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. The sun shone pleasantly, the swans floated on majestically, or solemnly dived for our pleasure, the coots skimmed about knowing well we had not often enjoyed the pleasure of watching them. The grand woods that encompass the residence of Wynne of Hazelwood spread out over many, many acres, caught the sunlight on one side. The broad green meadows of Captain Wood Martin lying among the trees looked like visions of Eden on the other. My river maiden discovered to me a swan's nest among the reeds; told me stories of the fierceness of brooding swans, and offered to get me a swan's egg for a curiosity, nevertheless.
Remarking to her that Captain Wood Martin kept his grounds locked up very carefully; enquired what should happen if we drew ashore and landed on his tabooed domain. The water maiden said one of his men would turn us out. Enquired if he was a good landlord. "Oh, sure he has ne'er a tenant at all at all on his whole place; it does be all grazing land. He takes cattle to graze. He charges L2 a year for a yearling and L5 a year for a four-year-old, and he has cattle of his own on it." How do you know the price? "Sure I read it on the handbills posted up."
Looking at the other side of the glorious lake, at the long thicket of trees that shades the demesne that Wynne of Hazelwood keeps for his home and glory, stretching over miles of country; saw the little grey rabbits, more precious than men in my native land, that were hopping along, after their manner, quite a little procession of them, at the edge of the bush; and said, "What kind of a landlord does Wynne of Hazelwood make?" "Is it Mr. Wynne, ma'am? Oh, then, sure it's him that is the good landlord and the good man out and out. He is a good man, a very good man, and no mistake." "Why, what makes you think him such a good man?" "Because he never does a mane or durty action; he's a gentleman entirely." "Come now, you tell me what he does not do; if you want me to believe in your Mr. Wynne, tell me some good thing he has done." "I can soon do that, ma'am," said my water maiden. "Last winter was a hard winter; the work was scarce, and the poor people would have starved for want of fire but for Mr. Wynne of Hazelwood." "He let you gather sticks in his woods, then?" "He did more than that; he cut down trees on purpose for the people, and we drew them over the ice, for the lough was frozen over. We had no fire in our house all last winter, and it was a cold one, but what we got that way from Mr. Wynne." Mr. Wynne's eloquent advocate rowed along the lake close in shore, for fear of any doubt resting on my mind, and showed the stumps of the trees, cut very close to the ground, a great many of them indeed, as a proof of Mr. Wynne's thoughtful generosity.
We rowed along over the laughing waters among the pretty islands, and finally pulled ashore on the Hazelwood demesne and landed. We walked round a little bit, filling our eyes with beauty; feloniously abstracted a few wild flowers and a fir cone or two, and reluctantly left Hazelwood. Now this gentleman was not a perceptible whit the poorer for all the cottage homes that were warmed by his bounty—yes, and hearts were warmed, too, through the dreary winter. "Blessed is he that considereth the poor." There is riches for you—oh master of Hazelwood!
The emigration from Sligo amounts to a stampede now. How many more would leave the island that has no place for them, if they only had the means?