{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_4381/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_4381","id":"gutenberg_4381","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4381","summary":null,"tags":["Aran Islands (Ireland) -- Description and travel","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Travel Writing","Synge, J. M. (John Millington), 1871-1909 -- Travel -- Ireland -- Aran Islands"],"text":"Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE ARAN ISLANDS\n\n\nBY\n\nJOHN M. SYNGE\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIntroduction\n\nThe geography of the Aran Islands is very simple, yet it may need a\nword to itself. There are three islands: Aranmor, the north island,\nabout nine miles long; Inishmaan, the middle island, about three\nmiles and a half across, and nearly round in form; and the south\nisland, Inishere--in Irish, east island,--like the middle island but\nslightly smaller. They lie about thirty miles from Galway, up the\ncentre of the bay, but they are not far from the cliffs of County\nClare, on the south, or the corner of Connemara on the north.\n\nKilronan, the principal village on Aranmor, has been so much changed\nby the fishing industry, developed there by the Congested Districts\nBoard, that it has now very little to distinguish it from any\nfishing village on the west coast of Ireland. The other islands are\nmore primitive, but even on them many changes are being made, that\nit was not worth while to deal with in the text.\n\nIn the pages that follow I have given a direct account of my life on\nthe islands, and of what I met with among them, inventing nothing,\nand changing nothing that is essential. As far as possible, however,\nI have disguised the identity of the people I speak of, by making\nchanges in their names, and in the letters I quote, and by altering\nsome local and family relationships. I have had nothing to say about\nthem that was not wholly in their favour, but I have made this\ndisguise to keep them from ever feeling that a too direct use had\nbeen made of their kindness, and friendship, for which I am more\ngrateful than it is easy to say.\n\n\n\n\nPart I\n\n\nI am in Aranmor, sitting over a turf fire, listening to a murmur of\nGaelic that is rising from a little public-house under my room.\n\nThe steamer which comes to Aran sails according to the tide, and it\nwas six o'clock this morning when we left the quay of Galway in a\ndense shroud of mist.\n\nA low line of shore was visible at first on the right between the\nmovement of the waves and fog, but when we came further it was lost\nsight of, and nothing could be seen but the mist curling in the\nrigging, and a small circle of foam.\n\nThere were few passengers; a couple of men going out with young pigs\ntied loosely in sacking, three or four young girls who sat in the\ncabin with their heads completely twisted in their shawls, and a\nbuilder, on his way to repair the pier at Kilronan, who walked up\nand down and talked with me.\n\nIn about three hours Aran came in sight. A dreary rock appeared at\nfirst sloping up from the sea into the fog; then, as we drew nearer,\na coast-guard station and the village.\n\nA little later I was wandering out along the one good roadway of the\nisland, looking over low walls on either side into small flat fields\nof naked rock. I have seen nothing so desolate. Grey floods of water\nwere sweeping everywhere upon the limestone, making at limes a wild\ntorrent of the road, which twined continually over low hills and\ncavities in the rock or passed between a few small fields of\npotatoes or grass hidden away in corners that had shelter. Whenever\nthe cloud lifted I could see the edge of the sea below me on the\nright, and the naked ridge of the island above me on the other side.\nOccasionally I passed a lonely chapel or schoolhouse, or a line of\nstone pillars with crosses above them and inscriptions asking a\nprayer for the soul of the person they commemorated.\n\nI met few people; but here and there a band of tall girls passed me\non their way to Kilronan, and called out to me with humorous wonder,\nspeaking English with a slight foreign intonation that differed a\ngood deal from the brogue of Galway. The rain and cold seemed to\nhave no influence on their vitality and as they hurried past me with\neager laughter and great talking in Gaelic, they left the wet masses\nof rock more desolate than before.\n\nA little after midday when I was coming back one old half-blind man\nspoke to me in Gaelic, but, in general, I was surprised at the\nabundance and fluency of the foreign tongue.\n\nIn the afternoon the rain continued, so I sat here in the inn\nlooking out through the mist at a few men who were unlading hookers\nthat had come in with turf from Connemara, and at the long-legged\npigs that were playing in the surf. As the fishermen came in and out\nof the public-house underneath my room, I could hear through the\nbroken panes that a number of them still used the Gaelic, though it\nseems to be falling out of use among the younger people of this\nvillage.\n\nThe old woman of the house had promised to get me a teacher of the\nlanguage, and after a while I heard a shuffling on the stairs, and\nthe old dark man I had spoken to in the morning groped his way into\nthe room.\n\nI brought him over to the fire, and we talked for many hours. He\ntold me that he had known Petrie and Sir William Wilde, and many\nliving antiquarians, and had taught Irish to Dr. Finck and Dr.\nPedersen, and given stories to Mr. Curtin of America. A little after\nmiddle age he had fallen over a cliff, and since then he had had\nlittle eyesight, and a trembling of his hands and head.\n\nAs we talked he sat huddled together over the fire, shaking and\nblind, yet his face was indescribably pliant, lighting up with an\necstasy of humour when he told me anything that had a point of wit\nor malice, and growing sombre and desolate again when he spoke of\nreligion or the fairies.\n\nHe had great confidence in his own powers and talent, and in the\nsuperiority of his stories over all other stories in the world. When\nwe were speaking of Mr. Curtin, he told me that this gentleman had\nbrought out a volume of his Aran stories in America, and made five\nhundred pounds by the sale of them.\n\n'And what do you think he did then?' he continued; 'he wrote a book\nof his own stories after making that lot of money with mine. And he\nbrought them out, and the divil a half-penny did he get for them.\nWould you believe that?'\n\nAfterwards he told me how one of his children had been taken by the\nfairies.\n\nOne day a neighbor was passing, and she said, when she saw it on the\nroad, 'That's a fine child.'\n\nIts mother tried to say 'God bless it,' but something choked the\nwords in her throat.\n\nA while later they found a wound on its neck, and for three nights\nthe house was filled with noises.\n\n'I never wear a shirt at night,' he said, 'but I got up out of my\nbed, all naked as I was, when I heard the noises in the house, and\nlighted a light, but there was nothing in it.'\n\nThen a dummy came and made signs of hammering nails in a coffin. The\nnext day the seed potatoes were full of blood, and the child told\nhis mother that he was going to America.\n\nThat night it died, and 'Believe me,' said the old man, 'the fairies\nwere in it.'\n\nWhen he went away, a little bare-footed girl was sent up with turf\nand the bellows to make a fire that would last for the evening.\n\nShe was shy, yet eager to talk, and told me that she had good spoken\nIrish, and was learning to read it in the school, and that she had\nbeen twice to Galway, though there are many grown women in the place\nwho have never set a foot upon the mainland.\n\nThe rain has cleared off, and I have had my first real introduction\nto the island and its people.\n\nI went out through Killeany--the poorest village in Aranmor--to a\nlong neck of sandhill that runs out into the sea towards the\nsouth-west. As I lay there on the grass the clouds lifted from the\nConnemara mountains and, for a moment, the green undulating\nforeground, backed in the distance by a mass of hills, reminded me\nof the country near Rome. Then the dun top-sail of a hooker swept\nabove the edge of the sandhill and revealed the presence of the sea.\n\nAs I moved on a boy and a man came down from the next village to\ntalk to me, and I found that here, at least, English was imperfectly\nunderstood. When I asked them if there were any trees in the island\nthey held a hurried consultation in Gaelic, and then the man asked\nif 'tree' meant the same thing as 'bush,' for if so there were a few\nin sheltered hollows to the east.\n\nThey walked on with me to the sound which separates this island from\nInishmaan--the middle island of the group--and showed me the roll\nfrom the Atlantic running up between two walls of cliff.\n\nThey told me that several men had stayed on Inishmaan to learn\nIrish, and the boy pointed out a line of hovels where they had\nlodged running like a belt of straw round the middle of the island.\nThe place looked hardly fit for habitation. There was no green to be\nseen, and no sign of the people except these beehive-like roofs, and\nthe outline of a Dun that stood out above them against the edge of\nthe sky.\n\nAfter a while my companions went away and two other boys came and\nwalked at my heels, till I turned and made them talk to me. They\nspoke at first of their poverty, and then one of them said--'I dare\nsay you do have to pay ten shillings a week in the hotel?' 'More,'\nI answered.\n\n'Twelve?'\n\n'More.'\n\n'Fifteen?'\n\n'More still.'\n\nThen he drew back and did not question me any further, either\nthinking that I had lied to check his curiosity, or too awed by my\nriches to continue.\n\nRepassing Killeany I was joined by a man who had spent twenty years\nin America, where he had lost his health and then returned, so long\nago that he had forgotten English and could hardly make me\nunderstand him. He seemed hopeless, dirty and asthmatic, and after\ngoing with me for a few hundred yards he stopped and asked for\ncoppers. I had none left, so I gave him a fill of tobacco, and he\nwent back to his hovel.\n\nWhen he was gone, two little girls took their place behind me and I\ndrew them in turn into conversation.\n\nThey spoke with a delicate exotic intonation that was full of charm,\nand told me with a sort of chant how they guide 'ladies and\ngintlemins' in the summer to all that is worth seeing in their\nneighbourhood, and sell them pampooties and maidenhair ferns, which\nare common among the rocks.\n\nWe were now in Kilronan, and as we parted they showed me holes in\ntheir own pampooties, or cowskin sandals, and asked me the price of\nnew ones. I told them that my purse was empty, and then with a few\nquaint words of blessing they turned away from me and went down to\nthe pier.\n\nAll this walk back had been extraordinarily fine. The intense\ninsular clearness one sees only in Ireland, and after rain, was\nthrowing out every ripple in the sea and sky, and every crevice in\nthe hills beyond the bay.\n\nThis evening an old man came to see me, and said he had known a\nrelative of mine who passed some time on this island forty-three\nyears ago.\n\n'I was standing under the pier-wall mending nets,' he said, 'when\nyou came off the steamer, and I said to myself in that moment, if\nthere is a man of the name of Synge left walking the world, it is\nthat man yonder will be he.'\n\nHe went on to complain in curiously simple yet dignified language of\nthe changes that have taken place here since he left the island to\ngo to sea before the end of his childhood.\n\n'I have come back,' he said, 'to live in a bit of a house with my\nsister. The island is not the same at all to what it was. It is\nlittle good I can get from the people who are in it now, and\nanything I have to give them they don't care to have.'\n\nFrom what I hear this man seems to have shut himself up in a world\nof individual conceits and theories, and to live aloof at his trade\nof net-mending, regarded by the other islanders with respect and\nhalf-ironical sympathy.\n\nA little later when I went down to the kitchen I found two men from\nInishmaan who had been benighted on the island. They seemed a\nsimpler and perhaps a more interesting type than the people here,\nand talked with careful English about the history of the Duns, and\nthe Book of Ballymote, and the Book of Kells, and other ancient\nMSS., with the names of which they seemed familiar.\n\nIn spite of the charm of my teacher, the old blind man I met the day\nof my arrival, I have decided to move on to Inishmaan, where Gaelic\nis more generally used, and the life is perhaps the most primitive\nthat is left in Europe.\n\nI spent all this last day with my blind guide, looking at the\nantiquities that abound in the west or north-west of the island.\n\nAs we set out I noticed among the groups of girls who smiled at our\nfellowship--old Mourteen says we are like the cuckoo with its\npipit--a beautiful oval face with the singularly spiritual\nexpression that is so marked in one type of the West Ireland women.\nLater in the day, as the old man talked continually of the fairies\nand the women they have taken, it seemed that there was a possible\nlink between the wild mythology that is accepted on the islands and\nthe strange beauty of the women.\n\nAt midday we rested near the ruins of a house, and two beautiful\nboys came up and sat near us. Old Mourteen asked them why the house\nwas in ruins, and who had lived in it.\n\n'A rich farmer built it a while since,' they said, 'but after two\nyears he was driven away by the fairy host.'\n\nThe boys came on with us some distance to the north to visit one of\nthe ancient beehive dwellings that is still in perfect preservation.\nWhen we crawled in on our hands and knees, and stood up in the gloom\nof the interior, old Mourteen took a freak of earthly humour and\nbegan telling what he would have done if he could have come in there\nwhen he was a young man and a young girl along with him.\n\nThen he sat down in the middle of the floor and began to recite old\nIrish poetry, with an exquisite purity of intonation that brought\ntears to my eyes though I understood but little of the meaning.\n\nOn our way home he gave me the Catholic theory of the fairies.\n\nWhen Lucifer saw himself in the glass he thought himself equal with\nGod. Then the Lord threw him out of Heaven, and all the angels that\nbelonged to him. While He was 'chucking them out,' an archangel\nasked Him to spare some of them, and those that were falling are in\nthe air still, and have power to wreck ships, and to work evil in\nthe world.\n\nFrom this he wandered off into tedious matters of theology, and\nrepeated many long prayers and sermons in Irish that he had heard\nfrom the priests.\n\nA little further on we came to a slated house, and I asked him who\nwas living in it.\n\n'A kind of a schoolmistress,' he said; then his old face puckered\nwith a gleam of pagan malice.\n\n'Ah, master,' he said, 'wouldn't it be fine to be in there, and to\nbe kissing her?'\n\nA couple of miles from this village we turned aside to look at an\nold ruined church of the Ceathair Aluinn (The Four Beautiful\nPersons), and a holy well near it that is famous for cures of\nblindness and epilepsy.\n\nAs we sat near the well a very old man came up from a cottage near\nthe road, and told me how it had become famous.\n\n'A woman of Sligo had a son who was born blind, and one night she\ndreamed that she saw an island with a blessed well in it that could\ncure her son. She told her dream in the morning, and an old man said\nit was of Aran she was after dreaming.\n\n'She brought her son down by the coast of Galway, and came out in a\ncuragh, and landed below where you see a bit of a cove.\n\n'She walked up then to the house of my father--God rest his\nsoul--and she told them what she was looking for.\n\n'My father said that there was a well like what she had dreamed of,\nand that he would send a boy along with her to show her the way.\n\n\"There's no need, at all,\" said she; \"haven't I seen it all in my\ndream?\"\n\n'Then she went out with the child and walked up to this well, and\nshe kneeled down and began saying her prayers. Then she put her hand\nout for the water, and put it on his eyes, and the moment it touched\nhim he called out: \"O mother, look at the pretty flowers!\"'\n\nAfter that Mourteen described the feats of poteen drinking and\nfighting that he did in his youth, and went on to talk of Diarmid,\nwho was the strongest man after Samson, and of one of the beds of\nDiarmid and Grainne, which is on the east of the island. He says\nthat Diarmid was killed by the druids, who put a burning shirt on\nhim,--a fragment of mythology that may connect Diarmid with the\nlegend of Hercules, if it is not due to the 'learning' in some\nhedge-school master's ballad.\n\nThen we talked about Inishmaan.\n\n'You'll have an old man to talk with you over there,' he said, 'and\ntell you stories of the fairies, but he's walking about with two\nsticks under him this ten year. Did ever you hear what it is goes on\nfour legs when it is young, and on two legs after that, and on three\nlegs when it does be old?'\n\nI gave him the answer.\n\n'Ah, master,' he said, 'you're a cute one, and the blessing of God\nbe on you. Well, I'm on three legs this minute, but the old man\nbeyond is back on four; I don't know if I'm better than the way he\nis; he's got his sight and I'm only an old dark man.'\n\nI am settled at last on Inishmaan in a small cottage with a\ncontinual drone of Gaelic coming from the kitchen that opens into my\nroom.\n\nEarly this morning the man of the house came over for me with a\nfour-oared curagh--that is, a curagh with four rowers and four oars\non either side, as each man uses two--and we set off a little before\nnoon.\n\nIt gave me a moment of exquisite satisfaction to find myself moving\naway from civilisation in this rude canvas canoe of a model that has\nserved primitive races since men first went to sea.\n\nWe had to stop for a moment at a hulk that is anchored in the bay,\nto make some arrangement for the fish-curing of the middle island,\nand my crew called out as soon as we were within earshot that they\nhad a man with them who had been in France a month from this day.\n\nWhen we started again, a small sail was run up in the bow, and we\nset off across the sound with a leaping oscillation that had no\nresemblance to the heavy movement of a boat.\n\nThe sail is only used as an aid, so the men continued to row after\nit had gone up, and as they occupied the four cross-seats I lay on\nthe canvas at the stern and the frame of slender laths, which bent\nand quivered as the waves passed under them.\n\nWhen we set off it was a brilliant morning of April, and the green,\nglittering waves seemed to toss the canoe among themselves, yet as\nwe drew nearer this island a sudden thunderstorm broke out behind\nthe rocks we were approaching, and lent a momentary tumult to this\nstill vein of the Atlantic.\n\nWe landed at a small pier, from which a rude track leads up to the\nvillage between small fields and bare sheets of rock like those in\nAranmor. The youngest son of my boatman, a boy of about seventeen,\nwho is to be my teacher and guide, was waiting for me at the pier\nand guided me to his house, while the men settled the curagh and\nfollowed slowly with my baggage.\n\nMy room is at one end of the cottage, with a boarded floor and\nceiling, and two windows opposite each other. Then there is the\nkitchen with earth floor and open rafters, and two doors opposite\neach other opening into the open air, but no windows. Beyond it\nthere are two small rooms of half the width of the kitchen with one\nwindow apiece.\n\nThe kitchen itself, where I will spend most of my time, is full of\nbeauty and distinction. The red dresses of the women who cluster\nround the fire on their stools give a glow of almost Eastern\nrichness, and the walls have been toned by the turf-smoke to a soft\nbrown that blends with the grey earth-colour of the floor. Many\nsorts of fishing-tackle, and the nets and oil-skins of the men, are\nhung upon the walls or among the open rafters; and right overhead,\nunder the thatch, there is a whole cowskin from which they make\npampooties.\n\nEvery article on these islands has an almost personal character,\nwhich gives this simple life, where all art is unknown, something of\nthe artistic beauty of medieval life. The curaghs and spinning-wheels,\nthe tiny wooden barrels that are still much used in the place of\nearthenware, the home-made cradles, churns, and baskets, are all\nfull of individuality, and being made from materials that are common\nhere, yet to some extent peculiar to the island, they seem to exist\nas a natural link between the people and the world that is about them.\n\nThe simplicity and unity of the dress increases in another way the\nlocal air of beauty. The women wear red petticoats and jackets of\nthe island wool stained with madder, to which they usually add a\nplaid shawl twisted round their chests and tied at their back. When\nit rains they throw another petticoat over their heads with the\nwaistband round their faces, or, if they are young, they use a heavy\nshawl like those worn in Galway. Occasionally other wraps are worn,\nand during the thunderstorm I arrived in I saw several girls with\nmen's waistcoats buttoned round their bodies. Their skirts do not\ncome much below the knee, and show their powerful legs in the heavy\nindigo stockings with which they are all provided.\n\nThe men wear three colours: the natural wool, indigo, and a grey\nflannel that is woven of alternate threads of indigo and the natural\nwool. In Aranmor many of the younger men have adopted the usual\nfisherman's jersey, but I have only seen one on this island.\n\nAs flannel is cheap--the women spin the yarn from the wool of their\nown sheep, and it is then woven by a weaver in Kilronan for\nfourpence a yard--the men seem to wear an indefinite number of\nwaistcoats and woollen drawers one over the other. They are usually\nsurprised at the lightness of my own dress, and one old man I spoke\nto for a minute on the pier, when I came ashore, asked me if I was\nnot cold with 'my little clothes.'\n\nAs I sat in the kitchen to dry the spray from my coat, several men\nwho had seen me walking up came in to me to talk to me, usually\nmurmuring on the threshold, 'The blessing of God on this place,' or\nsome similar words.\n\nThe courtesy of the old woman of the house is singularly attractive,\nand though I could not understand much of what she said--she has no\nEnglish--I could see with how much grace she motioned each visitor\nto a chair, or stool, according to his age, and said a few words to\nhim till he drifted into our English conversation.\n\nFor the moment my own arrival is the chief subject of interest, and\nthe men who come in are eager to talk to me.\n\nSome of them express themselves more correctly than the ordinary\npeasant, others use the Gaelic idioms continually and substitute\n'he' or 'she' for 'it,' as the neuter pronoun is not found in modern\nIrish.