went out of the
church, and took a hasty leave of one another, and away went Nutter on
his nag, to the mills. And Dangerfield, just before mounting, popped
into Cleary's shop, and in his grim, laconic way, asked the proprietor,
among his meal-bags and bacon, about fifty questions in less than five
minutes. 'That was one of Lord Castlemallard's houses--eh--with the bad
roof, and manure-heap round the corner?'--and, 'Where's the pot-house
they call the Salmon House?--doing a good business--eh?' and at
last--'I'm told there's some trout in the stream. Is there anyone in the
town who knows the river, and could show me the fishing?--Oh, the clerk!
and what sort of fish is _he_--hey?--Oh! an honest, worthy man, is he?
Very good, Sir. Then, perhaps, Mr. a--perhaps, Sir, you'll do me the
favour to let one of your people run down to his house, and say Mr.
Dangerfield, Lord Castlemallard's agent, who is staying, you know, at
the Brass Castle, would be much obliged if he would bring his rod and
tackle, and take a walk with him up the river, for a little angling, at
ten o'clock!'

Jolly Phil Cleary was deferential, and almost nervous in his presence.
The silver-haired, grim man, with his mysterious reputation for money,
and that short decisive way of his, and sudden cynical chuckle, inspired
a sort of awe, which made his wishes, where expressed with that intent,
very generally obeyed; and, sure enough, Irons appeared, with his rod,
at the appointed hour, and the interesting anglers--Piscator and his
'honest scholar,' as Isaac Walton hath it--set out side by side on their
ramble, in the true fraternity of the gentle craft.

The clerk had, I'm afraid, a shrew of a wife--shrill, vehement, and
fluent. 'Rogue,' 'old miser,' 'old sneak,' and a great many worse names,
she called him. Good Mrs. Irons was old, fat, and ugly, and she knew it;
and that knowledge made her natural jealousy the fiercer. He had
learned, by long experience, the best tactique under fire: he became
actually taciturn; or, if he spoke, his speech was laconic and
enigmatical; sometimes throwing out a proverb, and sometimes a text; and
sometimes when provoked past endurance, spouting mildly a little bit of
meek and venomous irony.

He loved his trout-rod and the devious banks of the Liffey, where,
saturnine and alone, he filled his basket. It was his helpmate's rule,
whenever she did not know to a certainty precisely what Irons was doing,
to take it for granted that