204 A TEAR OF LIBEETY ; OE, 



Clifden and the Killeries is the finest in the island. The road, now 

 climbing a spur of the hills, reveals a thousand charms of earth and 

 ocean, and anon rounding a quiet inlet, or coasting along the shores 

 of a lake, gives us a peep up some lonely ravine into the deeper 

 recesses of the mountains, at this season clad in the gorgeous flora 

 of autumn. When we started on our wanderings, winter lay heavy 

 on the dead earth ; and now spring and summer are past can it be 

 so ; for in my heart it is still spring. Have two-thirds of the year 

 of liberty slipped away ? has it passed with the spring buds and 

 summer flowers ? Yes, the golden stars of the bog asphodel, 

 and the bilberry with its delicate bloom, preach of the fading 

 year. Well, carpe diem, we must do the best with the days that 

 remain ! 



With the red sunrise comes the first faint flutter of the breeze. 

 Presently the mountain gorges take up their song ; dark masses of 

 cloud float swiftly over the sky, thronging and thickening ; in short 

 there is half a gale from the westward so wake up, oh driver! 

 and push on with all speed for Kylemore, for I want some breakfast, 

 and hunger still more on such a day as this to feel the rod in my 

 fingers, and hear the wheel give out a yell of triumph over the first 

 victim. 



What a heau ideal of a station is this. From its proximity to the 

 water and its distance from all other dwellings, the angler has to 

 deal with the inmates of the house and none others ; but on Irish 

 lakes generally there is little fear of overcrowding, and on none less 

 than Kylemore. True it is, for a day or part of a day there may be 

 an eruption of tourists, who jump off their cars, rush to the lake, 

 and hurry on elsewhere with the first light of the next morning ; 

 but nineteen times out of twenty the sportsman remaining at the 

 inn for a week or month will generally have the water to himself, at 

 least during the earlier part of the day. Although not by any means 

 first-class in point of size, it yet contains room for four or five rods, 

 even if those who hold them be ever so jealous and unsociable. 

 Probably Lough Currane and Lough Melvin are as heavily fished as 

 any of the Lish waters, and on them, certainly in July and August, 



