These Magnificent And Extensive Buildings Must
Have Cost An Immense Sum.
The asylum has been enlarged recently, as the
freshly-cut stone and white mortar of one wing testified.
As I looked, a band struck up familiar airs. We saw them standing in a
field beside the asylum. I was told that the band was composed of
patients. This made the music more thrilling. When they struck up "Auld
Lang Syne," or "There Is no Luck About the House," there was a wail in
it to my ears, after home, happiness and reason. We got down from our
high position and came home by another way, passing through some of the
poorer streets of Sligo, which are kept scrupulously clean. Even here
women and girls were gathering sticks to cook the handful of meal. The
poor are very poor on the bare hills of Leitrim, or in this green valley
of Sligo.
XXIX.
ON LOUGH GILL - TWO MEN - STAMPEDE FROM SLIGO - THE ANCIENT AND THE
MODERN.
I was a little disappointed that I was getting no information on any
side of the question of the day, and my letters which were to be sent to
Sligo not coming to hand, I was advised to go down the beautiful Lough
Gill to Drumahaire to see the ruins of Brefni Castle, the place from
which the fair wife of the O'Ruarke, Prince of Brefni, fled with
McMurrough, which was the cause of the Saxon first gripping green Erin.
I thought I might as well, and set out to walk to the boat landing, a
good _billie_ out of Sligo, along the street, past small tenement
houses inhabited by laborers, who do not always obtain work, past the
big gloomy gaol, past the dead wall and the high bank on the top of
which goats are browsing, down to the landing beside the closely-locked
iron gate, and the little lodge sitting among the trees behind it,
belonging to the property of a Captain Wood Martin. Had the felicity,
while yet some way off, of seeing the shabby little boat cast off the
rope and puff herself and paddle herself slowly off down the lake.
Coming back a very pretty girl electrified me by informing me that I was
from America. She advised me to take a small boat and have a sail on
Lough Gill, for I would always regret it if I did not see its beauty
when I had the opportunity. In her excessive kindness she introduced me
to a river maiden, strong and comely, who would row me about with all
kindness for a small consideration. Prudently discovered what the
consideration was to be, and then gave in to the arrangement.
The water nymph had been away gathering sticks; she had to empty her
boat and I waited a little impatiently, a little ruefully. The boat was
big, clumsy and leaky, but the girl was eloquent and eager to persuade
me it was a fast and comfortable boat. She produced an ancient cushion
from somewhere; there was a clumsy getting on board, and she pushed off.
We went sailing down among the swans, the coots and the rushes, and
passed little tree-laden islands, hooped with stone wall for fear they
might be washed away.
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