Suddenly our car stopped at a house where all sorts of lake curiosities
were exposed for sale. From this point it was four miles, Irish miles,
through the gap to the lake to the point where we took the boat. This
was one circumstance of which we were not aware when we started; it was
therefore a surprize. I am sorry to say that this gap was a
disappointment to me. It was a difficult path among bare mountains, but
nothing startling or uncommon.
What was uncommon was the relays of indefatigable women that lay in wait
for us at every turn. Goats' milk and poteen, photographs, knitted
socks, carved knick-nacks in bog oak; everything is offered for sale;
denial will not be taken. You pass one detachment to come upon another
lurking in ambush at a corner. There are men with small cannons who will
wake the echoes for a consideration; there are men with key bugles who
will wake the echoes more musically for a consideration; there is the
blind fiddler of the gap who fiddles away in hopes of intercepting some
stray pennies from the shower. One impudent woman followed us for quite
a way to sell us her photograph, as the photograph of Eily O'Connor,
murdered here by her lover many years ago--murdered not at the gap but
in the lake.
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