The Green Fool by Patrick Kavanagh

Author:Patrick Kavanagh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2001-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

18 The Outlaws

The River Fane ran through our parish on its way to the Irish Sea. It was a clear, swift-flowing stream. Anglers came long journeys to dream and smoke tobacco on its banks. These anglers said the Fane was as good a trout-stream as there was in Ireland. I shouldn’t say so – the trout in its waters took after the people of Inniskeen in being hard to catch. Like the people, they knew humbug, and were dubious-minded as a jealous husband.

We who lived near the Fane had no use for trout-angling: it was too delicate, idealistic a sport for strong men of reality. But the salmon that came up in November, we liked those fat fish. In November the salmon came up to spawn. They would be sleepy then, like good-thriving pigs.

‘Will ye come to the river?’ a fellow asked me on a particularly dark evening in November.

I knew what he meant. A night’s salmon-poaching with a gaff and a carbide bicycle lamp.

I had never before been on the river. Salmon-gaffing was cruel work. But it wasn’t that. I thought it wasn’t worth the risk. For even though you might escape the water bailiff and the new Civic Guards what good was it all if you got pneumonia? On this occasion I did go. There’s a great kick to be got out of risking one’s life if it’s only for a spent-salmon.

There were four of us. We met at a place known as‘the splink’. It was very dark. A sleety rain was spitting from the north. There was not a star to be seen.

‘A great night for the job,’ one man said.

‘Ye might swear that,’ we replied. A dark night was the night for gaffing salmon.

Between us we had two gaffs and two bicycle lamps. The gaffs were spears with a barb, attached to the end of poles twelve or fourteen feet long. I was a lamp-man.

‘Keep yer eyes skinned,’ was the order of the night.

I cast my lamp’s light on the dark, troubled river. The fellow beside me with the gaff grew quietly excited.

‘Do ye see yon fella?’ he whispered. I saw nothing.

The gaff-man walked right into the river and shot his gaff at something.

‘I got him,’ he cried to me,‘he’s as big as a calf.’

There was a terrible commotion in the water. The man with the gaff was being knocked about in every direction. The other gaff-man rushed to his assistance and prodded the waters with his gaff. He couldn’t spear the salmon. That salmon fought hard for its life. For a full half-hour he leaped and dashed hither and thither. Once the man with the gaff was knocked in the river but he still held on. I was getting my poaching-sight. I caught a glimpse of the salmon at last. It was more beautiful than stained-glass, for that was what its body-colour reminded me of. Like very beautiful stained-glass in a dark chapel, when the sun shines through it. The sun on this occasion was my lamp of perdition.

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