The Trout in the Big River Padraic Ó Conaire continued

There's a wood beside the pool. It is wonderful to be in that wood on a bright warm summer's day. There is a hum of bees a fragrance from every herb, and blade, and tree there. There is a spell there for the man who would be spell-bound.

A pity 'tis not summer there now! A great pity 'tis not summer there now and I in the wood!

I advise the poet to take a trip to that place, to the dark gloomy pool, to the swift lustrous water, to the two flowery banks with their thousands of birds, to the sweet fragrant wood - yes, and to The Trout that reigns over that magic kingdom....

But I never saw The Trout myself with my own two eyes. I never saw the dark pool, or the swift lustrous water, or the wood - except once. But even if I haven't seen them with my own two eyes I have seen them with the eyes of my mind....

Here is how I got to know of The Trout and the pool in the first place:
I'm sitting on my little stool looking dolefully out of the window of a prison-cell at a patch of blue sky, and at the swallows coming between me and that beautiful small patch.
My door opens. A guard walks in.

'Tis evening and he has not much to do. He opens his pocket book. He takes from it up to twenty baited hooks.

"You're a trout-fisher," says he. "I saw in the office some of the hooks that were in your pocket when you were caught."

I admit I am, that I take somewhat of an interest in trout fishing. He asks me to name the best fly-bait there ever was. I name it. I praise some baits. I find fault with others. He sees I know about fishing, that I am well skilled in the art.

Then the two trout-fishers get to know each other in a prison cell.

He had pity for me that I could not make tracks that evening and entice The Trout in the Big River.

He used to come two or three times to my cell every week afterwards, and he used to tell me about The Trout and his adventures, until I well knew that cute fish, the dark gloomy pool where he lived, the two flowery banks, the swift lustrous water, the magic wood beside it....

I would know that trout from any other that ever twisted himself in a stream. And since spring is on the way and the days are stretching, I'll pay a visit to his home. I'll build a little log-hut on the flowery song-drenched bank, and I'll settle down there by myself like the young Scotsman; and sure even if I don't catch The Trout, who knows but perhaps I might stumble on some of the poetry that goes with the place?

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