392 
THE EI8HING GAZETTE 
[May 27, 1893 
STRAY CASTS. 
THE RISING RIVER. 
By Mona. 
There was once an angler who had a very bad 
temper. This he exhibited in various ways and 
on many occasions from time to time to the 
amusement or distress of those about him, 
according to their temperament or circumstances; 
but those outbursts of savage ferocity which rose 
to tiie heroic, and totally dwarfed all his other 
efforts were only produced by blank days. For 
all other forms of human misfortune he could, 
after the first brief explosion, find some little 
consolatory drop of philosophy in sorne of the 
remoter recesses of his nature which did a little 
alleviate the pain of the unavoidable, but to the 
awful infliction of a blank day he had nothing to 
oppose but language. The truth is the steadily 
intensifying of the hopeless misery which marks 
the slowly lengthening hours of an utterly blank 
day gradually exhausts every drop of philosophy 
the most Job-like of us possesses. But the bitter¬ 
ness of despair shows itself in silence with many. 
There are feelings and thoughts too deep for 
utterance. Such anglers when severely tried, 
probably die young. Pew constitutions are suffi¬ 
ciently robust to withstand that fearful internal 
strain for any long period. Sometimes a harm¬ 
less form of lunacy of the childlike and bland 
order happily supervenes, and so immediately 
fatal results are avoided. But our hero was 
superior to any such weaknesses as these. In 
sound and fury of mighty volume, and in language 
that illuminated the gloom of evening with 
dazzling shafts of the pit, he found r. lief for his 
suffering soul, while his unfortunate gillie was 
belaboured with satire and scorn, and consigned 
ever and anon, himself and his explanatory 
suggesfions, to nameless regions of weeping and 
woe. For copious ima^eiy and richness of 
expletives his language on such occasions left 
little to be desired, while the evident lightness 
with which his fifty odd winters sal upon his 
vigorous and powerful frame showed the exercise 
agreed with him. However questionable on moral 
grounds it was at least a veritable tonic, and he 
returned from his fruitless labour surrounded 
with an atmo.«phere of picturesque imprecations 
which gradually restored him to his healthy 
normal condition as he neared home. Like a 
generous giant refreshed he did not fail either to 
apply some of the uni vers il salve for all evils to 
the injured feelings of his gillie, and as his pocket 
was deep his little foible was readily forgiven. 
Being a man of easy, not to say affluent, 
circumstances he had seen sport in many lands. 
He had more than once swept the zone of 
northern Arctic latitudes in both hemispheres 
for salmon, but like many another votary of 
the big game he was gradually beginning to 
feel an increasing interest in trout. Like Prince 
Hal, whose soul once longed for that poor 
creature, small beer, he felt this taste was 
a weakness and unworthy, but in spite of 
all he was gradually giving way to it, and 
spring and early summer fr<-(|uently saw him 
climbing over the slopes of Kerry hills and 
Donegal moors in search of trout streams and 
loughs of g lod local lepntaiion. On one of 
these visits he had as guide and gillie, or rather, 
to use the vernacular, as man, an old fisherman, 
one Pat Murphy, who fished or poached as 
opportuni'y invited, did odd jobs of thatching 
and the like, and took the kicks and halfpence of 
the world with a happy equanimity that would 
have delighted the sages of the classic past. 
He was silent and sardonic, in fact an 
Irishman of the new era, but without 
knowing it. He never said “hurroo” or even 
“ bedad ” in his life, never made even the most 
remote allusion to his coat-tails, or took any 
part in the “ removal” of agent or landlord. He 
was silent, too, in his drink, though not without a 
little quiet humour of his own ; but on the whole 
he was rather a disappointment, not to say failure, 
to patronizing angling tourists and others who 
tried to get ‘‘Irish” out of him. Not seldom 
the laugh was on the wrong side of their 
mouth, as my countrymen felicitiously put it, 
but the details of these little rencounters are 
generally left in obscurity by those best qualified 
to give them jirominence—more’s the pity. Pat 
joked occasionally it is true, but his jokes were 
generally of the practical kind, though without 
harm or offence, and might, perhaps, be described 
as fables in action. 
