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 passions 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 amusements 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 Dick, “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 Dick. “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, pass him round to the gun-wale within view of our intelligent castle customer, make a great outcry, swear I have a noble 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, Dick,” said Murphy; “and you, Squire, may go about your canvass, and leave us in care of the enemy.”

All was done as Murphy proposed, and, in something less than an hour, Furlong and Dick 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 Dick; “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 Dick. “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 grasshoppers. 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 ejaculations 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 Dick Dawson, so that they had not been very long on the water until Dick became enlightened on some more very important points connected with the election. Murphy now pushed his boat on towards the shore.

“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 ashore, and send home what we’ve already caught. Mrs. O’Grady is passionately 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 Dick. “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 shore, with this difference in the nature of what they sought to catch, that while they in the boats were looking for salmon, those on shore 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!”

“Oh! that’s nothing extraordinary,” said Dick; “common enough here.”

“How do you mean?”

“We’ve a custom here of running steeple-chases in post-chaises.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Furlong. “Come, that’s too good.”

“You don’t believe it, I see,” said Dick. “But you did not believe the salmon-fishing till you saw it.”

“Oh, come now! How the deuce could you leap a ditch in a post-chaise?”

“I never said we leaped ditches; I only said we rode steeple-chases. The system is this: You go for a given point, taking high road, by-road, plain, or lane, as the case may be, making the best of your way how you can. Now our horses in this country are celebrated for being good swimmers, so it’s a favourite plan to shirk a bridge sometimes by swimming a river.”

“But no post-chaise will float,” said Furlong, regularly arguing against Dick’s mendacious absurdity.

“Oh! we are prepared for that here. The chaises are made light, have cork bottoms, and all the solid work is made hollow; the doors are made water tight, and, if the stream runs strong, the passenger jumps out and swims.”

“But that’s not fair,” said Furlong; “it alters the weight.”

“Oh! it’s allowed on both sides,” said Dick, “so it’s all the same. It’s as good for the goose as the gander.”

“I wather imagine it is much fitter for geese and ganders than human beings. I know I should wather be a goose on the occasion.”

All this time they were nearing the party on shore, and as the post-chaise became more developed, so did the personages on the bank of the river: and amongst these Dick Dawson saw Handy Andy in the custody of two men, and Squire O’Grady shaking his fist in his face and storming at him. How all this party came there, it is necessary to explain. When Handy Andy had deposited Furlong at Merryvale, he drove back to pick up the fallen postilion and his brother on the road; but before he reached them, he had to pass a public-house I say had to pass but he didn’t. Andy stopped, as every honourable postilion is bound to do, to drink the health of the gentleman who gives him the last half-crown: and he was so intent on “doing that same,” as they say in Ireland, that Andy’s driving became very equivocal afterwards. In short, he drove the post-chaise into the river; the horses got disentangled by kicking the traces (which were very willing to break) into pieces; and Andy, by sticking to the neck of the horse he rode, got out of the water. The horses got home without the post-chaise, and the other post-chaise and pair got home without a postilion, so that Owny Doyle was roused from his bed by the neighing of the horses at the gate of the inn. Great was his surprise at the event, as, half clad, and a candle in his hand, he saw two pair of horses, one chaise, and no driver, at his door. The next morning the plot thickened. Squire O’Grady came to know if a gentleman had arrived at the town on his way to Neck-or-Nothing Hall. The answer was in the affirmative. Then “Where was he?” became a question. Then the report arrived of the post-chaise being upset in the river. Then came stories of postilions falling off, of postilions being changed, of Handy Andy being employed to take the gentleman to the place; and out of these materials the story became current, that “an English gentleman was dhrownded in the river in a post-chaise.” O’Grady set off directly with a party to have the river dragged, and near the spot encountering Handy Andy, he ordered him to be seized, and accused him of murdering his friend.

It was in this state of things that the boats approached the party on land, and the moment Dick Dawson saw Handy Andy, he put out his oars and pulled away as hard as he could. At the moment he did so, Andy caught sight of him, and pointing out Furlong and Dick to O’Grady, he shouted, “There he is! there he is! I never murdhered him? There he is! stop him! Misther Dick, stop, for the love of God!”

“What’s all this about?” said Furlong, in great amazement.

“Oh, he’s a process-server,” said Dick; “the people are going to drown him, maybe.”

“To dwown him?” said Furlong, in horror.

“If he has luck,” said Dick, “they’ll only give him a good ducking; but we had better have nothing to do with it. I would not like you to be engaged in one of these popular riots.”

“I shouldn’t wellish it myself,” said Furlong.

“Pull away, Dick,” said Murphy; “let them kill the blackguard, if they like.”

“But will they kill him weally?” inquired Furlong, somewhat horrified.

“’Faith, it’s just as the whim takes them,” said Murphy; “but as we wish to be popular on the hustings, we must let them kill as many as they please.”

Andy still shouted loud enough to be heard. “Misther Dick, they’re goin’ to murdher me.”

“Poo’ w’etch!” said Furlong, with a very uneasy shudder.

“Maybe you’d think it right for us to land, and rescue him,” said Murphy, affecting to put about the boat.

“Oh, by no means,” said Furlong. “You’re bettaw acquainted with the customs of the countwy than I am.”

“Then we’ll row back to dinner as fast as we can,” said Murphy. “Pull away, my hearties!” and, as he bent to his oars, he began bellowing the Canadian Boat-Song, to drown Andy’s roar, and when he howled

“Our voices keep tune,”

there never was a more practical burlesque upon the words; but as he added

“Our oars keep time,”

he seemed to have such a pleasure in pulling, and looked so lively and florid, that Furlong, chilled by his inactivity on the water, requested Murtough to let him have an oar, to restore circulation by exercise. Murtough complied; but the novice had not pulled many strokes, before his awkwardness produced that peculiar effect called “catching a crab,” and a smart blow upon his chest sent him heels over head under the thwarts of the boat.

“Wha-wha-a-t’s that?” gasped Furlong, as he scrambled up again.

“You only caught a crab,” said Murtough.

“Good Heaven!” said Furlong, “you don’t mean to say there are crabs as well as salmon in the wiver.”

“Just as many crabs as salmon,” said Murtough; “pull away, my hearty.

“Row, brothers, row the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight’s past!”