\n\nA few of the men have a curiously full vocabulary, others know only\nthe commonest words in English, and are driven to ingenious devices\nto express their meaning. Of all the subjects we can talk of war\nseems their favourite, and the conflict between America and Spain is\ncausing a great deal of excitement. Nearly all the families have\nrelations who have had to cross the Atlantic, and all eat of the\nflour and bacon that is brought from the United States, so they have\na vague fear that 'if anything happened to America,' their own\nisland would cease to be habitable.\n\nForeign languages are another favourite topic, and as these men are\nbilingual they have a fair notion of what it means to speak and\nthink in many different idioms. Most of the strangers they see on\nthe islands are philological students, and the people have been led\nto conclude that linguistic studies, particularly Gaelic studies,\nare the chief occupation of the outside world.\n\n'I have seen Frenchmen, and Danes, and Germans,' said one man, 'and\nthere does be a power a Irish books along with them, and they\nreading them better than ourselves. Believe me there are few rich\nmen now in the world who are not studying the Gaelic.'\n\nThey sometimes ask me the French for simple phrases, and when they\nhave listened to the intonation for a moment, most of them are able\nto reproduce it with admirable precision.\n\nWhen I was going out this morning to walk round the island with\nMichael, the boy who is teaching me Irish, I met an old man making\nhis way down to the cottage. He was dressed in miserable black\nclothes which seemed to have come from the mainland, and was so bent\nwith rheumatism that, at a little distance, he looked more like a\nspider than a human being.\n\nMichael told me it was Pat Dirane, the story-teller old Mourteen had\nspoken of on the other island. I wished to turn back, as he appeared\nto be on his way to visit me, but Michael would not hear of it.\n\n'He will be sitting by the fire when we come in,' he said; 'let you\nnot be afraid, there will be time enough to be talking to him by and\nby.'\n\nHe was right. As I came down into the kitchen some hours later old\nPat was still in the chimney-corner, blinking with the turf smoke.\n\nHe spoke English with remarkable aptness and fluency, due, I\nbelieve, to the months he spent in the English provinces working at\nthe harvest when he was a young man.\n\nAfter a few formal compliments he told me how he had been crippled\nby an attack of the 'old hin' (i.e. the influenza), and had been\ncomplaining ever since in addition to his rheumatism.\n\nWhile the old woman was cooking my dinner he asked me if I liked\nstories, and offered to tell one in English, though he added, it\nwould be much better if I could follow the Gaelic. Then he began:--\n\nThere were two farmers in County Clare. One had a son, and the\nother, a fine rich man, had a daughter.\n\nThe young man was wishing to marry the girl, and his father told him\nto try and get her if he thought well, though a power of gold would\nbe wanting to get the like of her.\n\n'I will try,' said the young man.\n\nHe put all his gold into a bag. Then he went over to the other farm,\nand threw in the gold in front of him.\n\n'Is that all gold?' said the father of the girl.\n\n'All gold,' said O'Conor (the young man's name was O'Conor).\n\n'It will not weigh down my daughter,' said the father.\n\n'We'll see that,' said O'Conor.\n\nThen they put them in the scales, the daughter in one side and the\ngold in the other. The girl went down against the ground, so O'Conor\ntook his bag and went out on the road.\n\nAs he was going along he came to where there was a little man, and\nhe standing with his back against the wall.\n\n'Where are you going with the bag?' said the little man. 'Going\nhome,' said O'Conor.\n\n'Is it gold you might be wanting?' said the man. 'It is, surely,'\nsaid O'Conor.\n\n'I'll give you what you are wanting,' said the man, 'and we can\nbargain in this way--you'll pay me back in a year the gold I give\nyou, or you'll pay me with five pounds cut off your own flesh.'\n\nThat bargain was made between them. The man gave a bag of gold to\nO'Conor, and he went back with it, and was married to the young\nwoman.\n\nThey were rich people, and he built her a grand castle on the cliffs\nof Clare, with a window that looked out straight over the wild\nocean.\n\nOne day when he went up with his wife to look out over the wild\nocean, he saw a ship coming in on the rocks, and no sails on her at\nall. She was wrecked on the rocks, and it was tea that was in her,\nand fine silk.\n\nO'Conor and his wife went down to look at the wreck, and when the\nlady O'Conor saw the silk she said she wished a dress of it.\n\nThey got the silk from the sailors, and when the Captain came up to\nget the money for it, O'Conor asked him to come again and take his\ndinner with them. They had a grand dinner, and they drank after it,\nand the Captain was tipsy. While they were still drinking, a letter\ncame to O'Conor, and it was in the letter that a friend of his was\ndead, and that he would have to go away on a long journey. As he was\ngetting ready the Captain came to him.\n\n'Are you fond of your wife?' said the Captain.\n\n'I am fond of her,' said O'Conor.\n\n'Will you make me a bet of twenty guineas no man comes near her\nwhile you'll be away on the journey?' said the Captain.\n\n'I will bet it,' said O'Conor; and he went away.\n\nThere was an old hag who sold small things on the road near the\ncastle, and the lady O'Conor allowed her to sleep up in her room in\na big box. The Captain went down on the road to the old hag.\n\n'For how much will you let me sleep one night in your box?' said\nthe Captain.\n\n'For no money at all would I do such a thing,' said the hag.\n\n'For ten guineas?' said the Captain.\n\n'Not for ten guineas,' said the hag.\n\n'For twelve guineas?' said the Captain.\n\n'Not for twelve guineas,' said the hag.\n\n'For fifteen guineas?' said the Captain.\n\n'For fifteen I will do it,' said the hag.\n\nThen she took him up and hid him in the box. When night came the\nlady O'Conor walked up into her room, and the Captain watched her\nthrough a hole that was in the box. He saw her take off her two\nrings and put them on a kind of a board that was over her head like\na chimney-piece, and take off her clothes, except her shift, and go\nup into her bed.\n\nAs soon as she was asleep the Captain came out of his box, and he\nhad some means of making a light, for he lit the candle. He went\nover to the bed where she was sleeping without disturbing her at\nall, or doing any bad thing, and he took the two rings off the\nboard, and blew out the light, and went down again into the box.\n\nHe paused for a moment, and a deep sigh of relief rose from the men\nand women who had crowded in while the story was going on, till the\nkitchen was filled with people.\n\nAs the Captain was coming out of his box the girls, who had appeared\nto know no English, stopped their spinning and held their breath\nwith expectation.\n\nThe old man went on--\n\nWhen O'Conor came back the Captain met him, and told him that he had\nbeen a night in his wife's room, and gave him the two rings. O'Conor\ngave him the twenty guineas of the bet. Then he went up into the\ncastle, and he took his wife up to look out of the window over the\nwild ocean. While she was looking he pushed her from behind, and she\nfell down over the cliff into the sea.\n\nAn old woman was on the shore, and she saw her falling. She went\ndown then to the surf and pulled her out all wet and in great\ndisorder, and she took the wet clothes off her, and put on some old\nrags belonging to herself.\n\nWhen O'Conor had pushed his wife from the window he went away into\nthe land.\n\nAfter a while the lady O'Conor went out searching for him, and when\nshe had gone here and there a long time in the country, she heard\nthat he was reaping in a field with sixty men.\n\nShe came to the field and she wanted to go in, but the gate-man\nwould not open the gate for her. Then the owner came by, and she\ntold him her story. He brought her in, and her husband was there,\nreaping, but he never gave any sign of knowing her. She showed him\nto the owner, and he made the man come out and go with his wife.\n\nThen the lady O'Conor took him out on the road where there were\nhorses, and they rode away.\n\nWhen they came to the place where O'Conor had met the little man, he\nwas there on the road before them.\n\n'Have you my gold on you?' said the man.\n\n'I have not,' said O'Conor.\n\n'Then you'll pay me the flesh off your body,' said the man. They\nwent into a house, and a knife was brought, and a clean white cloth\nwas put on the table, and O'Conor was put upon the cloth.\n\nThen the little man was going to strike the lancet into him, when\nsays lady O'Conor--\n\n'Have you bargained for five pounds of flesh?'\n\n'For five pounds of flesh,' said the man.\n\n'Have you bargained for any drop of his blood?' said lady O'Conor.\n\n'For no blood,' said the man.\n\n'Cut out the flesh,' said lady O'Conor, 'but if you spill one drop\nof his blood I'll put that through you.' And she put a pistol to his\nhead.\n\nThe little man went away and they saw no more of him.\n\nWhen they got home to their castle they made a great supper, and\nthey invited the Captain and the old hag, and the old woman that had\npulled the lady O'Conor out of the sea.\n\nAfter they had eaten well the lady O'Conor began, and she said they\nwould all tell their stories. Then she told how she had been saved\nfrom the sea, and how she had found her husband.\n\nThen the old woman told her story; the way she had found the lady\nO'Conor wet, and in great disorder, and had brought her in and put\non her some old rags of her own.\n\nThe lady O'Conor asked the Captain for his story; but he said they\nwould get no story from him. Then she took her pistol out of her\npocket, and she put it on the edge of the table, and she said that\nany one that would not tell his story would get a bullet into him.\n\nThen the Captain told the way he had got into the box, and come over\nto her bed without touching her at all, and had taken away the\nrings.\n\nThen the lady O'Conor took the pistol and shot the hag through the\nbody, and they threw her over the cliff into the sea.\n\nThat is my story.\n\nIt gave me a strange feeling of wonder to hear this illiterate\nnative of a wet rock in the Atlantic telling a story that is so full\nof European associations.\n\nThe incident of the faithful wife takes us beyond Cymbeline to the\nsunshine on the Arno, and the gay company who went out from Florence\nto tell narratives of love. It takes us again to the low vineyards\nof Wurzburg on the Main, where the same tale was told in the middle\nages, of the 'Two Merchants and the Faithful Wife of Ruprecht von\nWurzburg.'\n\nThe other portion, dealing with the pound of flesh, has a still\nwider distribution, reaching from Persia and Egypt to the Gesta\nRornanorum, and the Pecorone of Ser Giovanni, a Florentine notary.\n\nThe present union of the two tales has already been found among the\nGaels, and there is a somewhat similar version in Campbell's Popular\nTales of the Western Highlands.\n\nMichael walks so fast when I am out with him that I cannot pick my\nsteps, and the sharp-edged fossils which abound in the limestone\nhave cut my shoes to pieces.\n\nThe family held a consultation on them last night, and in the end it\nwas decided to make me a pair of pampooties, which I have been\nwearing to-day among the rocks.\n\nThey consist simply of a piece of raw cowskin, with the hair\noutside, laced over the toe and round the heel with two ends of\nfishing-line that work round and are tied above the instep.\n\nIn the evening, when they are taken off, they are placed in a basin\nof water, as the rough hide cuts the foot and stocking if it is\nallowed to harden. For the same reason the people often step into\nthe surf during the day, so that their feet are continually moist.\n\nAt first I threw my weight upon my heels, as one does naturally in a\nboot, and was a good deal bruised, but after a few hours I learned\nthe natural walk of man, and could follow my guide in any portion of\nthe island.\n\nIn one district below the cliffs, towards the north, one goes for\nnearly a mile jumping from one rock to another without a single\nordinary step; and here I realized that toes have a natural use, for\nI found myself jumping towards any tiny crevice in the rock before\nme, and clinging with an eager grip in which all the muscles of my\nfeet ached from their exertion.\n\nThe absence of the heavy boot of Europe has preserved to these\npeople the agile walk of the wild animal, while the general\nsimplicity of their lives has given them many other points of\nphysical perfection. Their way of life has never been acted on by\nanything much more artificial than the nests and burrows of the\ncreatures that live round them, and they seem, in a certain sense,\nto approach more nearly to the finer types of our aristocracies--who\nare bred artificially to a natural ideal--than to the labourer or\ncitizen, as the wild horse resembles the thoroughbred rather than\nthe hack or cart-horse. Tribes of the same natural development are,\nperhaps, frequent in half-civilized countries, but here a touch of\nthe refinement of old societies is blended, with singular effect,\namong the qualities of the wild animal.\n\nWhile I am walking with Michael some one often comes to me to ask\nthe time of day. Few of the people, however, are sufficiently used\nto modern time to understand in more than a vague way the convention\nof the hours, and when I tell them what o'clock it is by my watch\nthey are not satisfied, and ask how long is left them before the\ntwilight.\n\nThe general knowledge of time on the island depends, curiously\nenough, on the direction of the wind. Nearly all the cottages are\nbuilt, like this one, with two doors opposite each other, the more\nsheltered of which lies open all day to give light to the interior.\nIf the wind is northerly the south door is opened, and the shadow of\nthe door-post moving across the kitchen floor indicates the hour; as\nsoon, however, as the wind changes to the south the other door is\nopened, and the people, who never think of putting up a primitive\ndial, are at a loss.\n\nThis system of doorways has another curious result. It usually\nhappens that all the doors on one side of the village pathway are\nlying open with women sitting about on the thresholds, while on the\nother side the doors are shut and there is no sign of life. The\nmoment the wind changes everything is reversed, and sometimes when I\ncome back to the village after an hour's walk there seems to have\nbeen a general flight from one side of the way to the other.\n\nIn my own cottage the change of the doors alters the whole tone of\nthe kitchen, turning it from a brilliantly-lighted room looking out\non a yard and laneway to a sombre cell with a superb view of the\nsea.\n\nWhen the wind is from the north the old woman manages my meals with\nfair regularity; but on the other days she often makes my tea at\nthree o'clock instead of six. If I refuse it she puts it down to\nsimmer for three hours in the turf, and then brings it in at six\no'clock full of anxiety to know if it is warm enough.\n\nThe old man is suggesting that I should send him a clock when I go\naway. He'd like to have something from me in the house, he says, the\nway they wouldn't forget me, and wouldn't a clock be as handy as\nanother thing, and they'd be thinking of me whenever they'd look on\nits face.\n\nThe general ignorance of any precise hours in the day makes it\nimpossible for the people to have regular meals.\n\nThey seem to eat together in the evening, and sometimes in the\nmorning, a little after dawn, before they scatter for their work,\nbut during the day they simply drink a cup of tea and eat a piece of\nbread, or some potatoes, whenever they are hungry.\n\nFor men who live in the open air they eat strangely little. Often\nwhen Michael has been out weeding potatoes for eight or nine hours\nwithout food, he comes in and eats a few slices of home-made bread,\nand then he is ready to go out with me and wander for hours about\nthe island.\n\nThey use no animal food except a little bacon and salt fish. The old\nwoman says she would be very ill if she ate fresh meat.\n\nSome years ago, before tea, sugar, and flour had come into general\nuse, salt fish was much more the staple article of diet than at\npresent, and, I am told, skin diseases were very common, though they\nare now rare on the islands.\n\nNo one who has not lived for weeks among these grey clouds and seas\ncan realise the joy with which the eye rests on the red dresses of\nthe women, especially when a number of them are to be found\ntogether, as happened early this morning.\n\nI heard that the young cattle were to be shipped for a fair on the\nmainland, which is to take place in a few days, and I went down on\nthe pier, a little after dawn, to watch them.\n\nThe bay was shrouded in the greys of coming rain, yet the thinness\nof the cloud threw a silvery light on the sea, and an unusual depth\nof blue to the mountains of Connemara.\n\nAs I was going across the sandhills one dun-sailed hooker glided\nslowly out to begin her voyage, and another beat up to the pier.\nTroops of red cattle, driven mostly by the women, were coming up\nfrom several directions, forming, with the green of the long tract\nof grass that separates the sea from the rocks, a new unity of\ncolour.\n\nThe pier itself was crowded with bullocks and a great number of the\npeople. I noticed one extraordinary girl in the throng who seemed to\nexert an authority on all who came near her. Her curiously-formed\nnostrils and narrow chin gave her a witch-like expression, yet the\nbeauty of her hair and skin made her singularly attractive.\n\nWhen the empty hooker was made fast its deck was still many feet\nbelow the level of the pier, so the animals were slung down by a\nrope from the mast-head, with much struggling and confusion. Some of\nthem made wild efforts to escape, nearly carrying their owners with\nthem into the sea, but they were handled with wonderful dexterity,\nand there was no mishap.\n\nWhen the open hold was filled with young cattle, packed as tightly\nas they could stand, the owners with their wives or sisters, who go\nwith them to prevent extravagance in Galway, jumped down on the\ndeck, and the voyage was begun. Immediately afterwards a rickety old\nhooker beat up with turf from Connemara, and while she was unlading\nall the men sat along the edge of the pier and made remarks upon the\nrottenness of her timber till the owners grew wild with rage.\n\nThe tide was now too low for more boats to come to the pier, so a\nmove was made to a strip of sand towards the south-east, where the\nrest of the cattle were shipped through the surf. Here the hooker\nwas anchored about eighty yards from the shore, and a curagh was\nrowed round to tow out the animals. Each bullock was caught in its\nturn and girded with a sling of rope by which it could be hoisted on\nboard. Another rope was fastened to the horns and passed out to a\nman in the stem of the curagh. Then the animal was forced down\nthrough the surf and out of its depth before it had much time to\nstruggle. Once fairly swimming, it was towed out to the hooker and\ndragged on board in a half-drowned condition.\n\nThe freedom of the sand seemed to give a stronger spirit of revolt,\nand some of the animals were only caught after a dangerous struggle.\nThe first attempt was not always successful, and I saw one\nthree-year-old lift two men with his horns, and drag another fifty\nyards along the sand by his tail before he was subdued.\n\nWhile this work was going on a crowd of girls and women collected on\nthe edge of the cliff and kept shouting down a confused babble of\nsatire and praise.\n\nWhen I came back to the cottage I found that among the women who had\ngone to the mainland was a daughter of the old woman's, and that her\nbaby of about nine months had been left in the care of its\ngrandmother.\n\nAs I came in she was busy getting ready my dinner, and old Pat\nDirane, who usually comes at this hour, was rocking the cradle. It\nis made of clumsy wicker-work, with two pieces of rough wood\nfastened underneath to serve as rockers, and all the time I am in my\nroom I can hear it bumping on the floor with extraordinary violence.\nWhen the baby is awake it sprawls on the floor, and the old woman\nsings it a variety of inarticulate lullabies that have much musical\ncharm.\n\nAnother daughter, who lives at home, has gone to the fair also, so\nthe old woman has both the baby and myself to take care of as well\nas a crowd of chickens that live in a hole beside the fire, Often\nwhen I want tea, or when the old woman goes for water, I have to\ntake my own turn at rocking the cradle.\n\nOne of the largest Duns, or pagan forts, on the islands, is within a\nstone's throw of my cottage, and I often stroll up there after a\ndinner of eggs or salt pork, to smoke drowsily on the stones. The\nneighbours know my habit, and not infrequently some one wanders up\nto ask what news there is in the last paper I have received, or to\nmake inquiries about the American war. If no one comes I prop my\nbook open with stones touched by the Fir-bolgs, and sleep for hours\nin the delicious warmth of the sun. The last few days I have almost\nlived on the round walls, for, by some miscalculation, our turf has\ncome to an end, and the fires are kept up with dried cow-dung--a\ncommon fuel on the island--the smoke from which filters through into\nmy room and lies in blue layers above my table and bed.\n\nFortunately the weather is fine, and I can spend my days in the\nsunshine. When I look round from the top of these walls I can see\nthe sea on nearly every side, stretching away to distant ranges of\nmountains on the north and south. Underneath me to the east there is\nthe one inhabited district of the island, where I can see red\nfigures moving about the cottages, sending up an occasional fragment\nof conversation or of old island melodies.\n\nThe baby is teething, and has been crying for several days. Since\nhis mother went to the fair they have been feeding him with cow's\nmilk, often slightly sour, and giving him, I think, more than he\nrequires.\n\nThis morning, however, he seemed so unwell they sent out to look for\na foster-mother in the village, and before long a young woman, who\nlives a little way to the east, came in and restored him to his\nnatural food.\n\nA few hours later, when I came into the kitchen to talk to old Pat,\nanother woman performed the same kindly office, this time a person\nwith a curiously whimsical expression.\n\nPat told me a story of an unfaithful wife, which I will give further\ndown, and then broke into a moral dispute with the visitor, which\ncaused immense delight to some young men who had come down to listen\nto the story. Unfortunately it was carried on so rapidly in Gaelic\nthat I lost most of the points.