Handy Andy Volume I Part 28

All men love to gain their ends; most men are contented with the shortest road to them, while others like by-paths. Some carry an innate love of triumph to a pitch of epicurism, and are not content unless the triumph be achieved in a certain way, making collateral pa.s.sions accessories before or after the fact; and Murphy was one of the number.

To him, a triumph without _fun_ was beef without mustard, lamb without salad, turbot without lobster sauce. Now, to entangle Furlong in their meshes was not sufficient for him; to detain him from his friends, every moment betraying something of their electioneering movements, though sufficiently ludicrous in itself, was not enough for Murtough!--he would make his captive a source of ridicule as well as profit, and while plenty of real amus.e.m.e.nts might have served his end, to divert the stranger for the day, this mock fishing-party was planned to brighten with fresh beams the halo of the ridiculous which already encircled the magnanimous Furlong.

"I'm still in the dark," said d.i.c.k, "about the salmon. As I said before, there never was a salmon in the river."

"But, as I said before," replied Murphy, "there will be to-day; and you must help me in playing off the trick."

"But what _is_ this trick? Confound you, you're as mysterious as a chancery suit."

"I wish I was likely to last half as long," said Murphy.

"The trick!" said d.i.c.k. "Bad luck to you, tell me the trick, and don't keep me waiting, like a poor relation."

"You have two boats on the river?" said Murphy.

"Yes."

"Well, you must get into one with our victim: and I can get into the other with the salmon."

"But where's the salmon, Murphy?"

"In the house, for I sent one over this morning, a present to Mrs. Egan.

You must keep away about thirty yards or so, when we get afloat, that our dear friend may not perceive the trick--and in proper time I will hook my dead salmon on one of my lines, drop him over the off-side of the boat, pa.s.s him round to the gun-wale within view of our intelligent castle customer, make a great outcry, swear I have a n.o.ble bite, haul up my fish with an enormous splash, and, affecting to kill him in the boat, hold up my salmon in triumph."

"It's a capital notion, Murphy, if he doesn't smoke the trick."

"He'll smoke the salmon sooner. Never mind, if I don't hoax him: I'll bet you what you like he's done."

"I hear him coming down-stairs," said the Squire.

"Then send off the salmon in a basket by one of the boys, d.i.c.k," said Murphy; "and you, Squire, may go about your canva.s.s, and leave us in care of the enemy."

All was done as Murphy proposed, and, in something less than an hour, Furlong and d.i.c.k in one boat, and Murphy and his attendant _gossoon_ in another, were afloat on the river, to initiate the Dublin citizen into the mysteries of this new mode of salmon-fishing.

The sport at first was slack, and no wonder; and Furlong began to grow tired, when Murphy hooked on his salmon, and gently brought it round under the water within range of his victim's observation.

"This is wather dull work," said Furlong.

"Wait awhile, my dear sir; they are never lively in biting so early as this--they're not set about feeding in earnest yet. Hilloa! by the Hokey I have him!" shouted Murphy. Furlong looked on with great anxiety, as Murphy made a well-feigned struggle with a heavy fish.

"By this and that, he's a whopper!" cried Murphy in ecstasy. "He's kicking like a two-year old. I have him, though, as fast as the rock o'

Dunamase. Come up, you thief!" cried he, with an exulting shout, as he pulled up the salmon with all the splash he could produce; and suddenly whipping the fish over the side into the boat, he began flapping it about as if it were plunging in the death-struggle. As soon as he had affected to kill it, he held it up in triumph before the castle conjuror, who was quite taken in by the feint, and protested his surprise loudly.

"Oh! that's nothing to what we'll do yet. If the day should become a little more overcast, we'd have splendid sport, sir."

"Well, I could not have believed, if I hadn't seen it," said Furlong.

"Oh! you'll see more than that, my boy, before we've done with them."

"But I haven't got even a bite yet!"

"Nor I either," said d.i.c.k; "you're not worse off than I am."

"But how extwao'dinawy it is that I have not seen a fish wise since I have been on the wiver."

"That's because they see us watching them," said d.i.c.k. "The d----l such cunning brutes I ever met with as the fish in this river: now, if you were at a distance from the bank, you'd see them jumping as lively as gra.s.shoppers. Whisht! I think I had a nibble."

