standing proud guard 

 over the brown-hued lakes, bare and rugged and 

 calm in sunlight, and seeming merely to endure 

 the clinging mist clouds which fall on their summits, 

 weeping wildly, stormily in rainfall, with little 

 rills spouting down yellow-hued waters to feed 

 the lakes, whimpering eerily on still nights when 