\n\nThis old man talks usually in a mournful tone about his ill-health,\nand his death, which he feels to be approaching, yet he has\noccasional touches of humor that remind me of old Mourteen on the\nnorth island. To-day a grotesque twopenny doll was lying on the\nfloor near the old woman. He picked it up and examined it as if\ncomparing it with her. Then he held it up: 'Is it you is after\nbringing that thing into the world,' he said, 'woman of the house?'\n\nHere is the story:--\n\nOne day I was travelling on foot from Galway to Dublin, and the\ndarkness came on me and I ten miles from the town I was wanting to\npass the night in. Then a hard rain began to fall and I was tired\nwalking, so when I saw a sort of a house with no roof on it up\nagainst the road, I got in the way the walls would give me shelter.\n\nAs I was looking round I saw a light in some trees two perches off,\nand thinking any sort of a house would be better than where I was, I\ngot over a wall and went up to the house to look in at the window.\n\nI saw a dead man laid on a table, and candles lighted, and a woman\nwatching him. I was frightened when I saw him, but it was raining\nhard, and I said to myself, if he was dead he couldn't hurt me. Then\nI knocked on the door and the woman came and opened it.\n\n'Good evening, ma'am,' says I.\n\n'Good evening kindly, stranger,' says she, 'Come in out of the\nrain.' Then she took me in and told me her husband was after dying\non her, and she was watching him that night.\n\n'But it's thirsty you'll be, stranger,' says she, 'Come into the\nparlour.' Then she took me into the parlour--and it was a fine clean\nhouse--and she put a cup, with a saucer under it, on the table\nbefore me with fine sugar and bread.\n\nWhen I'd had a cup of tea I went back into the kitchen where the\ndead man was lying, and she gave me a fine new pipe off the table\nwith a drop of spirits.\n\n'Stranger,' says she, 'would you be afeard to be alone with himself?'\n\n'Not a bit in the world, ma'am,' says I; 'he that's dead can do no\nhurt,' Then she said she wanted to go over and tell the neighbours\nthe way her husband was after dying on her, and she went out and\nlocked the door behind her.\n\nI smoked one pipe, and I leaned out and took another off the table.\nI was smoking it with my hand on the back of my chair--the way you\nare yourself this minute, God bless you--and I looking on the dead\nman, when he opened his eyes as wide as myself and looked at me.\n\n'Don't be afraid, stranger,' said the dead man; 'I'm not dead at all\nin the world. Come here and help me up and I'll tell you all about\nit.'\n\nWell, I went up and took the sheet off of him, and I saw that he had\na fine clean shirt on his body, and fine flannel drawers.\n\nHe sat up then, and says he--\n\n'I've got a bad wife, stranger, and I let on to be dead the way I'd\ncatch her goings on.'\n\nThen he got two fine sticks he had to keep down his wife, and he put\nthem at each side of his body, and he laid himself out again as if\nhe was dead.\n\nIn half an hour his wife came back and a young man along with her.\nWell, she gave him his tea, and she told him he was tired, and he\nwould do right to go and lie down in the bedroom.\n\nThe young man went in and the woman sat down to watch by the dead\nman. A while after she got up and 'Stranger,' says she, 'I'm going\nin to get the candle out of the room; I'm thinking the young man\nwill be asleep by this time.' She went into the bedroom, but the\ndivil a bit of her came back.\n\nThen the dead man got up, and he took one stick, and he gave the\nother to myself. We went in and saw them lying together with her\nhead on his arm.\n\nThe dead man hit him a blow with the stick so that the blood out of\nhim leapt up and hit the gallery.\n\nThat is my story.\n\nIn stories of this kind he always speaks in the first person, with\nminute details to show that he was actually present at the scenes\nthat are described.\n\nAt the beginning of this story he gave me a long account of what had\nmade him be on his way to Dublin on that occasion, and told me about\nall the rich people he was going to see in the finest streets of the\ncity.\n\nA week of sweeping fogs has passed over and given me a strange sense\nof exile and desolation. I walk round the island nearly every day,\nyet I can see nothing anywhere but a mass of wet rock, a strip of\nsurf, and then a tumult of waves.\n\nThe slaty limestone has grown black with the water that is dripping\non it, and wherever I turn there is the same grey obsession twining\nand wreathing itself among the narrow fields, and the same wail from\nthe wind that shrieks and whistles in the loose rubble of the walls.\n\nAt first the people do not give much attention to the wilderness\nthat is round them, but after a few days their voices sink in the\nkitchen, and their endless talk of pigs and cattle falls to the\nwhisper of men who are telling stories in a haunted house.\n\nThe rain continues; but this evening a number of young men were in\nthe kitchen mending nets, and the bottle of poteen was drawn from\nits hiding-place.\n\nOne cannot think of these people drinking wine on the summit of this\ncrumbling precipice, but their grey poteen, which brings a shock of\njoy to the blood, seems predestined to keep sanity in men who live\nforgotten in these worlds of mist.\n\nI sat in the kitchen part of the evening to feel the gaiety that was\nrising, and when I came into my own room after dark, one of the sons\ncame in every time the bottle made its round, to pour me out my\nshare.\n\nIt has cleared, and the sun is shining with a luminous warmth that\nmakes the whole island glisten with the splendor of a gem, and fills\nthe sea and sky with a radiance of blue light.\n\nI have come out to lie on the rocks where I have the black edge of\nthe north island in front of me, Galway Bay, too blue almost to look\nat, on my right, the Atlantic on my left, a perpendicular cliff\nunder my ankles, and over me innumerable gulls that chase each other\nin a white cirrus of wings.\n\nA nest of hooded crows is somewhere near me, and one of the old\nbirds is trying to drive me away by letting itself fall like a stone\nevery few moments, from about forty yards above me to within reach\nof my hand.\n\nGannets are passing up and down above the sound, swooping at times\nafter a mackerel, and further off I can see the whole fleet of\nhookers coming out from Kilronan for a night's fishing in the deep\nwater to the west.\n\nAs I lie here hour after hour, I seem to enter into the wild\npastimes of the cliff, and to become a companion of the cormorants\nand crows.\n\nMany of the birds display themselves before me with the vanity of\nbarbarians, performing in strange evolutions as long as I am in\nsight, and returning to their ledge of rock when I am gone. Some are\nwonderfully expert, and cut graceful figures for an inconceivable\ntime without a flap of their wings, growing so absorbed in their own\ndexterity that they often collide with one another in their flight,\nan incident always followed by a wild outburst of abuse. Their\nlanguage is easier than Gaelic, and I seem to understand the greater\npart of their cries, though I am not able to answer. There is one\nplaintive note which they take up in the middle of their usual\nbabble with extraordinary effect, and pass on from one to another\nalong the cliff with a sort of an inarticulate wail, as if they\nremembered for an instant the horror of the mist.\n\nOn the low sheets of rock to the east I can see a number of red and\ngrey figures hurrying about their work. The continual passing in\nthis island between the misery of last night and the splendor of\nto-day, seems to create an affinity between the moods of these\npeople and the moods of varying rapture and dismay that are frequent\nin artists, and in certain forms of alienation. Yet it is only in\nthe intonation of a few sentences or some old fragment of melody\nthat I catch the real spirit of the island, for in general the men\nsit together and talk with endless iteration of the tides and fish,\nand of the price of kelp in Connemara.\n\nAfter Mass this morning an old woman was buried. She lived in the\ncottage next mine, and more than once before noon I heard a faint\necho of-the keen. I did not go to the wake for fear my presence\nmight jar upon the mourners, but all last evening I could hear the\nstrokes of a hammer in the yard, where, in the middle of a little\ncrowd of idlers, the next of kin laboured slowly at the coffin.\nTo-day, before the hour for the funeral, poteen was served to a\nnumber of men who stood about upon the road, and a portion was\nbrought to me in my room. Then the coffin was carried out sewn\nloosely in sailcloth, and held near the ground by three cross-poles\nlashed upon the top. As we moved down to the low eastern portion of\nthe island, nearly all the men, and all the oldest women, wearing\npetticoats over their heads, came out and joined in the procession.\n\nWhile the grave was being opened the women sat down among the flat\ntombstones, bordered with a pale fringe of early bracken, and began\nthe wild keen, or crying for the dead. Each old woman, as she took\nher turn in the leading recitative, seemed possessed for the moment\nwith a profound ecstasy of grief, swaying to and fro, and bending\nher forehead to the stone before her, while she called out to the\ndead with a perpetually recurring chant of sobs.\n\nAll round the graveyard other wrinkled women, looking out from under\nthe deep red petticoats that cloaked them, rocked themselves with\nthe same rhythm, and intoned the inarticulate chant that is\nsustained by all as an accompaniment.\n\nThe morning had been beautifully fine, but as they lowered the\ncoffin into the grave, thunder rumbled overhead and hailstones\nhissed among the bracken.\n\nIn Inishmaan one is forced to believe in a sympathy between man and\nnature, and at this moment when the thunder sounded a death-peal of\nextraordinary grandeur above the voices of the women, I could see\nthe faces near me stiff and drawn with emotion.\n\nWhen the coffin was in the grave, and the thunder had rolled away\nacross the hills of Clare, the keen broke out again more\npassionately than before.\n\nThis grief of the keen is no personal complaint for the death of one\nwoman over eighty years, but seems to contain the whole passionate\nrage that lurks somewhere in every native of the island. In this cry\nof pain the inner consciousness of the people seems to lay itself\nbare for an instant, and to reveal the mood of beings who feel their\nisolation in the face of a universe that wars on them with winds and\nseas. They are usually silent, but in the presence of death all\noutward show of indifference or patience is forgotten, and they\nshriek with pitiable despair before the horror of the fate to which\nthey are all doomed.\n\nBefore they covered the coffin an old man kneeled down by the grave\nand repeated a simple prayer for the dead.\n\nThere was an irony in these words of atonement and Catholic belief\nspoken by voices that were still hoarse with the cries of pagan\ndesperation.\n\nA little beyond the grave I saw a line of old women who had recited\nin the keen sitting in the shadow of a wall beside the roofless\nshell of the church. They were still sobbing and shaken with grief,\nyet they were beginning to talk again of the daily trifles that veil\nfrom them the terror of the world.\n\nWhen we had all come out of the graveyard, and two men had rebuilt\nthe hole in the wall through which the coffin had been carried in,\nwe walked back to the village, talking of anything, and joking of\nanything, as if merely coming from the boat-slip, or the pier.\n\nOne man told me of the poteen drinking that takes place at some\nfunerals.\n\n'A while since,' he said, 'there were two men fell down in the\ngraveyard while the drink was on them. The sea was rough that day,\nthe way no one could go to bring the doctor, and one of the men\nnever woke again, and found death that night.'\n\nThe other day the men of this house made a new field. There was a\nslight bank of earth under the wall of the yard, and another in the\ncorner of the cabbage garden. The old man and his eldest son dug out\nthe clay, with the care of men working in a gold-mine, and Michael\npacked it in panniers--there are no wheeled vehicles on this\nisland--for transport to a flat rock in a sheltered corner of their\nholding, where it was mixed with sand and seaweed and spread out in\na layer upon the stone.\n\nMost of the potato-growing of the island is carried on in fields of\nthis sort--for which the people pay a considerable rent--and if the\nseason is at all dry, their hope of a fair crop is nearly always\ndisappointed.\n\nIt is now nine days since rain has fallen, and the people are filled\nwith anxiety, although the sun has not yet been hot enough to do\nharm.\n\nThe drought is also causing a scarcity of water. There are a few\nsprings on this side of the island, but they come only from a little\ndistance, and in hot weather are not to be relied on. The supply for\nthis house is carried up in a water-barrel by one of the women. If\nit is drawn off at once it is not very nauseous, but if it has lain,\nas it often does, for some hours in the barrel, the smell, colour,\nand taste are unendurable. The water for washing is also coming\nshort, and as I walk round the edges of the sea, I often come on a\ngirl with her petticoats tucked up round her, standing in a pool\nleft by the tide and washing her flannels among the sea-anemones and\ncrabs. Their red bodices and white tapering legs make them as\nbeautiful as tropical sea-birds, as they stand in a frame of\nseaweeds against the brink of the Atlantic. Michael, however, is a\nlittle uneasy when they are in sight, and I cannot pause to watch\nthem. This habit of using the sea water for washing causes a good\ndeal of rheumatism on the island, for the salt lies in the clothes\nand keeps them continually moist.\n\nThe people have taken advantage of this dry moment to begin the\nburning of the kelp, and all the islands are lying in a volume of\ngrey smoke. There will not be a very large quantity this year, as\nthe people are discouraged by the uncertainty of the market, and do\nnot care to undertake the task of manufacture without a certainty of\nprofit.\n\nThe work needed to form a ton of kelp is considerable. The seaweed\nis collected from the rocks after the storms of autumn and winter,\ndried on fine days, and then made up into a rick, where it is left\ntill the beginning of June.\n\nIt is then burnt in low kilns on the shore, an affair that takes\nfrom twelve to twenty-four hours of continuous hard work, though I\nunderstand the people here do not manage well and spoil a portion of\nwhat they produce by burning it more than is required.\n\nThe kiln holds about two tons of molten kelp, and when full it is\nloosely covered with stones, and left to cool. In a few days the\nsubstance is as hard as the limestone, and has to be broken with\ncrowbars before it can be placed in curaghs for transport to\nKilronan, where it is tested to determine the amount of iodine\ncontained, and paid for accordingly. In former years good kelp would\nbring seven pounds a ton, now four pounds are not always reached.\n\nIn Aran even manufacture is of interest. The low flame-edged kiln,\nsending out dense clouds of creamy smoke, with a band of red and\ngrey clothed workers moving in the haze, and usually some\npetticoated boys and women who come down with drink, forms a scene\nwith as much variety and colour as any picture from the East.\n\nThe men feel in a certain sense the distinction of their island, and\nshow me their work with pride. One of them said to me yesterday,\n'I'm thinking you never saw the like of this work before this day?'\n\n'That is true,' I answered, 'I never did.'\n\n'Bedad, then,' he said, 'isn't it a great wonder that you've seen\nFrance and Germany, and the Holy Father, and never seen a man making\nkelp till you come to Inishmaan.'\n\nAll the horses from this island are put out on grass among the hills\nof Connemara from June to the end of September, as there is no\ngrazing here during the summer.\n\nTheir shipping and transport is even more difficult than that of the\nhomed cattle. Most of them are wild Connemara ponies, and their\ngreat strength and timidity make them hard to handle on the narrow\npier, while in the hooker itself it is not easy to get them safely\non their feet in the small space that is available. They are dealt\nwith in the same way as for the bullocks I have spoken of already,\nbut the excitement becomes much more intense, and the storm of\nGaelic that rises the moment a horse is shoved from the pier, till\nit is safely in its place, is indescribable. Twenty boys and men\nhowl and scream with agitation, cursing and exhorting, without\nknowing, most of the time, what they are saying.\n\nApart, however, from this primitive babble, the dexterity and power\nof the men are displayed to more advantage than in anything I have\nseen hitherto. I noticed particularly the owner of a hooker from the\nnorth island that was loaded this morning. He seemed able to hold up\na horse by his single weight when it was swinging from the masthead,\nand preserved a humorous calm even in moments of the wildest\nexcitement. Sometimes a large mare would come down sideways on the\nbacks of the other horses, and kick there till the hold seemed to be\nfilled with a mass of struggling centaurs, for the men themselves\noften leap down to try and save the foals from injury. The backs of\nthe horses put in first are often a good deal cut by the shoes of\nthe others that arrive on top of them, but otherwise they do not\nseem to be much the worse, and as they are not on their way to a\nfair, it is not of much consequence in what condition they come to\nland.\n\nThere is only one bit and saddle in the island, which are used by\nthe priest, who rides from the chapel to the pier when he has held\nthe service on Sunday.\n\nThe islanders themselves ride with a simple halter and a stick, yet\nsometimes travel, at least in the larger island, at a desperate\ngallop. As the horses usually have panniers, the rider sits sideways\nover the withers, and if the panniers are empty they go at full\nspeed in this position without anything to hold to.\n\nMore than once in Aranmor I met a party going out west with empty\npanniers from Kilronan. Long before they came in sight I could hear\na clatter of hoofs, and then a whirl of horses would come round a\ncorner at full gallop with their heads out, utterly indifferent to\nthe slender halter that is their only check. They generally travel\nin single file with a few yards between them, and as there is no\ntraffic there is little fear of an accident.\n\nSometimes a woman and a man ride together, but in this case the man\nsits in the usual position, and the woman sits sideways behind him,\nand holds him round the waist.\n\nOld Pat Dirane continues to come up every day to talk to me, and at\ntimes I turn the conversation to his experiences of the fairies.\n\nHe has seen a good many of them, he says, in different parts of the\nisland, especially in the sandy districts north of the slip. They\nare about a yard high with caps like the 'peelers' pulled down over\ntheir faces. On one occasion he saw them playing ball in the evening\njust above the slip, and he says I must avoid that place in the\nmorning or after nightfall for fear they might do me mischief.\n\nHe has seen two women who were 'away' with them, one a young married\nwoman, the other a girl. The woman was standing by a wall, at a spot\nhe described to me with great care, looking out towards the north.\n\nAnother night he heard a voice crying out in Irish, 'mhathair ta me\nmarbh' ('O mother, I'm killed'), and in the morning there was blood\non the wall of his house, and a child in a house not far off was\ndead.\n\nYesterday he took me aside, and said he would tell me a secret he\nhad never yet told to any person in the world.\n\n'Take a sharp needle,' he said, 'and stick it in under the collar of\nyour coat, and not one of them will be able to have power on you.'\n\nIron is a common talisman with barbarians, but in this case the idea\nof exquisite sharpness was probably present also, and, perhaps, some\nfeeling for the sanctity of the instrument of toil, a folk-belief\nthat is common in Brittany.\n\nThe fairies are more numerous in Mayo than in any other county,\nthough they are fond of certain districts in Galway, where the\nfollowing story is said to have taken place.\n\n'A farmer was in great distress as his crops had failed, and his cow\nhad died on him. One night he told his wife to make him a fine new\nsack for flour before the next morning; and when it was finished he\nstarted off with it before the dawn.\n\n'At that time there was a gentleman who had been taken by the\nfairies, and made an officer among them, and it was often people\nwould see him and him riding on a white horse at dawn and in the\nevening.\n\n'The poor man went down to the place where they used to see the\nofficer, and when he came by on his horse, he asked the loan of two\nhundred and a half of flour, for he was in great want.\n\n'The officer called the fairies out of a hole in the rocks where\nthey stored their wheat, and told them to give the poor man what he\nwas asking. Then he told him to come back and pay him in a year, and\nrode away.\n\n'When the poor man got home he wrote down the day on a piece of\npaper, and that day year he came back and paid the officer.'\n\nWhen he had ended his story the old man told me that the fairies\nhave a tenth of all the produce of the country, and make stores of\nit in the rocks.\n\nIt is a Holy Day, and I have come up to sit on the Dun while the\npeople are at Mass.\n\nA strange tranquility has come over the island this morning, as\nhappens sometimes on Sunday, filling the two circles of sea and sky\nwith the quiet of a church.\n\nThe one landscape that is here lends itself with singular power to\nthis suggestion of grey luminous cloud. There is no wind, and no\ndefinite light. Aranmor seems to sleep upon a mirror, and the hills\nof Connemara look so near that I am troubled by the width of the bay\nthat lies before them, touched this morning with individual\nexpression one sees sometimes in a lake.\n\nOn these rocks, where there is no growth of vegetable or animal\nlife, all the seasons are the same, and this June day is so full of\nautumn that I listen unconsciously for the rustle of dead leaves.\n\nThe first group of men are coming out of the chapel, followed by a\ncrowd of women, who divide at the gate and troop off in different\ndirections, while the men linger on the road to gossip.\n\nThe silence is broken; I can hear far off, as if over water, a faint\nmurmur of Gaelic.\n\nIn the afternoon the sun came out and I was rowed over for a visit\nto Kilronan.\n\nAs my men were bringing round the curagh to take me off a headland\nnear the pier, they struck a sunken rock, and came ashore shipping a\nquantity of water, They plugged the hole with a piece of sacking\ntorn from a bag of potatoes they were taking over for the priest,\nand we set off with nothing but a piece of torn canvas between us\nand the Atlantic.