Well, one day Pat and his patron (Mr. 
Ferguson was the name of him) visited a 
mountain stream that held some good trout, 
though not in very great numbers, and as 
the weather was promising, sport was to be 
expected. On these occasions Mr. F. always 
made his man fish after him, selecting flies 
for the purpose contrasting with his own, 
and the plan, of course, has its obvious ad¬ 
vantages. But this day Pat and his master 
flogge'd patiently away in vain. Hour after 
hour passed and not a rise broke the monotony 
of the wearying day. The muttering storm began 
to gather and soon was in full blast. Pools and 
rapids of varyine character and appearance were 
fished and darn'd in vain. Fierce raged the 
tempest o’er the deep. Abuse of both Pat and 
the river filled the air, and both objects of male¬ 
diction bore it equally well. Pat was not alto¬ 
gether a stranger to the experience, but he was 
forced to admit to himself that on this occasion 
Mr. F. eclipsed all his previous efforts. If Pat 
really felt any of the storm, it was solely on 
account of theiiver, not at all on his own, and 
the fierce and varied forms in which the presence 
of fish in his favourite river was denied, may have 
savoured to him a little of profanity quite 
independent of the nature of the language in 
which the denial was conveyed. Anyway he 
silently bowed to the blast, and finally, following 
Mr. F.’s example, who was at last winding up in the 
midst of a nlorious tornado of language unknown 
to print or Parliament, he quietly prepared for the 
journey back. Time and a rapid whirl on a 
jaunting car gradually began to have their heal¬ 
ing effect, and before home was reached tran¬ 
quility had so far been restored than Pat had 
ventured to ob.'^erve that the day had been very 
disappointing indeed, but that trout don’t always 
rise even in the best rivers on some days no 
matter how good the w'eather seems to be. In 
fact, they take fits that no one can understand, 
and then nothing can please them no matter 
how you show it to them “ All very well,” said 
Mr. F., ‘‘ but on a day like this trout mud rise if 
they are in it, and if there are fish in that dash 
river, they never rise, dash them, and 1 never want 
to see that dash river again., I believe in rivers 
where trout rise in good w’eather, where there is 
some sport to be bad for your trouble, and I 
believe there are such rivers about if one could 
only find them, rivers where days like this would 
be an impossibility” This Parthian shaft pro¬ 
bably told. It implied a reflection either on Pat’s 
knowledge or integrity which he could scarcely 
fail to see. After a moment’s reflection he quietly 
remarked that it was not too easy to find a river 
you could always depend on. For his own part 
he never knew a river but one where trout always 
rose in all weathers, but it was now some years 
since he fished it, and in any case it was a good 
bit off. Still, if a man wanted a river where trout 
will always rise, the Rising River was the place. 
By this lime Mr. F. was interested. 
He quest ioned Pst closely about this river. Was 
it preserved ? No, open to the world so far as he 
knew, and the trout never refused the fly ; never. 
Two days after, a long drive through the moun¬ 
tains took them to the banks of a promising 
looking stream, which skirted a large extent of 
wooded pasture near the centre of which could be 
seen the ruins of what seemed once to have been 
a country house of considerable dimensions. At 
certain points too appeared what Pat said were 
the remains of a demesne wall that once enclosed 
many acres around the house. The last 
occupier, Mr. Lefroy, who died upwards of 
forty years ago, let the place go to ruin, and 
after his death the house was dismantled by the 
distant relation who succeeded to the property, 
and there it remains to this day. Be 3 0 nd the 
house was a lough where good fishing was to be 
had, and equally good or better in the six miles of 
stream that runs from it to the sea. May be 
they ought to go there first, Pat slyly suggested, 
but Mr. F. would not hear of it. Rods were 
mounted, and they commenced operations at a 
bridge near which stood a farm house where they 
had put up the horse and car. Having allowed 
Mr. F. to proceed some distance down stream, 
Pat for some reason or other quietly betook him¬ 
self to the opposite hank, though the wind made 
fishing from that side difficult. Half an hour 
passed in silence and not a fish rose. The water 
looked admirable. The weather was favourable. 