"You don't seem to have good sport there," shouted Murphy.

"Vewy poo' indeed," said Furlong, dolefully.

"Play your line a little," said Murphy; "keep the bait lively--you're not up to the way of fascinating them yet."

"Why, no; it's wather _noo_ to me."

"'Faith!" said Murphy to himself, "it's new to all of us. It's a bran new invention in the fishing line. Billy," said he to the _gossoon_, who was in the boat with him, "we must catch a salmon again to _divart_ that strange gentleman--hook him on, my buck."

"Yes, sir," said Billy, with delighted eagerness, for the boy entered into the fun of the thing heart and soul, and as he hooked on the salmon for a second haul, he interlarded his labours with such e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns as, "Oh, Misther Murphy, sir, but you're the funny jintleman. Oh, Misther Murphy, sir, how soft the stranger is, sir. The salmon's ready for ketchin' now, sir. Will you ketch him yet, sir?"

"Coax him round, Billy," said Murphy.

The young imp executed the manoeuvre with adroitness; and Murphy was preparing for another haul, as Furlong's weariness began to manifest itself.

"Do you intend wemaining here all day? Do you know, I think I've no chance of any spo't."

"Oh, wait till you hook _one_ fish, at all events," said Murphy; "just have it to say you killed a salmon in the new style. The day is promising better. I'm sure we'll have sport yet. Hilloa! I've another!"

and Murphy began hauling in the salmon. "Billy, you rascal, get ready; watch him--that's it--mind him now!" Billy put out his gaff to seize the prize, and, making a grand swoop, affected to miss the fish. "Gaff him, you thief, gaff him!" shouted Murphy, "gaff him, or he'll be off."

"Oh, he's so lively, sir!" roared Billy; "he's a rogue, sir--he won't let me put the gaff undher him, sir--ow, he slipped away agin."

"Make haste, Billy, or I can't hold him."

"Oh, the thief!" said Billy; "one would think he was cotcht before, he's so up to it. Ha!--hurroo!--I have him now, sir." Billy made all the splash he could in the water as Murphy lifted the fish to the surface and swung him into the boat. Again there was the flopping and the riot, and Billy screeching, "Kill him, sir!--kill him, sir!--or he'll be off out o' my hands!" In proper time the fish _was_ killed and shown up in triumph, and the imposture completed.

And now Furlong began to experience that peculiar longing for catching a fish, which always possesses men who see fish taken by others; and the desire to have a salmon of his own killing induced him to remain on the river. In the long intervals of idleness which occurred between the occasional hooking up of the salmon, which Murphy _did_ every now and then, Furlong _would be talking_ about business to d.i.c.k Dawson, so that they had not been very long on the water until d.i.c.k became enlightened on some more very important points connected with the election. Murphy now pushed his boat on towards the sh.o.r.e.

"You're not going yet?" said the anxious fisherman;--"_do_ wait till I catch a fish!"

"Certainly," said Murphy: "I'm only going to put Billy ash.o.r.e, and send home what we've already caught. Mrs. O'Grady is pa.s.sionately fond of salmon."

Billy was landed, and a large basket in which the salmon had been brought down to the boat, was landed also--_empty_; and Murphy, lifting the basket as if it contained a considerable weight, placed it on Billy's head, and the sly young rascal bent beneath it, as if all the fish Murphy had pretended to take were really in it; and he went on his homeward way, with a tottering step, as if the load were too much for him.

"That boy," said Furlong, "will never be able to cawwy all those fish to the house."

"Oh, they won't be too much for him," said d.i.c.k. "Curse the fish! I wish they'd bite. That thief, Murphy, has had all the sport; but he's the best fisherman in the county, I'll own that."

The two boats all this time had been drifting down the river, and on opening a new reach of the stream, a somewhat extraordinary scene of fishing presented itself. It was not like Murphy's fishing, the result of a fertile invention, but the consequence of the evil destiny which presided over all the proceedings of Handy Andy. The fishing-party in the boats beheld another fishing-party on sh.o.r.e, with this difference in the nature of what they sought to catch, that while they in the boats were looking for salmon, those on sh.o.r.e were seeking for a post-chaise; and as about a third part of a vehicle so called was apparent above the water, Furlong exclaimed with extreme surprise--

"Well, if it ain't a post-chaise!"