\n\nEvery few hundred yards one of the rowers had to stop and bail, but\nthe hole did not increase.\n\nWhen we were about half way across the sound we met a curagh coming\ntowards us with its sails set. After some shouting in Gaelic, I\nlearned that they had a packet of letters and tobacco for myself. We\nsidled up as near as was possible with the roll, and my goods were\nthrown to me wet with spray.\n\nAfter my weeks in Inishmaan, Kilronan seemed an imposing centre of\nactivity. The half-civilized fishermen of the larger island are\ninclined to despise the simplicity of the life here, and some of\nthem who were standing about when I landed asked me how at all I\npassed my time with no decent fishing to be looking at.\n\nI turned in for a moment to talk to the old couple in the hotel, and\nthen moved on to pay some other visits in the village.\n\nLater in the evening I walked out along the northern road, where I\nmet many of the natives of the outlying villages, who had come down\nto Kilronan for the Holy Day, and were now wandering home in\nscattered groups.\n\nThe women and girls, when they had no men with them, usually tried\nto make fun with me.\n\n'Is it tired you are, stranger?' said one girl. I was walking very\nslowly, to pass the time before my return to the east.\n\n'Bedad, it is not, little girl,' I answered in Gaelic, 'It is lonely\nI am.'\n\n'Here is my little sister, stranger, who will give you her arm.'\n\nAnd so it went. Quiet as these women are on ordinary occasions, when\ntwo or three of them are gathered together in their holiday\npetti-coats and shawls, they are as wild and capricious as the women\nwho live in towns.\n\nAbout seven o'clock I got back to Kilronan, and beat up my crew from\nthe public-houses near the bay. With their usual carelessness they\nhad not seen to the leak in the curagh, nor to an oar that was\nlosing the brace that holds it to the toll-pin, and we moved off\nacross the sound at an absurd pace with a deepening pool at our\nfeet.\n\nA superb evening light was lying over the island, which made me\nrejoice at our delay. Looking back there was a golden haze behind\nthe sharp edges of the rock, and a long wake from the sun, which was\nmaking jewels of the bubbling left by the oars.\n\nThe men had had their share of porter and were unusually voluble,\npointing out things to me that I had already seen, and stopping now\nand then to make me notice the oily smell of mackerel that was\nrising from the waves.\n\nThey told me that an evicting party is coming to the island tomorrow\nmorning, and gave me a long account of what they make and spend in a\nyear and of their trouble with the rent.\n\n'The rent is hard enough for a poor man,' said one of them, 'but\nthis time we didn't pay, and they're after serving processes on\nevery one of us. A man will have to pay his rent now, and a power of\nmoney with it for the process, and I'm thinking the agent will have\nmoney enough out of them processes to pay for his servant-girl and\nhis man all the year.'\n\nI asked afterwards who the island belonged to.\n\n'Bedad,' they said, 'we've always heard it belonged to Miss--and she\nis dead.'\n\nWhen the sun passed like a lozenge of gold flame into the sea the\ncold became intense. Then the men began to talk among themselves,\nand losing the thread, I lay half in a dream looking at the pale\noily sea about us, and the low cliffs of the island sloping up past\nthe village with its wreath of smoke to the outline of Dun Conor.\n\nOld Pat was in the house when I arrived, and he told a long story\nafter supper:--\n\nThere was once a widow living among the woods, and her only son\nliving along with her. He went out every morning through the trees\nto get sticks, and one day as he was lying on the ground he saw a\nswarm of flies flying over what the cow leaves behind her. He took\nup his sickle and hit one blow at them, and hit that hard he left no\nsingle one of them living.\n\nThat evening he said to his mother that it was time he was going out\ninto the world to seek his fortune, for he was able to destroy a\nwhole swarm of flies at one blow, and he asked her to make him three\ncakes the way he might take them with him in the morning.\n\nHe started the next day a while after the dawn, with his three cakes\nin his wallet, and he ate one of them near ten o'clock.\n\nHe got hungry again by midday and ate the second, and when night was\ncoming on him he ate the third. After that he met a man on the road\nwho asked him where he was going.\n\n'I'm looking for some place where I can work for my living,' said\nthe young man.\n\n'Come with me,' said the other man, 'and sleep to-night in the barn,\nand I'll give you work to-morrow to see what you're able for.'\n\nThe next morning the farmer brought him out and showed him his cows\nand told him to take them out to graze on the hills, and to keep\ngood watch that no one should come near them to milk them. The young\nman drove out the cows into the fields, and when the heat of the day\ncame on he lay down on his back and looked up into the sky. A while\nafter he saw a black spot in the north-west, and it grew larger and\nnearer till he saw a great giant coming towards him.\n\nHe got up on his feet and he caught the giant round the legs with\nhis two arms, and he drove him down into the hard ground above his\nankles, the way he was not able to free himself. Then the giant told\nhim to do him no hurt, and gave him his magic rod, and told him to\nstrike on the rock, and he would find his beautiful black horse, and\nhis sword, and his fine suit.\n\nThe young man struck the rock and it opened before him, and he found\nthe beautiful black horse, and the giant's sword and the suit lying\nbefore him. He took out the sword alone, and he struck one blow with\nit and struck off the giant's head. Then he put back the sword into\nthe rock, and went out again to his cattle, till it was time to\ndrive them home to the farmer.\n\nWhen they came to milk the cows they found a power of milk in them,\nand the farmer asked the young man if he had seen nothing out on the\nhills, for the other cow-boys had been bringing home the cows with\nno drop of milk in them. And the young man said he had seen nothing.\n\nThe next day he went out again with the cows. He lay down on his\nback in the heat of the day, and after a while he saw a black spot\nin the north-west, and it grew larger and nearer, till he saw it was\na great giant coming to attack him.\n\n'You killed my brother,' said the giant; 'come here, till I make a\ngarter of your body.'\n\nThe young man went to him and caught him by the legs and drove him\ndown into the hard ground up to his ankles.\n\nThen he hit the rod against the rock, and took out the sword and\nstruck off the giant's head.\n\nThat evening the farmer found twice as much milk in the cows as the\nevening before, and he asked the young man if he had seen anything.\nThe young man said that he had seen nothing.\n\nThe third day the third giant came to him and said, 'You have killed\nmy two brothers; come here, till I make a garter of your body.'\n\nAnd he did with this giant as he had done with the other two, and\nthat evening there was so much milk in the cows it was dropping out\nof their udders on the pathway.\n\nThe next day the farmer called him and told him he might leave the\ncows in the stalls that day, for there was a great curiosity to be\nseen, namely, a beautiful king's daughter that was to be eaten by a\ngreat fish, if there was no one in it that could save her. But the\nyoung man said such a sight was all one to him, and he went out with\nthe cows on to the hills. When he came to the rocks he hit them with\nhis rod and brought out the suit and put it on him, and brought out\nthe sword and strapped it on his side, like an officer, and he got\non the black horse and rode faster than the wind till he came to\nwhere the beautiful king's daughter was sitting on the shore in a\ngolden chair, waiting for the great fish.\n\nWhen the great fish came in on the sea, bigger than a whale, with\ntwo wings on the back of it, the young man went down into the surf\nand struck at it with his sword and cut off one of its wings. All\nthe sea turned red with the bleeding out of it, till it swam away\nand left the young man on the shore.\n\nThen he turned his horse and rode faster than the wind till he came\nto the rocks, and he took the suit off him and put it back in the\nrocks, with the giant's sword and the black horse, and drove the\ncows down to the farm.\n\nThe man came out before him and said he had missed the greatest\nwonder ever was, and that a noble person was after coming down with\na fine suit on him and cutting off one of the wings from the great\nfish.\n\n'And there'll be the same necessity on her for two mornings more,'\nsaid the farmer, 'and you'd do right to come and look on it.'\n\nBut the young man said he would not come.\n\nThe next morning he went out with his cows, and he took the sword\nand the suit and the black horse out of the rock, and he rode faster\nthan the wind till he came where the king's daughter was sitting on\nthe shore. When the people saw him coming there was great wonder on\nthem to know if it was the same man they had seen the day before.\nThe king's daughter called out to him to come and kneel before her,\nand when he kneeled down she took her scissors and cut off a lock of\nhair from the back of his head and hid it in her clothes.\n\nThen the great worm came in from the sea, and he went down into the\nsurf and cut the other wing off from it. All the sea turned red with\nthe bleeding out of it, till it swam away and left them.\n\nThat evening the farmer came out before him and told him of the\ngreat wonder he had missed, and asked him would he go the next day\nand look on it. The young man said he would not go.\n\nThe third day he came again on the black horse to where the king's\ndaughter was sitting on a golden chair waiting for the great worm.\nWhen it came in from the sea the young man went down before it, and\nevery time it opened its mouth to eat him, he struck into its mouth,\ntill his sword went out through its neck, and it rolled back and\ndied.\n\nThen he rode off faster than the wind, and he put the suit and the\nsword and the black horse into the rock, and drove home the cows.\n\nThe farmer was there before him and he told him that there was to be\na great marriage feast held for three days, and on the third day the\nking's daughter would be married to the man that killed the great\nworm, if they were able to find him.\n\nA great feast was held, and men of great strength came and said it\nwas themselves were after killing the great worm.\n\nBut on the third day the young man put on the suit, and strapped the\nsword to his side like an officer, and got on the black horse and\nrode faster than the wind, till he came to the palace.\n\nThe king's daughter saw him, and she brought him in and made him\nkneel down before her. Then she looked at the back of his head and\nsaw the place where she had cut off the lock with her own hand. She\nled him in to the king, and they were married, and the young man was\ngiven all the estate.\n\nThat is my story.\n\nTwo recent attempts to carry out evictions on the island came to\nnothing, for each time a sudden storm rose, by, it is said, the\npower of a native witch, when the steamer was approaching, and made\nit impossible to land.\n\nThis morning, however, broke beneath a clear sky of June, and when I\ncame into the open air the sea and rocks were shining with wonderful\nbrilliancy. Groups of men, dressed in their holiday clothes, were\nstanding about, talking with anger and fear, yet showing a lurking\nsatisfaction at the thought of the dramatic pageant that was to\nbreak the silence of the seas.\n\nAbout half-past nine the steamer came in sight, on the narrow line\nof sea-horizon that is seen in the centre of the bay, and\nimmediately a last effort was made to hide the cows and sheep of the\nfamilies that were most in debt.\n\nTill this year no one on the island would consent to act as bailiff,\nso that it was impossible to identify the cattle of the defaulters.\nNow however, a man of the name of Patrick has sold his honour, and\nthe effort of concealment is practically futile.\n\nThis falling away from the ancient loyalty of the island has caused\nintense indignation, and early yesterday morning, while I was\ndreaming on the Dun, this letter was nailed on the doorpost of the\nchapel:--\n\n'Patrick, the devil, a revolver is waiting for you. If you are\nmissed with the first shot, there will be five more that will hit\nyou.\n\n'Any man that will talk with you, or work with you, or drink a pint\nof porter in your shop, will be done with the same way as yourself.'\n\nAs the steamer drew near I moved down with the men to watch the\narrival, though no one went further than about a mile from the\nshore.\n\nTwo curaghs from Kilronan with a man who was to give help in\nidentifying the cottages, the doctor, and the relieving officer,\nwere drifting with the tide, unwilling to come to land without the\nsupport of the larger party. When the anchor had been thrown it gave\nme a strange throb of pain to see the boats being lowered, and the\nsunshine gleaming on the rifles and helmets of the constabulary who\ncrowded into them.\n\nOnce on shore the men were formed in close marching order, a word\nwas given, and the heavy rhythm of their boots came up over the\nrocks. We were collected in two straggling bands on either side of\nthe roadway, and a few moments later the body of magnificent armed\nmen passed close to us, followed by a low rabble, who had been\nbrought to act as drivers for the sheriff.\n\nAfter my weeks spent among primitive men this glimpse of the newer\ntypes of humanity was not reassuring. Yet these mechanical police,\nwith the commonplace agents and sheriffs, and the rabble they had\nhired, represented aptly enough the civilisation for which the homes\nof the island were to be desecrated.\n\nA stop was made at one of the first cottages in the village, and the\nday's work began. Here, however, and at the next cottage, a\ncompromise was made, as some relatives came up at the last moment\nand lent the money that was needed to gain a respite.\n\nIn another case a girl was ill in the house, so the doctor\ninterposed, and the people were allowed to remain after a merely\nformal eviction. About midday, however, a house was reached where\nthere was no pretext for mercy, and no money could be procured. At a\nsign from the sheriff the work of carrying out the beds and utensils\nwas begun in the middle of a crowd of natives who looked on in\nabsolute silence, broken only by the wild imprecations of the woman\nof the house. She belonged to one of the most primitive families on\nthe island, and she shook with uncontrollable fury as she saw the\nstrange armed men who spoke a language she could not understand\ndriving her from the hearth she had brooded on for thirty years. For\nthese people the outrage to the hearth is the supreme catastrophe.\nThey live here in a world of grey, where there are wild rains and\nmists every week in the year, and their warm chimney corners, filled\nwith children and young girls, grow into the consciousness of each\nfamily in a way it is not easy to understand in more civilised\nplaces.\n\nThe outrage to a tomb in China probably gives no greater shock to\nthe Chinese than the outrage to a hearth in Inishmaan gives to the\npeople.\n\nWhen the few trifles had been carried out, and the door blocked with\nstones, the old woman sat down by the threshold and covered her head\nwith her shawl.\n\nFive or six other women who lived close by sat down in a circle\nround her, with mute sympathy. Then the crowd moved on with the\npolice to another cottage where the same scene was to take place,\nand left the group of desolate women sitting by the hovel.\n\nThere were still no clouds in the sky and the heat was intense. The\npolice when not in motion lay sweating and gasping under the walls\nwith their tunics unbuttoned. They were not attractive, and I kept\ncomparing them with the islandmen, who walked up and down as cool\nand fresh-looking as the sea-gulls.\n\nWhen the last eviction had been carried out a division was made:\nhalf the party went off with the bailiff to search the inner plain\nof the island for the cattle that had been hidden in the morning,\nthe other half remained on the village road to guard some pigs that\nhad already been taken possession of.\n\nAfter a while two of these pigs escaped from the drivers and began a\nwild race up and down the narrow road. The people shrieked and\nhowled to increase their terror, and at last some of them became so\nexcited that the police thought it time to interfere. They drew up\nin double line opposite the mouth of a blind laneway where the\nanimals had been shut up. A moment later the shrieking began again\nin the west and the two pigs came in sight, rushing down the middle\nof the road with the drivers behind them.\n\nThey reached the line of the police. There was a slight scuffle, and\nthen the pigs continued their mad rush to the east, leaving three\npolicemen lying in the dust.\n\nThe satisfaction of the people was immense. They shrieked and hugged\neach other with delight, and it is likely that they will hand down\nthese animals for generations in the tradition of the island.\n\nTwo hours later the other party returned, driving three lean cows\nbefore them, and a start was made for the slip. At the public-house\nthe policemen were given a drink while the dense crowd that was\nfollowing waited in the lane. The island bull happened to be in a\nfield close by, and he became wildly excited at the sight of the\ncows and of the strangely-dressed men. Two young islanders sidled up\nto me in a moment or two as I was resting on a wall, and one of them\nwhispered in my ear--'Do you think they could take fines of us if we\nlet out the bull on them?'\n\nIn face of the crowd of women and children, I could only say it was\nprobable, and they slunk off.\n\nAt the slip there was a good deal of bargaining, which ended in all\nthe cattle being given back to their owners. It was plainly of no\nuse to take them away, as they were worth nothing.\n\nWhen the last policeman had embarked, an old woman came forward from\nthe crowd and, mounting on a rock near the slip, began a fierce\nrhapsody in Gaelic, pointing at the bailiff and waving her withered\narms with extraordinary rage.\n\n'This man is my own son,' she said; 'it is I that ought to know him.\nHe is the first ruffian in the whole big world.'\n\nThen she gave an account of his life, coloured with a vindictive\nfury I cannot reproduce. As she went on the excitement became so\nintense I thought the man would be stoned before he could get back\nto his cottage.\n\nOn these islands the women live only for their children, and it is\nhard to estimate the power of the impulse that made this old woman\nstand out and curse her son.\n\nIn the fury of her speech I seem to look again into the strangely\nreticent temperament of the islanders, and to feel the passionate\nspirit that expresses itself, at odd moments only, with magnificent\nwords and gestures.\n\nOld Pat has told me a story of the goose that lays the golden eggs,\nwhich he calls the Phoenix:--\n\nA poor widow had three sons and a daughter. One day when her sons\nwere out looking for sticks in the wood they saw a fine speckled\nbird flying in the trees. The next day they saw it again, and the\neldest son told his brothers to go and get sticks by themselves, for\nhe was going after the bird.\n\nHe went after it, and brought it in with him when he came home in\nthe evening. They put it in an old hencoop, and they gave it some of\nthe meal they had for themselves;--I don't know if it ate the meal,\nbut they divided what they had themselves; they could do no more.\n\nThat night it laid a fine spotted egg in the basket. The next night\nit laid another.\n\nAt that time its name was on the papers and many heard of the bird\nthat laid the golden eggs, for the eggs were of gold, and there's no\nlie in it.\n\nWhen the boys went down to the shop the next day to buy a stone of\nmeal, the shopman asked if he could buy the bird of them. Well, it\nwas arranged in this way. The shopman would marry the boys'\nsister--a poor simple girl without a stitch of good clothes--and get\nthe bird with her.\n\nSome time after that one of the boys sold an egg of the bird to a\ngentleman that was in the country. The gentleman asked him if he had\nthe bird still. He said that the man who had married his sister was\nafter getting it.\n\n'Well,' said the gentleman, 'the man who eats the heart of that bird\nwill find a purse of gold beneath him every morning, and the man who\neats its liver will be king of Ireland.'\n\nThe boy went out--he was a simple poor fellow--and told the shopman.\n\nThen the shopman brought in the bird and killed it, and he ate the\nheart himself and he gave the liver to his wife.\n\nWhen the boy saw that, there was great anger on him, and he went\nback and told the gentleman.\n\n'Do what I'm telling you,' said the gentleman. 'Go down now and tell\nthe shopman and his wife to come up here to play a game of cards\nwith me, for it's lonesome I am this evening.'\n\nWhen the boy was gone he mixed a vomit and poured the lot of it into\na few naggins of whiskey, and he put a strong cloth on the table\nunder the cards.\n\nThe man came up with his wife and they began to play.\n\nThe shopman won the first game and the gentleman made them drink a\nsup of the whiskey.\n\nThey played again and the shopman won the second game. Then the\ngentleman made him drink a sup more of the whiskey.\n\nAs they were playing the third game the shopman and his wife got\nsick on the cloth, and the boy picked it up and carried it into the\nyard, for the gentleman had let him know what he was to do. Then he\nfound the heart of the bird and he ate it, and the next morning when\nhe turned in his bed there was a purse of gold under him.\n\nThat is my story.\n\nWhen the steamer is expected I rarely fail to visit the boat-slip,\nas the men usually collect when she is in the offing, and lie\narguing among their curaghs till she has made her visit to the south\nisland, and is seen coming towards us.\n\nThis morning I had a long talk with an old man who was rejoicing\nover the improvement he had seen here during the last ten or fifteen\nyears.\n\nTill recently there was no communication with the mainland except by\nhookers, which were usually slow, and could only make the voyage in\ntolerably fine weather, so that if an islander went to a fair it was\noften three weeks before he could return. Now, however, the steamer\ncomes here twice in the week, and the voyage is made in three or\nfour hours.