Suddenly Mr. F. turned round and yelled, “Pat 
do you take me for a dash fool ? ” Then, noticing 
for the first time that Pat was on the opposite 
bank, a sudden suspicion of something crossed 
him, and sinking his voice as one does when 
there is a feeling of mystery in the air he asked. 
“What the dash are you doing over there ? ” 
Pat looked up with a trace of anxiety, which might 
have been assumed to check mirth, on his face, 
and without any reply came slowly along winding 
upas he moved. Quietly ignoring both questions, 
he attempted a diversion by asking whether Mr. 
F. had had arise. Inflamed by the question, ^Ir. 
F. shouted, “ You dash fool, do you mean to say 
the trout will always rise here ? ” 
“ They will, sir.” 
“ But I have not raised a single fish.” 
“ Nor I, sir.” 
“ Are there any in it ? ” 
“ Not one, sir, I believe.” 
“ Did you bring me here to make an ass of 
me ? ” 
“No, sir, I have just kept my word. I have taken 
you to the only river in Ireland where trout never 
refuse a fly, and where the trouble of a blank day 
can never make a man vexed. Of course being a 
river like that, and being open, the fish were all 
killed, but that has nothing to say to it. The 
trout here never refuse the fly. Certainly if you 
do not care to fish it any farther, we can put the 
horse in the car and drive over to the lough and 
the river beyond where there are plenty of trout, 
but I can’t engage you against a blank day 
there!” 
We have said Mr. F. was a bad-tempered man, 
and certainly during part of this colloquy he had 
some difficulty in keeping his hands off old Pat 
(only for that intervening river!), but he was 
only easily aroused on the one point, and as 
there seemed to be something in front of them 
still, he fairly laughed when Pat had done. They 
were soon bowling along to the lough, and on the 
way Mr. F. took Pat to task for the falsehood 
which he maintained underlay his trick, and 
knocked the point and joke out of it. 
Pat warmly denied the alDgation. Mr. Lefroy 
it appears was an eccentric man. He had spent 
seve-al years of his earlier life in India or some 
other Eastern country, and came home with some 
extraordinary notions or religion of his own. He 
never went lo anj^ place of worship, would not 
eat meat, or flesh of any kind, or allow any living 
thing on his place to be killed. He kept game¬ 
keepers, but solely to protect the grouse and 
partridges from poachers. No one dare fish 
in any water on his place. He lived on potatoes 
and turnips and milk and eggs, and the like— 
God bless us!—and was wrong in his head. 
He slept in a little wooden shed every 
night of his life in his garden with nothing 
in it but a bed and table and chair, and no one 
was ever allowed to enter it. He kept one servant, 
an old woman, who alwaysstopped in thebighouse. 
She was black, and came from abroad. They say 
she was the devil himself, the Lord save us! 
Anyhow, he got sick, and sent her to K—— 
for medicine, and he took to his bed in 
the shed. She used to go in to see him during 
the day, but at night she went back to her 
room. No one knows to this day what became 
of him. Before he was lying a week the shed 
was burned to ashes one night, but not a bone 
of him even was ever found. The black woman 
was tried, and swore she never saw the fire. No 
one in the country saw it either. But there was 
the heap of ashes in the morning. No wonder no 
one ever lived in the place since. Well, when he 
was gone every one could fish and shoot to their 
heart’s content. The gamekeepers were sent 
away, and the rivers were open. The Rising 
River was full of tnut. When a fly was put 
over them they took it. That rule was never 
broken so long as you did not let them see 
you too plainly. When you lost your fly in a 
fish you simply put on another and cast over him 
again. You were in him on the spot. Some 
gossoons who could not very well get flies used 
to stick a daisy or a bit of their mother’s or 
sister’s red petticoat on a hook tied to a cord. 
They killed fish like the rest. On dark days 
wdth a breeze a bare hook drawn over a fish was 
