Who was Johnnie Gill? Chapter 9

By Victor Sullivan © 2015       Washing and Fishing

The narrow lanes were rough, rutted and stony and usually consisted of two endless ruts created by wear and tear from the traditional, iron-banded cartwheels. In the centre of every lane ran a rough strip, that was usually churned into mud by the pounding of horse-shoes. Separating the centre track from the wheel-ruts on either side were usually two ridges of fresh green grass. Johnnie Gill soon realised that his smoothest ride on Eureka could best be achieved by keeping his two front wheels running on the grassy ridges. A slight drift to either side could run his front wheels into trouble, with one slipping into the cartwheel rut and the other wheel into the horse track simultaneously. If the rut and horse track were deep, the underbelly of Eureka came in contact with the grassy ridge. On wider lanes and roads the grassy ridges were less evident and Johnnie had to endure a rougher ride beneath a towing horse-cart, while keeping a constant look-out for large stones, potholes, deep wheel-ruts and rising tails, avoiding them as best he could. Traveling on Eureka in a position so near the ground and in close proximity to the rear end of a horse, inevitably resulted in a generous coating of mud and shit of all sorts on Eureka, on himself, and on Cromwell 2, and every other item of clothing he wore. His mother banned him from entering the house in such a condition and provided a bucket of water and clean clothing in the peat-shed at the end of the house. But as Johnnie's messy journeys became almost daily events she soon grew weary of providing such services and declared that he would have to devise his own personal washing and laundry methods to suit his peculiar life-style.

A small stream flowed near the farmhouse. It conveniently watered horses and cattle, maintained a small pond for the family's six or seven ducks to swim in and it provided an enjoyable, very wet plaything for children. Every generation paddled in it, floated their feather-sailed pieces of wood on it, threw stones into it with as big a splash as possible and they washed dogs and themselves in it. Access to its clear, chilly water required careful footwork for both animals and children. Johnnie studied the accessibility challenge and soon a new feature began to develop at the side of the stream. By collecting and positioning several large flat stones, sometimes with the help of his brothers, Johnnie built a stone-paved access track for Eureka that ran from the lane to the stream's edge. It then continued underwater, creating a submerged pavement on the bottom that ran all the way across the little pond and up on to the bank on the opposite side, an area favoured only by the ducks. Now Eureka could carry him across the pond, dragged along by his two Horses. The normal water level didn't quite reach Eureka's deck so, apart from his arms, he kept dry. 

Trying to wash himself thoroughly from a bucket beside the kitchen fire, after everyone else had gone to bed, or in the peat-shed, had always been a troublesome chore that never quite achieved the desired aim. The opinion of his mother that no matter how clean he claimed to be, he was still filthy, a fact he could not honestly disagree with. It was while working on the under-water section of the pond slipway that Johnnie noticed how clean Eureka had become. 

Late on one Autumn night, when the rest of the family were asleep, Johnnie left the farmhouse as quietly as he could on Eureka, and, collecting a pre-prepared bundle of clean clothing and a few other necessities, he headed for the stream. Leaving the bundle of dry clothes on the bank of the stream, he used his Horses to drag Eureka to the centre of the barely visible pond. The chilly water came up to within an inch of the deck. Confident that he was adequately hidden by the darkness, Johnnie removed every item of clothing from his twisted body and reveled in his badly-needed and long overdue thorough wash in the chilly water. He also washed Eureka. Shivering but satisfied, he managed to dry and dress himself in clean clothes, aided by the moonlight. Then he carefully and quietly returned to the farmhouse and the comforting warmth of the kitchen fire that he quickly and revived from its ash-covered embers.

Next morning his spotless condition was noticed, commented on positively, and, for the first time since the sheep incident, he felt he was being admired, not for being clever, but simply for being clean. Not only did his mother pass an appreciative comment but his sisters did too. Susan even crouched down and hugged him. From that moment, Johnnie became fastidious, establishing washing rules and routines for himself, routines that included doing his own laundry. His nocturnal ablutions in the pond became a regular procedure, regardless of weather, wind or temperature. The mild climate of the area ensured that the stream never froze completely, though, in a hard winter, ice around the edges could sometimes occur. His mother, of course, was delighted with the change for the better and her anxiety about the increasing frequency of his visits to the town diminished as Johnnie 'always dressed for town.' Another Cromwell was added to his wardrobe and a separate cleaning routine took care of the Cromwellian appearance. 

Word reached Johnnie Gill that a few young local men had heard about the success of the fishing flies he had made for the Puxleys and that they were plotting something that would require his involvement. They arrived late one evening with a proposition: They couldn't pay him, but if Johnnie could help with their new sea-fishing enterprise with the right hooks and bait, he could be a partner in their new-fangled fishing operation. They had bought an old rowing boat and wanted to 'be different' from the traditional techniques used by everyone else. They had heard about a sea-fishing method that was used 'away out foreign' and and wanted to try it.  Anyone or anything that tried to be different always appealed to Johnnie. Their project reminded him of something he had read about in the magazines salvaged from Dunboy about a sea-fishing technique somewhere that used fresh-water eels as bait…. He would catch eels that he knew were plentiful in the river that formed the bottom boundary of the Gill farm. 

The river, Inchinagcath, though not very big, yet could generate a dangerous flood after heavy rain in its catchment area, sending a torrent of brown flood-water over its two modest waterfalls that were known as Upper Sock and Lower Sock.  Catching the eels was the easy part. Getting to the riverside just below Upper Sock on Eureka was more challenging. There was easy access to the river above upper sock but a rough rocky outcrop made it difficult to get to the flat, grassy river-bank at the lower level where he and his brothers had learned to swim and catch eels before the sheep….  

Once again Johnnie solved his problem by constructing a reasonable trackway that suited Eureka's wheels using whatever stones were within easy reach. 

Having established fairly easy access to the source of eels, he caught several a few days later and brought them home. According to the instructions in the remembered article, the eel had to be skinned and the skin then bound onto the line above the fish-hook. Head up – tail down? Or should it be tail up – head down? He just couldn't remember. It would depend on the fancy of the fish to decide that matter. He made some of each, then prepared a jar of salt water in which to store his baited fish-hooks. 

There were some wry comments when he turned up on Eureka at the little creek that was within a stone's throw of of Dunboy Castle's impressive entrance gates. The three young boatmen reluctantly agreed to take him with them, '… but we're not going to take you outside the harbour's mouth.'  Two of them picked Johnnie up rather clumsily and deposited him in the bottom of the four-oar rowing boat where he found he was keeping company with several dead crabs and some evil-smelling offal in a bag. Lines were produced and Johnnie attached his first eel-baited hook. It had barely hit the water when it was taken by a large pollock. Everyone aboard probably thought it, but nobody said, 'Beginner's luck.' The fish was taken off the hook and the eel bait was returned to the sea. The same thing happened again and again. Whether it was luck, skill, or fish stupidity, it mattered not. Johnnie's eels were a rip-roaring success… and they were DIFFERENT! He agreed not to sell his eel-baited hooks to anyone else. Instead, he negotiated a crew-share of the catch, and he got taken on fishing expeditions whenever it suited him. There was another 'different' also: The superstitious boat-men were able to claim that 'Lucky' Johnnie Gill was a crew member of their boat only. They feared that their luck would 'break' if they ever tried to defraud him out of his agreed share in their catch, even when he wasn't in the boat with them!