\n\nThe pier on this island is also a novelty, and is much thought of,\nas it enables the hookers that still carry turf and cattle to\ndischarge and take their cargoes directly from the shore. The water\nround it, however, is only deep enough for a hooker when the tide is\nnearly full, and will never float the steamer, so passengers must\nstill come to land in curaghs. The boat-slip at the corner next the\nsouth island is extremely useful in calm weather, but it is exposed\nto a heavy roll from the south, and is so narrow that the curaghs\nrun some danger of missing it in the tumult of the surf.\n\nIn bad weather four men will often stand for nearly an hour at the\ntop of the slip with a curagh in their hands, watching a point of\nrock towards the south where they can see the strength of the waves\nthat are coming in.\n\nThe instant a break is seen they swoop down to the surf, launch\ntheir curagh, and pull out to sea with incredible speed. Coming to\nland Is attended with the same difficulty, and, if their moment is\nbadly chosen, they are likely to be washed sideways and swamped\namong the rocks.\n\nThis continual danger, which can only be escaped by extraordinary\npersonal dexterity, has had considerable influence on the local\ncharacter, as the waves have made it impossible for clumsy,\nfoolhardy, or timid men to live on these islands.\n\nWhen the steamer is within a mile of the slip, the curaghs are put\nout and range themselves--there are usually from four to a dozen--in\ntwo lines at some distance from the shore.\n\nThe moment she comes in among them there is a short but desperate\nstruggle for good places at her side. The men are lolling on their\noars talking with the dreamy tone which comes with the rocking of\nthe waves. The steamer lies to, and in an instant their faces become\ndistorted with passion, while the oars bend and quiver with the\nstrain. For one minute they seem utterly indifferent to their own\nsafety and that of their friends and brothers. Then the sequence is\ndecided, and they begin to talk again with the dreamy tone that is\nhabitual to them, while they make fast and clamber up into the\nsteamer.\n\nWhile the curaghs are out I am left with a few women and very old\nmen who cannot row. One of these old men, whom I often talk with,\nhas some fame as a bone-setter, and is said to have done remarkable\ncures, both here and on the mainland. Stories are told of how he has\nbeen taken off by the quality in their carriages through the hills\nof Connemara, to treat their sons and daughters, and come home with\nhis pockets full of money.\n\nAnother old man, the oldest on the island, is fond of telling me\nanecdotes--not folktales--of things that have happened here in his\nlifetime.\n\nHe often tells me about a Connaught man who killed his father with\nthe blow of a spade when he was in passion, and then fled to this\nisland and threw himself on the mercy of some of the natives with\nwhom he was said to be related. They hid him in a hole--which the\nold man has shown me--and kept him safe for weeks, though the police\ncame and searched for him, and he could hear their boots grinding on\nthe stones over his head. In spite of a reward which was offered,\nthe island was incorruptible, and after much trouble the man was\nsafely shipped to America.\n\nThis impulse to protect the criminal is universal in the west. It\nseems partly due to the association between justice and the hated\nEnglish jurisdiction, but more directly to the primitive feeling of\nthese people, who are never criminals yet always capable of crime,\nthat a man will not do wrong unless he is under the influence of a\npassion which is as irresponsible as a storm on the sea. If a man\nhas killed his father, and is already sick and broken with remorse,\nthey can see no reason why he should be dragged away and killed by\nthe law.\n\nSuch a man, they say, will be quiet all the rest of his life, and if\nyou suggest that punishment is needed as an example, they ask,\n'Would any one kill his father if he was able to help it?'\n\nSome time ago, before the introduction of police, all the people of\nthe islands were as innocent as the people here remain to this day.\nI have heard that at that time the ruling proprietor and magistrate\nof the north island used to give any man who had done wrong a letter\nto a jailer in Galway, and send him off by himself to serve a term\nof imprisonment.\n\nAs there was no steamer, the ill-doer was given a passage in some\nchance hooker to the nearest point on the mainland. Then he walked\nfor many miles along a desolate shore till he reached the town. When\nhis time had been put through he crawled back along the same route,\nfeeble and emaciated, and had often to wait many weeks before he\ncould regain the island. Such at least is the story.\n\nIt seems absurd to apply the same laws to these people and to the\ncriminal classes of a city. The most intelligent man on Inishmaan\nhas often spoken to me of his contempt of the law, and of the\nincrease of crime the police have brought to Aranmor. On this\nisland, he says, if men have a little difference, or a little fight,\ntheir friends take care it does not go too far, and in a little time\nit is forgotten. In Kilronan there is a band of men paid to make out\ncases for themselves; the moment a blow is struck they come down and\narrest the man who gave it. The other man he quarreled with has to\ngive evidence against him; whole families come down to the court and\nswear against each other till they become bitter enemies. If there\nis a conviction the man who is convicted never forgives. He waits\nhis time, and before the year is out there is a cross summons, which\nthe other man in turn never forgives. The feud continues to grow,\ntill a dispute about the colour of a man's hair may end in a murder,\nafter a year's forcing by the law. The mere fact that it is\nimpossible to get reliable evidence in the island--not because the\npeople are dishonest, but because they think the claim of kinship\nmore sacred than the claims of abstract truth--turns the whole\nsystem of sworn evidence into a demoralising farce, and it is easy\nto believe that law dealings on this false basis must lead to every\nsort of injustice.\n\nWhile I am discussing these questions with the old men the curaghs\nbegin to come in with cargoes of salt, and flour, and porter.\n\nTo-day a stir was made by the return of a native who had spent five\nyears in New York. He came on shore with half a dozen people who had\nbeen shopping on the mainland, and walked up and down on the slip in\nhis neat suit, looking strangely foreign to his birthplace, while\nhis old mother of eighty-five ran about on the slippery seaweed,\nhalf crazy with delight, telling every one the news.\n\nWhen the curaghs were in their places the men crowded round him to\nbid him welcome. He shook hands with them readily enough, but with\nno smile of recognition.\n\nHe is said to be dying.\n\nYesterday--a Sunday--three young men rowed me over to Inisheer, the\nsouth island of the group.\n\nThe stern of the curagh was occupied, so I was put in the bow with\nmy head on a level with the gunnel. A considerable sea was running\nin the sound, and when we came out from the shelter of this island,\nthe curagh rolled and vaulted in a way not easy to describe.\n\nAt one moment, as we went down into the furrow, green waves curled\nand arched themselves above me; then in an instant I was flung up\ninto the air and could look down on the heads of the rowers, as if\nwe were sitting on a ladder, or out across a forest of white crests\nto the black cliff of Inishmaan.\n\nThe men seemed excited and uneasy, and I thought for a moment that\nwe were likely to be swamped. In a little while, however I realised\nthe capacity of the curagh to raise its head among the waves, and\nthe motion became strangely exhilarating. Even, I thought, if we\nwere dropped into the blue chasm of the waves, this death, with the\nfresh sea saltness in one's teeth, would be better than most deaths\none is likely to meet.\n\nWhen we reached the other island, it was raining heavily, so that we\ncould not see anything of the antiquities or people.\n\nFor the greater part of the afternoon we sat on the tops of empty\nbarrels in the public-house, talking of the destiny of Gaelic. We\nwere admitted as travellers, and the shutters of the shop were\nclosed behind us, letting in only a glimmer of grey light, and the\ntumult of the storm. Towards evening it cleared a little and we came\nhome in a calmer sea, but with a dead head-wind that gave the rowers\nall they could do to make the passage.\n\nOn calm days I often go out fishing with Michael. When we reach the\nspace above the slip where the curaghs are propped, bottom upwards,\non the limestone, he lifts the prow of the one we are going to\nembark in, and I slip underneath and set the centre of the foremost\nseat upon my neck. Then he crawls under the stern and stands up with\nthe last seat upon his shoulders. We start for the sea. The long\nprow bends before me so that I see nothing but a few yards of\nshingle at my feet. A quivering pain runs from the top of my spine\nto the sharp stones that seem to pass through my pampooties, and\ngrate upon my ankles. We stagger and groan beneath the weight; but\nat last our feet reach the slip, and we run down with a half-trot\nlike the pace of bare-footed children.\n\nA yard from the sea we stop and lower the curagh to the right. It\nmust be brought down gently--a difficult task for our strained and\naching muscles--and sometimes as the gunnel reaches the slip I lose\nmy balance and roll in among the seats.\n\nYesterday we went out in the curagh that had been damaged on the day\nof my visit to Kilronan, and as we were putting in the oars the\nfreshly-tarred patch stuck to the slip which was heated with the\nsunshine. We carried up water in the bailer--the 'supeen,' a shallow\nwooden vessel like a soup-plate--and with infinite pains we got free\nand rode away. In a few minutes, however, I found the water spouting\nup at my feet.\n\nThe patch had been misplaced, and this time we had no sacking.\nMichael borrowed my pocket scissors, and with admirable rapidity cut\na square of flannel from the tail of his shirt and squeezed it into\nthe hole, making it fast with a splint which he hacked from one of\nthe oars.\n\nDuring our excitement the tide had carried us to the brink of the\nrocks, and I admired again the dexterity with which he got his oars\ninto the water and turned us out as we were mounting on a wave that\nwould have hurled us to destruction.\n\nWith the injury to our curagh we did not go far from the shore.\nAfter a while I took a long spell at the oars, and gained a certain\ndexterity, though they are not easy to manage. The handles overlap\nby about six inches--in order to gain leverage, as the curagh is\nnarrow--and at first it was almost impossible to avoid striking the\nupper oar against one's knuckles. The oars are rough and square,\nexcept at the ends, so one cannot do so with impunity. Again, a\ncuragh with two light people in it floats on the water like a\nnut-shell, and the slightest inequality in the stroke throws the\nprow round at least a right angle from its course. In the first\nhalf-hour I found myself more than once moving towards the point I\nhad come from, greatly to Michael's satisfaction.\n\nThis morning we were out again near the pier on the north side of\nthe island. As we paddled slowly with the tide, trolling for\npollock, several curaghs, weighed to the gunnel with kelp, passed us\non their way to Kilronan.\n\nAn old woman, rolled in red petticoats, was sitting on a ledge of\nrock that runs into the sea at the point where the curaghs were\npassing from the south, hailing them in quavering Gaelic, and asking\nfor a passage to Kilronan.\n\nThe first one that came round without a cargo turned in from some\ndistance and took her away.\n\nThe morning had none of the supernatural beauty that comes over the\nisland so often in rainy weather, so we basked in the vague\nenjoyment of the sunshine, looking down at the wild luxuriance of\nthe vegetation beneath the sea, which contrasts strangely with the\nnakedness above it.\n\nSome dreams I have had in this cottage seem to give strength to the\nopinion that there is a psychic memory attached to certain\nneighbourhoods.\n\nLast night, after walking in a dream among buildings with strangely\nintense light on them, I heard a faint rhythm of music beginning far\naway on some stringed instrument.\n\nIt came closer to me, gradually increasing in quickness and volume\nwith an irresistibly definite progression. When it was quite near\nthe sound began to move in my nerves and blood, and to urge me to\ndance with them.\n\nI knew that if I yielded I would be carried away to some moment of\nterrible agony, so I struggled to remain quiet, holding my knees\ntogether with my hands.\n\nThe music increased continually, sounding like the strings of harps,\ntuned to a forgotten scale, and having a resonance as searching as\nthe strings of the cello.\n\nThen the luring excitement became more powerful than my will, and my\nlimbs moved in spite of me.\n\nIn a moment I was swept away in a whirlwind of notes. My breath and\nmy thoughts and every impulse of my body, became a form of the\ndance, till I could not distinguish between the instruments and the\nrhythm and my own person or consciousness.\n\nFor a while it seemed an excitement that was filled with joy, then\nit grew into an ecstasy where all existence was lost in a vortex of\nmovement. I could not think there had ever been a life beyond the\nwhirling of the dance.\n\nThen with a shock the ecstasy turned to an agony and rage. I\nStruggled to free myself, but seemed only to increase the passion of\nthe steps I moved to. When I shrieked I could only echo the notes of\nthe rhythm.\n\nAt last with a moment of uncontrollable frenzy I broke back to\nconsciousness and awoke.\n\nI dragged myself trembling to the window of the cottage and looked\nout. The moon was glittering across the bay, and there was no sound\nanywhere on the island.\n\nI am leaving in two days, and old Pat Dirane has bidden me goodbye.\nHe met me in the village this morning and took me into 'his little\ntint,' a miserable hovel where he spends the night.\n\nI sat for a long time on his threshold, while he leaned on a stool\nbehind me, near his bed, and told me the last story I shall have\nfrom him--a rude anecdote not worth recording. Then he told me with\ncareful emphasis how he had wandered when he was a young man, and\nlived in a fine college, teaching Irish to the young priests!\n\nThey say on the island that he can tell as many lies as four men:\nperhaps the stories he has learned have strengthened his\nimagination. When I stood up in the doorway to give him God's\nblessing, he leaned over on the straw that forms his bed, and shed\ntears. Then he turned to me again, lifting up one trembling hand,\nwith the mitten worn to a hole on the palm, from the rubbing of his\ncrutch.\n\n'I'll not see you again,' he said, with tears trickling on his face,\n'and you're a kindly man. When you come back next year I won't be in\nit. I won't live beyond the winter. But listen now to what I'm\ntelling you; let you put insurance on me in the city of Dublin, and\nit's five hundred pounds you'll get on my burial.'\n\nThis evening, my last in the island, is also the evening of the\n'Pattern'--a festival something like 'Pardons' of Brittany.\n\nI waited especially to see it, but a piper who was expected did not\ncome, and there was no amusement. A few friends and relations came\nover from the other island and stood about the public-house in their\nbest clothes, but without music dancing was impossible.\n\nI believe on some occasions when the piper is present there is a\nfine day of dancing and excitement, but the Galway piper is getting\nold, and is not easily induced to undertake the voyage.\n\nLast night, St. John's Eve, the fires were lighted and boys ran\nabout with pieces of the burning turf, though I could not find out\nif the idea of lighting the house fires from the bonfires is still\nfound on the island.\n\nI have come out of an hotel full of tourists and commercial\ntravelers, to stroll along the edge of Galway bay, and look out in\nthe direction of the islands. The sort of yearning I feel towards\nthose lonely rocks is indescribably acute. This town, that is\nusually so full of wild human interest, seems in my present mood a\ntawdry medley of all that is crudest in modern life. The nullity of\nthe rich and the squalor of the poor give me the same pang of\nwondering disgust; yet the islands are fading already and I can\nhardly realise that the smell of the seaweed and the drone of the\nAtlantic are still moving round them.\n\nOne of my island friends has written to me:--\n\nDEAR JOHN SYNGE,--I am for a long time expecting a letter from you\nand I think you are forgetting this island altogether.\n\nMr.--died a long time ago on the big island and his boat was on\nanchor in the harbour and the wind blew her to Black Head and broke\nher up after his death.\n\nTell me are you learning Irish since you went. We have a branch of\nthe Gaelic League here now and the people is going on well with the\nIrish and reading.\n\nI will write the next letter in Irish to you. Tell me will you come\nto see us next year and if you will you'll write a letter before\nyou. All your loving friends is well in health.--Mise do chara go\nhuan.\n\nAnother boy I sent some baits to has written to me also, beginning\nhis letter in Irish and ending it in English:--\n\nDEAR JOHN,--I got your letter four days ago, and there was pride and\njoy on me because it was written in Irish, and a fine, good,\npleasant letter it was. The baits you sent are very good, but I lost\ntwo of them and half my line. A big fish came and caught the bait,\nand the line was bad and half of the line and the baits went away.\nMy sister has come back from America, but I'm thinking it won't be\nlong till she goes away again, for it is lonesome and poor she finds\nthe island now.--I am your friend. ...\n\nWrite soon and let you write in Irish, if you don't I won't look on\nit.\n\n\n\n\nPart II\n\n\nTHE evening before I returned to the west I wrote to Michael--who\nhad left the islands to earn his living on the mainland--to tell him\nthat I would call at the house where he lodged the next morning,\nwhich was a Sunday.\n\nA young girl with fine western features, and little English, came\nout when I knocked at the door. She seemed to have heard all about\nme, and was so filled with the importance of her message that she\ncould hardly speak it intelligibly.\n\n'She got your letter,' she said, confusing the pronouns, as is often\ndone in the west, 'she is gone to Mass, and she'll be in the square\nafter that. Let your honour go now and sit in the square, and Michael\nwill find you.'\n\nAs I was returning up the main street I met Michael wandering down\nto meet me, as he had got tired of waiting.\n\nHe seemed to have grown a powerful man since I had seen him, and was\nnow dressed in the heavy brown flannels of the Connaught labourer.\nAfter a little talk we turned back together and went out on the\nsandhills above the town. Meeting him here a little beyond the\nthreshold of my hotel I was singularly struck with the refinement of\nhis nature, which has hardly been influenced by his new life, and\nthe townsmen and sailors he has met with.\n\n'I do often come outside the town on Sunday,' he said while we were\ntalking, 'for what is there to do in a town in the middle of all the\npeople when you are not at your work?'\n\nA little later another Irish-speaking labourer--a friend of\nMichael's--joined us, and we lay for hours talking and arguing on\nthe grass. The day was unbearably sultry, and the sand and the sea\nnear us were crowded with half-naked women, but neither of the young\nmen seemed to be aware of their presence. Before we went back to the\ntown a man came out to ring a young horse on the sand close to where\nwe were lying, and then the interest of my companions was intense.\n\nLate in the evening I met Michael again, and we wandered round the\nbay, which was still filled with bathing women, until it was quite\ndark, I shall not see him again before my return from the islands,\nas he is busy to-morrow, and on Tuesday I go out with the steamer.\n\nI returned to the middle island this morning, in the steamer to\nKilronan, and on here in a curagh that had gone over with salt fish.\nAs I came up from the slip the doorways in the village filled with\nwomen and children, and several came down on the roadway to shake\nhands and bid me a thousand welcomes.\n\nOld Pat Dirane is dead, and several of my friends have gone to\nAmerica; that is all the news they have to give me after an absence\nof many months.\n\nWhen I arrived at the cottage I was welcomed by the old people, and\ngreat excitement was made by some little presents I had bought\nthem--a pair of folding scissors for the old woman, a strop for her\nhusband, and some other trifles.\n\nThen the youngest son, Columb, who is still at home, went into the\ninner room and brought out the alarm clock I sent them last year\nwhen I went away.\n\n'I am very fond of this clock,' he said, patting it on the back; 'it\nwill ring for me any morning when I want to go out fishing. Bedad,\nthere are no two clocks in the island that would be equal to it.'\n\nI had some photographs to show them that I took here last year, and\nwhile I was sitting on a little stool near the door of the kitchen,\nshowing them to the family, a beautiful young woman I had spoken to\na few times last year slipped in, and after a wonderfully simple and\ncordial speech of welcome, she sat down on the floor beside me to\nlook on also.\n\nThe complete absence of shyness or self-consciousness in most of\nthese people gives them a peculiar charm, and when this young and\nbeautiful woman leaned across my knees to look nearer at some\nphotograph that pleased her, I felt more than ever the strange\nsimplicity of the island life.\n\nLast year when I came here everything was new, and the people were a\nlittle strange with me, but now I am familiar with them and their\nway of life, so that their qualities strike me more forcibly than\nbefore.\n\nWhen my photographs of this island had been examined with immense\ndelight, and every person in them had been identified--even those\nwho only showed a hand or a leg--I brought out some I had taken in\nCounty Wicklow. Most of them were fragments, showing fairs in\nRathdrum or Aughrim, men cutting turf on the hills, or other scenes\nof inland life, yet they gave the greatest delight to these people\nwho are wearied of the sea.\n\nThis year I see a darker side of life in the islands. The sun seldom\nshines, and day after day a cold south-western wind blows over the\ncliffs, bringing up showers of hail and dense masses of cloud.\n\nThe sons who are at home stay out fishing whenever it is tolerably\ncalm, from about three in the morning till after nightfall, yet they\nearn little, as fish are not plentiful.\n\nThe old man fishes also with a long rod and ground-bait, but as a\nrule has even smaller success.\n\nWhen the weather breaks completely, fishing is abandoned, and they\nboth go down and dig potatoes in the rain. The women sometimes help\nthem, but their usual work is to look after the calves and do their\nspinning in the house.