'The rings is too dear at you, sir,' said one girl using the Gaelic
construction; 'let you put less money on them and all the girls will
be buying.'
After the jewellery' he displayed some cheap religious
pictures - abominable oleographs - but I did not see many buyers.
I am told that most of the pedlars who come here are Germans or
Poles, but I did not have occasion to speak with this man by
himself.
I have come over for a few days to the south island, and, as usual,
my voyage was not favourable.
The morning was fine, and seemed to promise one of the peculiarly
hushed, pellucid days that occur sometimes before rain in early
winter. From the first gleam of dawn the sky was covered with white
cloud, and the tranquillity was so complete that every sound seemed
to float away by itself across the silence of the bay. Lines of blue
smoke were going up in spirals over the village, and further off
heavy fragments of rain-cloud were lying on the horizon. We started
early in the day, and, although the sea looked calm from a distance,
we met a considerable roll coming from the south-west when we got
out from the shore.
Near the middle of the sound the man who was rowing in the bow broke
his oar-pin, and the proper management of the canoe became a matter
of some difficulty. We had only a three-oared curagh, and if the sea
had gone much higher we should have run a good deal of danger. Our
progress was so slow that clouds came up with a rise in the wind
before we reached the shore, and rain began to fall in large single
drops. The black curagh working slowly through this world of grey,
and the soft hissing of the rain gave me one of the moods in which
we realise with immense distress the short moment we have left us to
experience all the wonder and beauty of the world.
The approach to the south island is made at a fine sandy beach on
the north-west. This interval in the rocks is of great service to
the people, but the tract of wet sand with a few hideous fishermen's
houses, lately built on it, looks singularly desolate in broken
weather.
The tide was going out when we landed, so we merely stranded the
curagh and went up to the little hotel. The cess-collector was at
work in one of the rooms, and there were a number of men and boys
waiting about, who stared at us while we stood at the door and
talked to the proprietor.
When we had had our drink I went down to the sea with my men, who
were in a hurry to be off.