\n\nThere is a vague depression over the family this year, because of\nthe two sons who have gone away, Michael to the mainland, and\nanother son, who was working in Kilronan last year, to the United\nStates.\n\nA letter came yesterday from Michael to his mother. It was written\nin English, as he is the only one of the family who can read or\nwrite in Irish, and I heard it being slowly spelled out and\ntranslated as I sat in my room. A little later the old woman brought\nit in for me to read.\n\nHe told her first about his work, and the wages he is getting. Then\nhe said that one night he had been walking in the town, and had\nlooked up among the streets, and thought to himself what a grand\nnight it would be on the Sandy Head of this island--not, he added,\nthat he was feeling lonely or sad. At the end he gave an account,\nwith the dramatic emphasis of the folk-tale, of how he had met me on\nthe Sunday morning, and, 'believe me,' he said, 'it was the fine\ntalk we had for two hours or three.' He told them also of a knife I\nhad given him that was so fine, no one on the island 'had ever seen\nthe like of her.'\n\nAnother day a letter came from the son who is in America, to say\nthat he had had a slight accident to one of his arms, but was well\nagain, and that he was leaving New York and going a few hundred\nmiles up the country.\n\nAll the evening afterwards the old woman sat on her stool at the\ncorner of the fire with her shawl over her head, keening piteously\nto herself. America appeared far away, yet she seems to have felt\nthat, after all, it was only the other edge of the Atlantic, and now\nwhen she hears them talking of railroads and inland cities where\nthere is no sea, things she cannot understand, it comes home to her\nthat her son is gone for ever. She often tells me how she used to\nsit on the wall behind the house last year and watch the hooker he\nworked in coming out of Kilronan and beating up the sound, and what\ncompany it used to be to her the time they'd all be out.\n\nThe maternal feeling is so powerful on these islands that it gives a\nlife of torment to the women. Their sons grow up to be banished as\nsoon as they are of age, or to live here in continual danger on the\nsea; their daughters go away also, or are worn out in their youth\nwith bearing children that grow up to harass them in their own turn\na little later.\n\nThere has been a storm for the last twenty-four hours, and I have\nbeen wandering on the cliffs till my hair is stiff with salt.\nImmense masses of spray were flying up from the base of the cliff,\nand were caught at times by the wind and whirled away to fall at\nsome distance from the shore. When one of these happened to fall on\nme, I had to crouch down for an instant, wrapped and blinded by a\nwhite hail of foam.\n\nThe waves were so enormous that when I saw one more than usually\nlarge coming towards me, I turned instinctively to hide myself, as\none blinks when struck upon the eyes.\n\nAfter a few hours the mind grows bewildered with the endless change\nand struggle of the sea, and an utter despondency replaces the first\nmoment of exhilaration.\n\nAt the south-west corner of the island I came upon a number of\npeople gathering the seaweed that is now thick on the rocks. It was\nraked from the surf by the men, and then carried up to the brow of\nthe cliff by a party of young girls.\n\nIn addition to their ordinary clothing these girls wore a raw\nsheepskin on their shoulders, to catch the oozing sea-water, and\nthey looked strangely wild and seal-like with the salt caked upon\ntheir lips and wreaths of seaweed in their hair.\n\nFor the rest of my walk I saw no living thing but one flock of\ncurlews, and a few pipits hiding among the stones.\n\nAbout the sunset the clouds broke and the storm turned to a\nhurricane. Bars of purple cloud stretched across the sound where\nimmense waves were rolling from the west, wreathed with snowy\nphantasies of spray. Then there was the bay full of green delirium,\nand the Twelve Pins touched with mauve and scarlet in the east.\n\nThe suggestion from this world of inarticulate power was immense,\nand now at midnight, when the wind is abating, I am still trembling\nand flushed with exultation.\n\nI have been walking through the wet lanes in my pampooties in spite\nof the rain, and I have brought on a feverish cold.\n\nThe wind is terrific. If anything serious should happen to me I\nmight die here and be nailed in my box, and shoved down into a wet\ncrevice in the graveyard before any one could know it on the\nmainland.\n\nTwo days ago a curagh passed from the south island--they can go out\nwhen we are weather-bound because of a sheltered cove in their\nisland--it was thought in search of the Doctor. It became too rough\nafterwards to make the return journey, and it was only this morning\nwe saw them repassing towards the south-east in a terrible sea.\n\nA four-oared curagh with two men in her besides the rowers--\nprobably the Priest and the Doctor--went first, followed by the\nthree-oared curagh from the south island, which ran more danger.\nOften when they go for the Doctor in weather like this, they bring\nthe Priest also, as they do not know if it will be possible to go\nfor him if he is needed later.\n\nAs a rule there is little illness, and the women often manage their\nconfinements among themselves without any trained assistance. In\nmost cases all goes well, but at times a curagh is sent off in\ndesperate haste for the Priest and the Doctor when it is too late.\n\nThe baby that spent some days here last year is now established in\nthe house; I suppose the old woman has adopted him to console\nherself for the loss of her own sons.\n\nHe is now a well-grown child, though not yet able to say more than a\nfew words of Gaelic. His favourite amusement is to stand behind the\ndoor with a stick, waiting for any wandering pig or hen that may\nchance to come in, and then to dash out and pursue them. There are\ntwo young kittens in the kitchen also, which he ill-treats, without\nmeaning to do them harm.\n\nWhenever the old woman comes into my room with turf for the fire, he\nwalks in solemnly behind her with a sod under each arm, deposits\nthem on the back of the fire with great care, and then flies off\nround the corner with his long petticoats trailing behind him.\n\nHe has not yet received any official name on the island, as he has\nnot left the fireside, but in the house they usually speak of him as\n'Michaeleen beug' (i.e. 'little small-Michael').\n\nNow and then he is slapped, but for the most part the old woman\nkeeps him in order with stories of 'the long-toothed hag,' that\nlives in the Dun and eats children who are not good. He spends half\nhis day eating cold potatoes and drinking very strong tea, yet seems\nin perfect health.\n\nAn Irish letter has come to me from Michael. I will translate it\nliterally.\n\nDEAR NOBLE PERSON,--I write this letter with joy and pride that you\nfound the way to the house of my father the day you were on the\nsteamship. I am thinking there will not be loneliness on you, for\nthere will be the fine beautiful Gaelic League and you will be\nlearning powerfully.\n\nI am thinking there is no one in life walking with you now but your\nown self from morning till night, and great is the pity.\n\nWhat way are my mother and my three brothers and my sisters, and do\nnot forget white Michael, and the poor little child and the old grey\nwoman, and Rory. I am getting a forgetfulness on all my friends and\nkindred.--I am your friend ...\n\nIt is curious how he accuses himself of forgetfulness after asking\nfor all his family by name. I suppose the first home-sickness is\nwearing away and he looks on his independent wellbeing as a treason\ntowards his kindred.\n\nOne of his friends was in the kitchen when the letter was brought to\nme, and, by the old man's wish, he read it out loud as soon as I had\nfinished it. When he came to the last sentence he hesitated for a\nmoment, and then omitted it altogether.\n\nThis young man had come up to bring me a copy of the 'Love Songs of\nConnaught,' which he possesses, and I persuaded him to read, or\nrather chant me some of them. When he had read a couple I found that\nthe old woman knew many of them from her childhood, though her\nversion was often not the same as what was in the book. She was\nrocking herself on a stool in the chimney corner beside a pot of\nindigo, in which she was dyeing wool, and several times when the\nyoung man finished a poem she took it up again and recited the\nverses with exquisite musical intonation, putting a wistfulness and\npassion into her voice that seemed to give it all the cadences that\nare sought in the profoundest poetry.\n\nThe lamp had burned low, and another terrible gale was howling and\nshrieking over the island. It seemed like a dream that I should be\nsitting here among these men and women listening to this rude and\nbeautiful poetry that is filled with the oldest passions of the\nworld.\n\nThe horses have been coming back for the last few days from their\nsummer's grazing in Connemara. They are landed at the sandy beach\nwhere the cattle were shipped last year, and I went down early this\nmorning to watch their arrival through the waves. The hooker was\nanchored at some distance from the shore, but I could see a horse\nstanding at the gunnel surrounded by men shouting and flipping at it\nwith bits of rope. In a moment it jumped over into the sea, and some\nmen, who were waiting for it in a curagh, caught it by the halter\nand towed it to within twenty yards of the surf. Then the curagh\nturned back to the hooker, and the horse was left to make its own\nway to the land.\n\nAs I was standing about a man came up to me and asked after the\nusual salutations:--\n\n'Is there any war in the world at this time, noble person?' I told\nhim something of the excitement in the Transvaal, and then another\nhorse came near the waves and I passed on and left him.\n\nAfterwards I walked round the edge of the sea to the pier, where a\nquantity of turf has recently been brought in. It is usually left\nfor some time stacked on the sandhills, and then carried up to the\ncottages in panniers slung on donkeys or any horses that are on the\nisland.\n\nThey have been busy with it the last few weeks, and the track from\nthe village to the pier has been filled with lines of\nred-petticoated boys driving their donkeys before them, or cantering\ndown on their backs when the panniers are empty.\n\nIn some ways these men and women seem strangely far away from me.\nThey have the same emotions that I have, and the animals have, yet I\ncannot talk to them when there is much to say, more than to the dog\nthat whines beside me in a mountain fog.\n\nThere is hardly an hour I am with them that I do not feel the shock\nof some inconceivable idea, and then again the shock of some vague\nemotion that is familiar to them and to me. On some days I feel this\nisland as a perfect home and resting place; on other days I feel\nthat I am a waif among the people. I can feel more with them than\nthey can feel with me, and while I wander among them, they like me\nsometimes, and laugh at me sometimes, yet never know what I am\ndoing.\n\nIn the evenings I sometimes meet with a girl who is not yet half\nthrough her teens, yet seems in some ways more consciously developed\nthan any one else that I have met here. She has passed part of her\nlife on the mainland, and the disillusion she found in Galway has\ncoloured her imagination.\n\nAs we sit on stools on either side of the fire I hear her voice\ngoing backwards and forwards in the same sentence from the gaiety of\na child to the plaintive intonation of an old race that is worn with\nsorrow. At one moment she is a simple peasant, at another she seems\nto be looking out at the world with a sense of prehistoric\ndisillusion and to sum up in the expression of her grey-blue eyes\nthe whole external despondency of the clouds and sea.\n\nOur conversation is usually disjointed. One evening we talked of a\ntown on the mainland.\n\n'Ah, it's a queer place,' she said: 'I wouldn't choose to live in\nit. It's a queer place, and indeed I don't know the place that\nisn't.'\n\nAnother evening we talked of the people who live on the island or\ncome to visit it.\n\n'Father is gone,' she said; 'he was a kind man but a queer man.\nPriests is queer people, and I don't know who isn't.'\n\nThen after a long pause she told me with seriousness, as if speaking\nof a thing that surprised herself, and should surprise me, that she\nwas very fond of the boys.\n\nIn our talk, which is sometimes full of the innocent realism of\nchildhood, she is always pathetically eager to say the right thing\nand be engaging.\n\nOne evening I found her trying to light a fire in the little side\nroom of her cottage, where there is an ordinary fireplace. I went in\nto help her and showed her how to hold up a paper before the mouth\nof the chimney to make a draught, a method she had never seen. Then\nI told her of men who live alone in Paris and make their own fires\nthat they may have no one to bother them. She was sitting in a heap\non the floor staring into the turf, and as I finished she looked up\nwith surprise.\n\n'They're like me so,' she said; 'would anyone have thought that!'\n\nBelow the sympathy we feel there is still a chasm between us.\n\n'Musha,' she muttered as I was leaving her this evening, 'I think\nit's to hell you'll be going by and by.'\n\nOccasionally I meet her also in the kitchen where young men go to\nplay cards after dark and a few girls slip in to share the\namusement. At such times her eyes shine in the light of the candles,\nand her cheeks flush with the first tumult of youth, till she hardly\nseems the same girl who sits every evening droning to herself over\nthe turf.\n\nA branch of the Gaelic League has been started here since my last\nvisit, and every Sunday afternoon three little girls walk through\nthe village ringing a shrill hand-bell, as a signal that the women's\nmeeting is to be held,--here it would be useless to fix an hour, as\nthe hours are not recognized.\n\nSoon afterwards bands of girls--of all ages from five to\ntwenty-five--begin to troop down to the schoolhouse in their reddest\nSunday petticoats. It is remarkable that these young women are\nwilling to spend their one afternoon of freedom in laborious studies\nof orthography for no reason but a vague reverence for the Gaelic.\nIt is true that they owe this reverence, or most of it, to the\ninfluence of some recent visitors, yet the fact that they feel such\nan influence so keenly is itself of interest.\n\nIn the older generation that did not come under the influence of the\nrecent language movement, I do not see any particular affection for\nGaelic. Whenever they are able, they speak English to their\nchildren, to render them more capable of making their way in life.\nEven the young men sometimes say to me--\n\n'There's very hard English on you, and I wish to God I had the like\nof it.'\n\nThe women are the great conservative force in this matter of the\nlanguage. They learn a little English in school and from their\nparents, but they rarely have occasion to speak with any one who is\nnot a native of the islands, so their knowledge of the foreign\ntongue remains rudimentary. In my cottage I have never heard a word\nof English from the women except when they were speaking to the pigs\nor to the dogs, or when the girl was reading a letter in English.\nWomen, however, with a more assertive temperament, who have had,\napparently, the same opportunities, often attain a considerable\nfluency, as is the case with one, a relative of the old woman of the\nhouse, who often visits here.\n\nIn the boys' school, where I sometimes look in, the children\nsurprise me by their knowledge of English, though they always speak\nin Irish among themselves. The school itself is a comfortless\nbuilding in a terribly bleak position. In cold weather the children\narrive in the morning with a sod of turf tied up with their books, a\nsimple toll which keeps the fire well supplied, yet, I believe, a\nmore modern method is soon to be introduced.\n\nI am in the north island again, looking out with a singular\nsensation to the cliffs across the sound. It is hard to believe that\nthose hovels I can just see in the south are filled with people\nwhose lives have the strange quality that is found in the oldest\npoetry and legend. Compared with them the falling off that has come\nwith the increased prosperity of this island is full of\ndiscouragement. The charm which the people over there share with the\nbirds and flowers has been replaced here by the anxiety of men who\nare eager for gain. The eyes and expression are different, though\nthe faces are the same, and even the children here seem to have an\nindefinable modern quality that is absent from the men of Inishmaan.\n\nMy voyage from the middle island was wild. The morning was so\nstormy, that in ordinary circumstances I would not have attempted\nthe passage, but as I had arranged to travel with a curagh that was\ncoming over for the Parish Priest--who is to hold stations on\nInishmaan--I did not like to draw back.\n\nI went out in the morning and walked up the cliffs as usual. Several\nmen I fell in with shook their heads when I told them I was going\naway, and said they doubted if a curagh could cross the sound with\nthe sea that was in it.\n\nWhen I went back to the cottage I found the Curate had just come\nacross from the south island, and had had a worse passage than any\nhe had yet experienced.\n\nThe tide was to turn at two o'clock, and after that it was thought\nthe sea would be calmer, as the wind and the waves would be running\nfrom the same point. We sat about in the kitchen all the morning,\nwith men coming in every few minutes to give their opinion whether\nthe passage should be attempted, and at what points the sea was\nlikely to be at its worst.\n\nAt last it was decided we should go, and I started for the pier in a\nwild shower of rain with the wind howling in the walls. The\nschoolmaster and a priest who was to have gone with me came out as I\nwas passing through the village and advised me not to make the\npassage; but my crew had gone on towards the sea, and I thought it\nbetter to go after them. The eldest son of the family was coming\nwith me, and I considered that the old man, who knew the waves\nbetter than I did, would not send out his son if there was more than\nreasonable danger.\n\nI found my crew waiting for me under a high wall below the village,\nand we went on together. The island had never seemed so desolate.\nLooking out over the black limestone through the driving rain to the\ngulf of struggling waves, an indescribable feeling of dejection came\nover me.\n\nThe old man gave me his view of the use of fear.\n\n'A man who is not afraid of the sea will soon be drowned,' he said,\n'for he will be going out on a day he shouldn't. But we do be afraid\nof the sea, and we do only be drownded now and again.'\n\nA little crowd of neighbours had collected lower down to see me off,\nand as we crossed the sandhills we had to shout to each other to be\nheard above the wind.\n\nThe crew carried down the curagh and then stood under the lee of the\npier tying on their hats with strings and drawing on their oilskins.\n\nThey tested the braces of the oars, and the oarpins, and everything\nin the curagh with a care I had not seen them give to anything, then\nmy bag was lifted in, and we were ready. Besides the four men of the\ncrew a man was going with us who wanted a passage to this island. As\nhe was scrambling into the bow, an old man stood forward from the\ncrowd.\n\n'Don't take that man with you,' he said. 'Last week they were taking\nhim to Clare and the whole lot of them were near drownded. Another\nday he went to Inisheer and they broke three ribs of the curagh, and\nthey coming back. There is not the like of him for ill-luck in the\nthree islands.'\n\n'The divil choke your old gob,' said the man, 'you will be talking.'\n\nWe set off. It was a four-oared curagh, and I was given the last\nseat so as to leave the stern for the man who was steering with an\noar, worked at right angles to the others by an extra thole-pin in\nthe stern gunnel.\n\nWhen we had gone about a hundred yards they ran up a bit of a sail\nin the bow and the pace became extraordinarily rapid.\n\nThe shower had passed over and the wind had fallen, but large,\nmagnificently brilliant waves were rolling down on us at right\nangles to our course.\n\nEvery instant the steersman whirled us round with a sudden stroke of\nhis oar, the prow reared up and then fell into the next furrow with\na crash, throwing up masses of spray. As it did so, the stern in its\nturn was thrown up, and both the steersman, who let go his oar and\nclung with both hands to the gunnel, and myself, were lifted high up\nabove the sea.\n\nThe wave passed, we regained our course and rowed violently for a\nfew yards, then the same manoeuvre had to be repeated. As we worked\nout into the sound we began to meet another class of waves, that\ncould be seen for some distance towering above the rest.\n\nWhen one of these came in sight, the first effort was to get beyond\nits reach. The steersman began crying out in Gaelic, 'Siubhal,\nsiubhal' ('Run, run'), and sometimes, when the mass was gliding\ntowards us with horrible speed, his voice rose to a shriek. Then the\nrowers themselves took up the cry, and the curagh seemed to leap and\nquiver with the frantic terror of a beast till the wave passed\nbehind it or fell with a crash beside the stern.\n\nIt was in this racing with the waves that our chief danger lay. If\nthe wave could be avoided, it was better to do so, but if it\novertook us while we were trying to escape, and caught us on the\nbroadside, our destruction was certain. I could see the steersman\nquivering with the excitement of his task, for any error in his\njudgment would have swamped us.\n\nWe had one narrow escape. A wave appeared high above the rest, and\nthere was the usual moment of intense exertion. It was of no use,\nand in an instant the wave seemed to be hurling itself upon us. With\na yell of rage the steersman struggled with his oar to bring our\nprow to meet it. He had almost succeeded, when there was a crash and\nrush of water round us. I felt as if I had been struck upon the back\nwith knotted ropes. White foam gurgled round my knees and eyes. The\ncuragh reared up, swaying and trembling for a moment, and then fell\nsafely into the furrow.\n\nThis was our worst moment, though more than once, when several waves\ncame so closely together that we had no time to regain control of\nthe canoe between them, we had some dangerous work. Our lives\ndepended upon the skill and courage of the men, as the life of the\nrider or swimmer is often in his own hands, and the excitement was\ntoo great to allow time for fear.\n\nI enjoyed the passage. Down in this shallow trough of canvas that\nbent and trembled with the motion of the men, I had a far more\nintimate feeling of the glory and power of the waves than I have\never known in a steamer.\n\nOld Mourteen is keeping me company again, and I am now able to\nunderstand the greater part of his Irish.\n\nHe took me out to-day to show me the remains of some cloghauns, or\nbeehive dwellings, that are left near the central ridge of the\nisland. After I had looked at them we lay down in the corner of a\nlittle field, filled with the autumn sunshine and the odour of\nwithering flowers, while he told me a long folk-tale which took more\nthan an hour to narrate.\n\nHe is so blind that I can gaze at him without discourtesy, and after\na while the expression of his face made me forget to listen, and I\nlay dreamily in the sunshine letting the antique formulas of the\nstory blend with the suggestions from the prehistoric masonry I lay\non. The glow of childish transport that came over him when he\nreached the nonsense ending--so common in these tales--recalled me\nto myself, and I listened attentively while he gabbled with\ndelighted haste: 'They found the path and I found the puddle. They\nwere drowned and I was found. If it's all one to me tonight, it\nwasn't all one to them the next night. Yet, if it wasn't itself, not\na thing did they lose but an old back tooth '--or some such\ngibberish.\n\nAs I led him home through the paths he described to me--it is thus\nwe get along--lifting him at times over the low walls he is too\nshaky to climb, he brought the conversation to the topic they are\nnever weary of--my views on marriage.\n\nHe stopped as we reached the summit of the island, with the stretch\nof the Atlantic just visible behind him.\n\n'Whisper, noble person,' he began, 'do you never be thinking on the\nyoung girls? The time I was a young man, the devil a one of them\ncould I look on without wishing to marry her.'\n\n'Ah, Mourteen,' I answered, 'it's a great wonder you'd be asking me.\nWhat at all do you think of me yourself?'\n\n'Bedad, noble person, I'm thinking it's soon you'll be getting\nmarried. Listen to what I'm telling you: a man who is not married is\nno better than an old jackass. He goes into his sister's house, and\ninto his brother's house; he eats a bit in this place and a bit in\nanother place, but he has no home for himself like an old jackass\nstraying on the rocks.'\n\nI have left Aran. The steamer had a more than usually heavy cargo,\nand it was after four o'clock when we sailed from Kilronan.\n\nAgain I saw the three low rocks sink down into the sea with a moment\nof inconceivable distress. It was a clear evening, and as we came\nout into the bay the sun stood like an aureole behind the cliffs of\nInishmaan. A little later a brilliant glow came over the sky,\nthrowing out the blue of the sea and of the hills of Connemara.\n\nWhen it was quite dark, the cold became intense, and I wandered\nabout the lonely vessel that seemed to be making her own way across\nthe sea. I was the only passenger, and all the crew, except one boy\nwho was steering, were huddled together in the warmth of the\nengine-room.\n\nThree hours passed, and no one stirred. The slowness of the vessel\nand the lamentation of the cold sea about her sides became almost\nunendurable. Then the lights of Galway came in sight, and the crew\nappeared as we beat up slowly to the quay.\n\nOnce on shore I had some difficulty in finding any one to carry my\nbaggage to the railway. When I found a man in the darkness and got\nmy bag on his shoulders, he turned out to be drunk, and I had\ntrouble to keep him from rolling from the wharf with all my\npossessions. He professed to be taking me by a short cut into the\ntown, but when we were in the middle of a waste of broken buildings\nand skeletons of ships he threw my bag on the ground and sat down on\nit.\n\n'It's real heavy she is, your honour,' he said; 'I'm thinking it's\ngold there will be in it.'\n\n'Divil a hap'worth is there in it at all but books,' I answered him\nin Gaelic.\n\n'Bedad, is mor an truaghe' ('It's a big pity'), he said; 'if it was\ngold was in it it's the thundering spree we'd have together this\nnight in Galway.'\n\nIn about half an hour I got my luggage once more on his back, and we\nmade our way into the city.\n\nLater in the evening I went down towards the quay to look for\nMichael. As I turned into the narrow street where he lodges, some\none seemed to be following me in the shadow, and when I stopped to\nfind the number of his house I heard the 'Failte' (Welcome) of\nInishmaan pronounced close to me.\n\nIt was Michael.\n\n'I saw you in the street,' he said, 'but I was ashamed to speak to\nyou in the middle of the people, so I followed you the way I'd see\nif you'd remember me.'\n\nWe turned back together and walked about the town till he had to go\nto his lodgings. He was still just the same, with all his old\nsimplicity and shrewdness; but the work he has here does not agree\nwith him, and he is not contented.\n\nIt was the eve of the Parnell celebration in Dublin, and the town\nwas full of excursionists waiting for a train which was to start at\nmidnight. When Michael left me I spent some time in an hotel, and\nthen wandered down to the railway.\n\nA wild crowd was on the platform, surging round the train in every\nstage of intoxication. It gave me a better instance than I had yet\nseen of the half-savage temperament of Connaught. The tension of\nhuman excitement seemed greater in this insignificant crowd than\nanything I have felt among enormous mobs in Rome or Paris.\n\nThere were a few people from the islands on the platform, and I got\nin along with them to a third-class carriage. One of the women of\nthe party had her niece with her, a young girl from Connaught who\nwas put beside me; at the other end of the carriage there were some\nold men who were talking Irish, and a young man who had been a\nsailor.\n\nWhen the train started there were wild cheers and cries on the\nplatform, and in the train itself the noise was intense; men and\nwomen shrieking and singing and beating their sticks on the\npartitions. At several stations there was a rush to the bar, so the\nexcitement increased as we proceeded.\n\nAt Ballinasloe there were some soldiers on the platform looking for\nplaces. The sailor in our compartment had a dispute with one of\nthem, and in an instant the door was flung open and the compartment\nwas filled with reeling uniforms and sticks. Peace was made after a\nmoment of uproar and the soldiers got out, but as they did so a pack\nof their women followers thrust their bare heads and arms into the\ndoorway, cursing and blaspheming with extraordinary rage.\n\nAs the train moved away a moment later, these women set up a frantic\nlamentation. I looked out and caught a glimpse of the wildest heads\nand figures I have ever seen, shrieking and screaming and waving\ntheir naked arms in the light of the lanterns.\n\nAs the night went on girls began crying out in the carriage next us,\nand I could hear the words of obscene songs when the train stopped\nat a station.\n\nIn our own compartment the sailor would allow no one to sleep, and\ntalked all night with sometimes a touch of wit or brutality and\nalways with a beautiful fluency with wild temperament behind it.\n\nThe old men in the corner, dressed in black coats that had something\nof the antiquity of heirlooms, talked all night among themselves in\nGaelic. The young girl beside me lost her shyness after a while, and\nlet me point out the features of the country that were beginning to\nappear through the dawn as we drew nearer Dublin. She was delighted\nwith the shadows of the trees--trees are rare in Connaught--and\nwith the canal, which was beginning to reflect the morning light.\nEvery time I showed her some new shadow she cried out with naive\nexcitement--\n\n'Oh, it's lovely, but I can't see it.'\n\nThis presence at my side contrasted curiously with the brutality\nthat shook the barrier behind us. The whole spirit of the west of\nIreland, with its strange wildness and reserve, seemed moving in\nthis single train to pay a last homage to the dead statesman of the\neast.\n\n\n\n\nPart III\n\n\nA LETTER HAS come from Michael while I am in Paris. It is in\nEnglish.\n\nMY DEAR FRIEND,--I hope that you are in good health since I have\nheard from you before, its many a time I do think of you since and\nit was not forgetting you I was for the future.\n\nI was at home in the beginning of March for a fortnight and was very\nbad with the Influence, but I took good care of myself.\n\nI am getting good wages from the first of this year, and I am afraid\nI won't be able to stand with it, although it is not hard, I am\nworking in a saw-mills and getting the money for the wood and\nkeeping an account of it.\n\nI am getting a letter and some news from home two or three times a\nweek, and they are all well in health, and your friends in the\nisland as well as if I mentioned them.\n\nDid you see any of my friends in Dublin Mr.--or any of those\ngentlemen or gentlewomen.\n\nI think I soon try America but not until next year if I am alive.\n\nI hope we might meet again in good and pleasant health.\n\nIt is now time to come to a conclusion, good-bye and not for ever,\nwrite soon--I am your friend in Galway.\n\nWrite soon dear friend.\n\nAnother letter in a more rhetorical mood.\n\nMY DEAR MR. S.,--I am for a long time trying to spare a little time\nfor to write a few words to you.\n\nHoping that you are still considering good and pleasant health since\nI got a letter from you before.\n\nI see now that your time is coming round to come to this place to\nlearn your native language. There was a great Feis in this island\ntwo weeks ago, and there was a very large attendance from the South\nisland, and not very many from the North.\n\nTwo cousins of my own have been in this house for three weeks or\nbeyond it, but now they are gone, and there is a place for you if\nyou wish to come, and you can write before you and we'll try and\nmanage you as well as we can.\n\nI am at home now for about two months, for the mill was burnt where\nI was at work. After that I was in Dublin, but I did not get my\nhealth in that city.--Mise le mor mheas ort a chara.\n\nSoon after I received this letter I wrote to Michael to say that I\nwas going back to them. This time I chose a day when the steamer\nwent direct to the middle island, and as we came up between the two\nlines of curaghs that were waiting outside the slip, I saw Michael,\ndressed once more in his island clothes, rowing in one of them.\n\nHe made no sign of recognition, but as soon as they could get\nalongside he clambered on board and came straight up on the bridge\nto where I was.\n\n'Bhfuil tu go maith?' ('Are you well?') he said. 'Where is your\nbag?'\n\nHis curagh had got a bad place near the bow of the steamer, so I was\nslung down from a considerable height on top of some sacks of flour\nand my own bag, while the curagh swayed and battered itself against\nthe side.\n\nWhen we were clear I asked Michael if he had got my letter.\n\n'Ah no,' he said, 'not a sight of it, but maybe it will come next\nweek.'\n\nPart of the slip had been washed away during the winter, so we had\nto land to the left of it, among the rocks, taking our turn with the\nother curaghs that were coming in.\n\nAs soon as I was on shore the men crowded round me to bid me\nwelcome, asking me as they shook hands if I had travelled far in the\nwinter, and seen many wonders, ending, as usual, with the inquiry if\nthere was much war at present in the world.\n\nIt gave me a thrill of delight to hear their Gaelic blessings, and\nto see the steamer moving away, leaving me quite alone among them.\nThe day was fine with a clear sky, and the sea was glittering beyond\nthe limestone. Further off a light haze on the cliffs of the larger\nisland, and on the Connaught hills, gave me the illusion that it was\nstill summer.\n\nA little boy was sent off to tell the old woman that I was coming,\nand we followed slowly, talking and carrying the baggage.\n\nWhen I had exhausted my news they told me theirs. A power of\nstrangers--four or five--a French priest among them, had been on the\nisland in the summer; the potatoes were bad, but the rye had begun\nwell, till a dry week came and then it had turned into oats.\n\n'If you didn't know us so well,' said the man who was talking,\n'you'd think it was a lie we were telling, but the sorrow a lie is\nin it. It grew straight and well till it was high as your knee, then\nit turned into oats. Did ever you see the like of that in County\nWicklow?'\n\nIn the cottage everything was as usual, but Michael's presence has\nbrought back the old woman's humour and contentment. As I sat down\non my stool and lit my pipe with the corner of a sod, I could have\ncried out with the feeling of festivity that this return procured\nme.\n\nThis year Michael is busy in the daytime, but at present there is a\nharvest moon, and we spend most of the evening wandering about the\nisland, looking out over the bay where the shadows of the clouds\nthrow strange patterns of gold and black. As we were returning\nthrough the village this evening a tumult of revelry broke out from\none of the smaller cottages, and Michael said it was the young boys\nand girls who have sport at this time of the year. I would have\nliked to join them, but feared to embarrass their amusement. When we\npassed on again the groups of scattered cottages on each side of the\nway reminded me of places I have sometimes passed when travelling at\nnight in France or Bavaria, places that seemed so enshrined in the\nblue silence of night one could not believe they would reawaken.\n\nAfterwards we went up on the Dun, where Michael said he had never\nbeen before after nightfall, though he lives within a stone's-throw.\nThe place gains unexpected grandeur in this light, standing out like\na corona of prehistoric stone upon the summit of the island. We\nwalked round the top of the wall for some time looking down on the\nfaint yellow roofs, with the rocks glittering beyond them, and the\nsilence of the bay. Though Michael is sensible of the beauty of the\nnature round him, he never speaks of it directly, and many of our\nevening walks are occupied with long Gaelic discourses about the\nmovements of the stars and moon.\n\nThese people make no distinction between the natural and the\nsupernatural.\n\nThis afternoon--it was Sunday, when there is usually some\ninteresting talk among the islanders--it rained, so I went into the\nschoolmaster's kitchen, which is a good deal frequented by the more\nadvanced among the people. I know so little of their ways of fishing\nand farming that I do not find it easy to keep up our talk without\nreaching matters where they cannot follow me, and since the novelty\nof my photographs has passed off I have some difficulty in giving\nthem the entertainment they seem to expect from my company. To-day I\nshowed them some simple gymnastic feats and conjurer's tricks, which\ngave them great amusement.\n\n'Tell us now,' said an old woman when I had finished, 'didn't you\nlearn those things from the witches that do be out in the country?'\n\nIn one of the tricks I seemed to join a piece of string which was\ncut by the people, and the illusion was so complete that I saw one\nman going off with it into a corner and pulling at the apparent\njoining till he sank red furrows round his hands.\n\nThen he brought it back to me.\n\n'Bedad,' he said, 'this is the greatest wonder ever I seen. The cord\nis a taste thinner where you joined it but as strong as ever it\nwas.'\n\nA few of the younger men looked doubtful, but the older people, who\nhave watched the rye turning into oats, seemed to accept the magic\nfrankly, and did not show any surprise that 'a duine uasal' (a noble\nperson) should be able to do like the witches.\n\nMy intercourse with these people has made me realise that miracles\nmust abound wherever the new conception of law is not understood. On\nthese islands alone miracles enough happen every year to equip a\ndivine emissary Rye is turned into oats, storms are raised to keep\nevictors from the shore, cows that are isolated on lonely rocks\nbring forth calves, and other things of the same kind are common.\n\nThe wonder is a rare expected event, like the thunderstorm or the\nrainbow, except that it is a little rarer and a little more\nwonderful. Often, when I am walking and get into conversation with\nsome of the people, and tell them that I have received a paper from\nDublin, they ask me--'And is there any great wonder in the world at\nthis time?'\n\nWhen I had finished my feats of dexterity, I was surprised to find\nthat none of the islanders, even the youngest and most agile, could\ndo what I did. As I pulled their limbs about in my effort to teach\nthem, I felt that the ease and beauty of their movements has made me\nthink them lighter than they really are. Seen in their curaghs\nbetween these cliffs and the Atlantic, they appear lithe and small,\nbut if they were dressed as we are and seen in an ordinary room,\nmany of them would seem heavily and powerfully made.\n\nOne man, however, the champion dancer of the island, got up after a\nwhile and displayed the salmon leap--lying flat on his face and then\nspringing up, horizontally, high in the air--and some other feats of\nextraordinary agility, but he is not young and we could not get him\nto dance.\n\nIn the evening I had to repeat my tricks here in the kitchen, for\nthe fame of them had spread over the island.\n\nNo doubt these feats will be remembered here for generations. The\npeople have so few images for description that they seize on\nanything that is remarkable in their visitors and use it afterwards\nin their talk.\n\nFor the last few years when they are speaking of any one with fine\nrings they say: 'She had beautiful rings on her fingers like\nLady--,' a visitor to the island.\n\nI have been down sitting on the pier till it was quite dark. I am\nonly beginning to understand the nights of Inishmaan and the\ninfluence they have had in giving distinction to these men who do\nmost of their work after nightfall.\n\nI could hear nothing but a few curlews and other wild-fowl whistling\nand shrieking in the seaweed, and the low rustling of the waves. It\nwas one of the dark sultry nights peculiar to September, with no\nlight anywhere except the phosphorescence of the sea, and an\noccasional rift in the clouds that showed the stars behind them.\n\nThe sense of solitude was immense. I could not see or realise my own\nbody, and I seemed to exist merely in my perception of the waves and\nof the crying birds, and of the smell of seaweed.\n\nWhen I tried to come home I lost myself among the sandhills, and the\nnight seemed to grow unutterably cold and dejected, as I groped\namong slimy masses of seaweed and wet crumbling walls.\n\nAfter a while I heard a movement in the sand, and two grey shadows\nappeared beside me. They were two men who were going home from\nfishing. I spoke to them and knew their voices, and we went home\ntogether.\n\nIn the autumn season the threshing of the rye is one of the many\ntasks that fall to the men and boys. The sheaves are collected on a\nbare rock, and then each is beaten separately on a couple of stones\nplaced on end one against the other. The land is so poor that a\nfield hardly produces more grain than is needed for seed the\nfollowing year, so the rye-growing is carried on merely for the\nstraw, which is used for thatching.\n\nThe stooks are carried to and from the threshing fields, piled on\ndonkeys that one meets everywhere at this season, with their black,\nunbridled heads just visible beneath a pinnacle of golden straw.\n\nWhile the threshing is going on sons and daughters keep turning up\nwith one thing and another till there is a little crowd on the\nrocks, and any one who is passing stops for an hour or two to talk\non his way to the sea, so that, like the kelp-burning in the\nsummer-time, this work is full of sociability.\n\nWhen the threshing is over the straw is taken up to the cottages and\npiled up in an outhouse, or more often in a corner of the kitchen,\nwhere it brings a new liveliness of colour.\n\nA few days ago when I was visiting a cottage where there are the\nmost beautiful children on the island, the eldest daughter, a girl\nof about fourteen, went and sat down on a heap of straw by the\ndoorway. A ray of sunlight fell on her and on a portion of the rye,\ngiving her figure and red dress with the straw under it a curious\nrelief against the nets and oilskins, and forming a natural picture\nof exquisite harmony and colour.\n\nIn our own cottage the thatching--it is done every year--has just\nbeen carried out. The rope-twisting was done partly in the lane,\npartly in the kitchen when the weather was uncertain. Two men\nusually sit together at this work, one of them hammering the straw\nwith a heavy block of wood, the other forming the rope, the main\nbody of which is twisted by a boy or girl with a bent stick\nspecially formed for this employment.\n\nIn wet weather, when the work must be done indoors, the person who\nis twisting recedes gradually out of the door, across the lane, and\nsometimes across a field or two beyond it. A great length is needed\nto form the close network which is spread over the thatch, as each\npiece measures about fifty yards. When this work is in progress in\nhalf the cottages of the village, the road has a curious look, and\none has to pick one's steps through a maze of twisting ropes that\npass from the dark doorways on either side into the fields.\n\nWhen four or five immense balls of rope have been completed, a\nthatching party is arranged, and before dawn some morning they come\ndown to the house, and the work is taken in hand with such energy\nthat it is usually ended within the day.\n\nLike all work that is done in common on the island, the thatching is\nregarded as a sort of festival. From the moment a roof is taken in\nhand there is a whirl of laughter and talk till it is ended, and, as\nthe man whose house is being covered is a host instead of an\nemployer, he lays himself out to please the men who work with him.\n\nThe day our own house was thatched the large table was taken into\nthe kitchen from my room, and high teas were given every few hours.\nMost of the people who came along the road turned down into the\nkitchen for a few minutes, and the talking was incessant. Once when\nI went into the window I heard Michael retailing my astronomical\nlectures from the apex of the gable, but usually their topics have\nto do with the affairs of the island.\n\nIt is likely that much of the intelligence and charm of these people\nis due to the absence of any division of labour, and to the\ncorrespondingly wide development of each individual, whose varied\nknowledge and skill necessitates a considerable activity of mind.\nEach man can speak two languages. He is a skilled fisherman, and can\nmanage a curagh with extraordinary nerve and dexterity He can farm\nsimply, burn kelp, cut out pampooties, mend nets, build and thatch a\nhouse, and make a cradle or a coffin. His work changes with the\nseasons in a way that keeps him free from the dullness that comes to\npeople who have always the same occupation. The danger of his life\non the sea gives him the alertness of the primitive hunter, and the\nlong nights he spends fishing in his curagh bring him some of the\nemotions that are thought peculiar to men who have lived with the\narts.\n\nAs Michael is busy in the daytime, I have got a boy to come up and\nread Irish to me every afternoon. He is about fifteen, and is\nsingularly intelligent, with a real sympathy for the language and\nthe stories we read.\n\nOne evening when he had been reading to me for two hours, I asked\nhim if he was tired.\n\n'Tired?' he said, 'sure you wouldn't ever be tired reading!'\n\nA few years ago this predisposition for intellectual things would\nhave made him sit with old people and learn their stories, but now\nboys like him turn to books and to papers in Irish that are sent\nthem from Dublin.\n\nIn most of the stories we read, where the English and Irish are\nprinted side by side, I see him looking across to the English in\npassages that are a little obscure, though he is indignant if I say\nthat he knows English better than Irish. Probably he knows the local\nIrish better than English, and printed English better than printed\nIrish, as the latter has frequent dialectic forms he does not know.\n\nA few days ago when he was reading a folk-tale from Douglas Hyde's\nBeside the Fire, something caught his eye in the translation.\n\n'There's a mistake in the English,' he said, after a moment's\nhesitation, 'he's put \"gold chair\" instead of \"golden chair.\"'\n\nI pointed out that we speak of gold watches and gold pins.\n\n'And why wouldn't we?' he said; 'but \"golden chair\" would be much\nnicer.'\n\nIt is curious to see how his rudimentary culture has given him the\nbeginning of a critical spirit that occupies itself with the form of\nlanguage as well as with ideas.\n\nOne day I alluded to my trick of joining string.\n\n'You can't join a string, don't be saying it,' he said; 'I don't\nknow what way you're after fooling us, but you didn't join that\nstring, not a bit of you.'\n\nAnother day when he was with me the fire burned low and I held up a\nnewspaper before it to make a draught. It did not answer very well,\nand though the boy said nothing I saw he thought me a fool.\n\nThe next day he ran up in great excitement.\n\n'I'm after trying the paper over the fire,' he said, 'and it burned\ngrand. Didn't I think, when I seen you doing it there was no good in\nit at all, but I put a paper over the master's (the school-master's)\nfire and it flamed up. Then I pulled back the corner of the paper\nand I ran my head in, and believe me, there was a big cold wind\nblowing up the chimney that would sweep the head from you.'\n\nWe nearly quarrelled because he wanted me to take his photograph in\nhis Sunday clothes from Galway, instead of his native homespuns that\nbecome him far better, though he does not like them as they seem to\nconnect him with the primitive life of the island. With his keen\ntemperament, he may go far if he can ever step out into the world.\n\nHe is constantly thinking.\n\nOne day he asked me if there was great wonder on their names out in\nthe country.\n\nI said there was no wonder on them at all.\n\n'Well,' he said, 'there is great wonder on your name in the island,\nand I was thinking maybe there would be great wonder on our names\nout in the country.'\n\nIn a sense he is right. Though the names here are ordinary enough,\nthey are used in a way that differs altogether from the modern\nsystem of surnames.\n\nWhen a child begins to wander about the island, the neighbours speak\nof it by its Christian name, followed by the Christian name of its\nfather. If this is not enough to identify it, the father's\nepithet--whether it is a nickname or the name of his own father--is\nadded.\n\nSometimes when the father's name does not lend itself, the mother's\nChristian name is adopted as epithet for the children.\n\nAn old woman near this cottage is called 'Peggeen,' and her sons are\n'Patch Pheggeen,' 'Seaghan Pheggeen,' etc.\n\nOccasionally the surname is employed in its Irish form, but I have\nnot heard them using the 'Mac' prefix when speaking Irish among\nthemselves; perhaps the idea of a surname which it gives is too\nmodern for them, perhaps they do use it at times that I have not\nnoticed.\n\nSometimes a man is named from the colour of his hair. There is thus\na Seaghan Ruadh (Red John), and his children are 'Mourteen Seaghan\nRuadh,' etc.\n\nAnother man is known as 'an iasgaire' ('the fisher'), and his\nchildren are 'Maire an iasgaire' ('Mary daughter of the fisher'),\nand so on.\n\nThe schoolmaster tells me that when he reads out the roll in the\nmorning the children repeat the local name all together in a whisper\nafter each official name, and then the child answers. If he calls,\nfor instance, 'Patrick O'Flaharty,' the children murmur, 'Patch\nSeaghan Dearg' or some such name, and the boy answers.\n\nPeople who come to the island are treated in much the same way. A\nFrench Gaelic student was in the islands recently, and he is always\nspoken of as 'An Saggart Ruadh' ('the red priest') or as 'An Saggart\nFrancach' ('the French priest'), but never by his name.\n\nIf an islander's name alone is enough to distinguish him it is used\nby itself, and I know one man who is spoken of as Eamonn. There may\nbe other Edmunds on the island, but if so they have probably good\nnicknames or epithets of their own.\n\nIn other countries where the names are in a somewhat similar\ncondition, as in modern Greece, the man's calling is usually one of\nthe most common means of distinguishing him, but in this place,\nwhere all have the same calling, this means is not available.\n\nLate this evening I saw a three-oared curagh with two old women in\nher besides the rowers, landing at the slip through a heavy roll.\nThey were coming from Inishere, and they rowed up quickly enough\ntill they were within a few yards of the surf-line, where they spun\nround and waited with the prow towards the sea, while wave after\nwave passed underneath them and broke on the remains of the slip.\nFive minutes passed; ten minutes; and still they waited with the\noars just paddling in the water, and their heads turned over their\nshoulders.\n\nI was beginning to think that they would have to give up and row\nround to the lee side of the island, when the curagh seemed suddenly\nto turn into a living thing. The prow was again towards the slip,\nleaping and hurling itself through the spray. Before it touched, the\nman in the bow wheeled round, two white legs came out over the prow\nlike the flash of a sword, and before the next wave arrived he had\ndragged the curagh out of danger.\n\nThis sudden and united action in men without discipline shows well\nthe education that the waves have given them. When the curagh was in\nsafety the two old women were carried up through the surf and\nslippery seaweed on the backs of their sons.\n\nIn this broken weather a curagh cannot go out without danger, yet\naccidents are rare and seem to be nearly always caused by drink,\nSince I was here last year four men have been drowned on their way\nhome from the large island. First a curagh belonging to the south\nisland which put off with two men in her heavy with drink, came to\nshore here the next evening dry and uninjured, with the sail half\nset, and no one in her.\n\nMore recently a curagh from this island with three men, who were the\nworse for drink, was upset on its way home. The steamer was not far\noff, and saved two of the men, but could not reach the third.\n\nNow a man has been washed ashore in Donegal with one pampooty on\nhim, and a striped shirt with a purse in one of the pockets, and a\nbox for tobacco.\n\nFor three days the people have been trying to fix his identity. Some\nthink it is the man from this island, others think that the man from\nthe south answers the description more exactly. To-night as we were\nreturning from the slip we met the mother of the man who was drowned\nfrom this island, still weeping and looking out over the sea. She\nstopped the people who had come over from the south island to ask\nthem with a terrified whisper what is thought over there.\n\nLater in the evening, when I was sitting in one of the cottages, the\nsister of the dead man came in through the rain with her infant, and\nthere was a long talk about the rumours that had come in. She pieced\ntogether all she could remember about his clothes, and what his\npurse was like, and where he had got it, and the same for his\ntobacco box, and his stockings. In the end there seemed little doubt\nthat it was her brother.\n\n'Ah!' she said, 'It's Mike sure enough, and please God they'll give\nhim a decent burial.'\n\nThen she began to keen slowly to herself. She had loose yellow hair\nplastered round her head with the rain, and as she sat by the door\nsucking her infant, she seemed like a type of the women's life upon\nthe islands.\n\nFor a while the people sat silent, and one could hear nothing but\nthe lips of the infant, the rain hissing in the yard, and the\nbreathing of four pigs that lay sleeping in one corner. Then one of\nthe men began to talk about the new boats that have been sent to the\nsouth island, and the conversation went back to its usual round of\ntopics.\n\nThe loss of one man seems a slight catastrophe to all except the\nimmediate relatives. Often when an accident happens a father is lost\nwith his two eldest sons, or in some other way all the active men of\na household die together.\n\nA few years ago three men of a family that used to make the wooden\nvessels--like tiny barrels--that are still used among the people,\nwent to the big island together. They were drowned on their way\nhome, and the art of making these little barrels died with them, at\nleast on Inishmaan, though it still lingers in the north and south\nislands.\n\nAnother catastrophe that took place last winter gave a curious zest\nto the observance of holy days. It seems that it is not the custom\nfor the men to go out fishing on the evening of a holy day, but one\nnight last December some men, who wished to begin fishing early the\nnext morning, rowed out to sleep in their hookers.\n\nTowards morning a terrible storm rose, and several hookers with\ntheir crews on board were blown from their moorings and wrecked. The\nsea was so high that no attempt at rescue could be made, and the men\nwere drowned.\n\n'Ah!' said the man who told me the story, 'I'm thinking it will be a\nlong time before men will go out again on a holy day. That storm was\nthe only storm that reached into the harbour the whole winter, and\nI'm thinking there was something in it.'\n\nToday when I went down to the slip I found a pig-jobber from\nKilronan with about twenty pigs that were to be shipped for the\nEnglish market.\n\nWhen the steamer was getting near, the whole drove was moved down on\nthe slip and the curaghs were carried out close to the sea. Then\neach beast was caught in its turn and thrown on its side, while its\nlegs were hitched together in a single knot, with a tag of rope\nremaining, by which it could be carried.\n\nProbably the pain inflicted was not great, yet the animals shut\ntheir eyes and shrieked with almost human intonations, till the\nsuggestion of the noise became so intense that the men and women who\nwere merely looking on grew wild with excitement, and the pigs\nwaiting their turn foamed at the mouth and tore each other with\ntheir teeth.\n\nAfter a while there was a pause. The whole slip was covered with a\nmass of sobbing animals, with here and there a terrified woman\ncrouching among the bodies, and patting some special favourite to\nkeep it quiet while the curaghs were being launched.\n\nThen the screaming began again while the pigs were carried out and\nlaid in their places, with a waistcoat tied round their feet to keep\nthem from damaging the canvas. They seemed to know where they were\ngoing, and looked up at me over the gunnel with an ignoble\ndesperation that made me shudder to think that I had eaten of this\nwhimpering flesh. When the last curagh went out I was left on the\nslip with a band of women and children, and one old boar who sat\nlooking out over the sea.\n\nThe women were over-excited, and when I tried to talk to them they\ncrowded round me and began jeering and shrieking at me because I am\nnot married. A dozen screamed at a time, and so rapidly that I could\nnot understand all that they were saying, yet I was able to make out\nthat they were taking advantage of the absence of their husbands to\ngive me the full volume of their contempt. Some little boys who were\nlistening threw themselves down, writhing with laughter among the\nseaweed, and the young girls grew red with embarrassment and stared\ndown into the surf.\n\nFor a moment I was in confusion. I tried to speak to them, but I\ncould not make myself heard, so I sat down on the slip and drew out\nmy wallet of photographs. In an instant I had the whole band\nclambering round me, in their ordinary mood.\n\nWhen the curaghs came back--one of them towing a large kitchen table\nthat stood itself up on the waves and then turned somersaults in an\nextraordinary manner--word went round that the ceannuighe (pedlar)\nwas arriving.\n\nHe opened his wares on the slip as soon as he landed, and sold a\nquantity of cheap knives and jewellery to the girls and the younger\nwomen. He spoke no Irish, and the bargaining gave immense amusement\nto the crowd that collected round him.\n\nI was surprised to notice that several women who professed to know\nno English could make themselves understood without difficulty when\nit pleased them.\n\n'The rings is too dear at you, sir,' said one girl using the Gaelic\nconstruction; 'let you put less money on them and all the girls will\nbe buying.'\n\nAfter the jewellery' he displayed some cheap religious\npictures--abominable oleographs--but I did not see many buyers.\n\nI am told that most of the pedlars who come here are Germans or\nPoles, but I did not have occasion to speak with this man by\nhimself.\n\nI have come over for a few days to the south island, and, as usual,\nmy voyage was not favourable.\n\nThe morning was fine, and seemed to promise one of the peculiarly\nhushed, pellucid days that occur sometimes before rain in early\nwinter. From the first gleam of dawn the sky was covered with white\ncloud, and the tranquillity was so complete that every sound seemed\nto float away by itself across the silence of the bay. Lines of blue\nsmoke were going up in spirals over the village, and further off\nheavy fragments of rain-cloud were lying on the horizon. We started\nearly in the day, and, although the sea looked calm from a distance,\nwe met a considerable roll coming from the south-west when we got\nout from the shore.\n\nNear the middle of the sound the man who was rowing in the bow broke\nhis oar-pin, and the proper management of the canoe became a matter\nof some difficulty. We had only a three-oared curagh, and if the sea\nhad gone much higher we should have run a good deal of danger. Our\nprogress was so slow that clouds came up with a rise in the wind\nbefore we reached the shore, and rain began to fall in large single\ndrops. The black curagh working slowly through this world of grey,\nand the soft hissing of the rain gave me one of the moods in which\nwe realise with immense distress the short moment we have left us to\nexperience all the wonder and beauty of the world.\n\nThe approach to the south island is made at a fine sandy beach on\nthe north-west. This interval in the rocks is of great service to\nthe people, but the tract of wet sand with a few hideous fishermen's\nhouses, lately built on it, looks singularly desolate in broken\nweather.\n\nThe tide was going out when we landed, so we merely stranded the\ncuragh and went up to the little hotel. The cess-collector was at\nwork in one of the rooms, and there were a number of men and boys\nwaiting about, who stared at us while we stood at the door and\ntalked to the proprietor.\n\nWhen we had had our drink I went down to the sea with my men, who\nwere in a hurry to be off. Some time was spent in replacing the\noar-pin, and then they set out, though the wind was still\nincreasing. A good many fishermen came down to see the start, and\nlong after the curagh was out of sight I stood and talked with them\nin Irish, as I was anxious to compare their language and temperament\nwith what I knew of the other island.\n\nThe language seems to be identical, though some of these men speak\nrather more distinctly than any Irish speakers I have yet heard. In\nphysical type, dress, and general character, however, there seems to\nbe a considerable difference. The people on this island are more\nadvanced than their neighbours, and the families here are gradually\nforming into different ranks, made up of the well-to-do, the\nstruggling, and the quite poor and thriftless. These distinctions\nare present in the middle island also, but over there they have had\nno effect on the people, among whom there is still absolute\nequality.\n\nA little later the steamer came in sight and lay to in the offing.\nWhile the curaghs were being put out I noticed in the crowd several\nmen of the ragged, humorous type that was once thought to represent\nthe real peasant of Ireland. Rain was now falling heavily, and as we\nlooked out through the fog there was something nearly appalling in\nthe shrieks of laughter kept up by one of these individuals, a man\nof extraordinary ugliness and wit.\n\nAt last he moved off toward the houses, wiping his eyes with the\ntail of his coat and moaning to himself 'Ta me marbh,' ('I'm\nkilled'), till some one stopped him and he began again pouring out a\nmedley of rude puns and jokes that meant more than they said.\n\nThere is quaint humour, and sometimes wild humour, on the middle\nisland, but never this half-sensual ecstasy of laughter. Perhaps a\nman must have a sense of intimate misery, not known there, before he\ncan set himself to jeer and mock at the world. These strange men\nwith receding foreheads, high cheekbones, and ungovernable eyes seem\nto represent some old type found on these few acres at the extreme\nborder of Europe, where it is only in wild jests and laughter that\nthey can express their loneliness and desolation.\n\nThe mode of reciting ballads in this island is singularly harsh. I\nfell in with a curious man to-day beyond the east village, and we\nwandered out on the rocks towards the sea. A wintry shower came on\nwhile we were together, and we crouched down in the bracken, under a\nloose wall. When we had gone through the usual topics he asked me if\nI was fond of songs, and began singing to show what he could do.\n\nThe music was much like what I have heard before on the islands--a\nmonotonous chant with pauses on the high and low notes to mark the\nrhythm; but the harsh nasal tone in which he sang was almost\nintolerable. His performance reminded me in general effect of a\nchant I once heard from a party of Orientals I was travelling with\nin a third-class carriage from Paris to Dieppe, but the islander ran\nhis voice over a much wider range.\n\nHis pronunciation was lost in the rasping of his throat, and, though\nhe shrieked into my ear to make sure that I understood him above the\nhowling of the wind, I could only make out that it was an endless\nballad telling the fortune of a young man who went to sea, and had\nmany adventures. The English nautical terms were employed\ncontinually in describing his life on the ship, but the man seemed\nto feel that they were not in their place, and stopped short when\none of them occurred to give me a poke with his finger and explain\ngib, topsail, and bowsprit, which were for me the most intelligible\nfeatures of the poem. Again, when the scene changed to Dublin,\n'glass of whiskey,' 'public-house,' and such things were in English.\n\nWhen the shower was over he showed me a curious cave hidden among\nthe cliffs, a short distance from the sea. On our way back he asked\nme the three questions I am met with on every side--whether I am a\nrich man, whether I am married, and whether I have ever seen a\npoorer place than these islands.\n\nWhen he heard that I was not married he urged me to come back in the\nsummer so that he might take me over in a curagh to the Spa in\nCounty Glare, where there is 'spree mor agus go leor ladies' ('a big\nspree and plenty of ladies').\n\nSomething about the man repelled me while I was with him, and though\nI was cordial and liberal he seemed to feel that I abhorred him. We\narranged to meet again in the evening, but when I dragged myself\nwith an inexplicable loathing to the place of meeting, there was no\ntrace of him.\n\nIt is characteristic that this man, who is probably a drunkard and\nshebeener and certainly in penury, refused the chance of a shilling\nbecause he felt that I did not like him. He had a curiously mixed\nexpression of hardness and melancholy. Probably his character has\ngiven him a bad reputation on the island, and he lives here with the\nrestlessness of a man who has no sympathy with his companions.\n\nI have come over again to Inishmaan, and this time I had fine\nweather for my passage. The air was full of luminous sunshine from\nthe early morning, and it was almost a summer's day when I set sail\nat noon with Michael and two other men who had come over for me in a\ncuragh.\n\nThe wind was in our favour, so the sail was put up and Michael sat\nin the stem to steer with an oar while I rowed with the others.\n\nWe had had a good dinner and drink and were wrought up by this\nsudden revival of summer to a dreamy voluptuous gaiety, that made us\nshout with exultation to hear our voices passing out across the blue\ntwinkling of the sea.\n\nEven after the people of the south island, these men of Inishmaan\nseemed to be moved by strange archaic sympathies with the world.\nTheir mood accorded itself with wonderful fineness to the\nsuggestions of the day, and their ancient Gaelic seemed so full of\ndivine simplicity that I would have liked to turn the prow to the\nwest and row with them for ever.\n\nI told them I was going back to Paris in a few days to sell my books\nand my bed, and that then I was coming back to grow as strong and\nsimple as they were among the islands of the west.\n\nWhen our excitement sobered down, Michael told me that one of the\npriests had left his gun at our cottage and given me leave to use it\ntill he returned to the island. There was another gun and a ferret\nin the house also, and he said that as soon as we got home he was\ngoing to take me out fowling on rabbits.\n\nA little later in the day we set off, and I nearly laughed to see\nMichael's eagerness that I should turn out a good shot.\n\nWe put the ferret down in a crevice between two bare sheets of rock,\nand waited. In a few minutes we heard rushing paws underneath us,\nthen a rabbit shot up straight into the air from the crevice at our\nfeet and set off for a wall that was a few feet away. I threw up the\ngun and fired.\n\n'Buail tu e,' screamed Michael at my elbow as he ran up the rock. I\nhad killed it.\n\nWe shot seven or eight more in the next hour, and Michael was\nimmensely pleased. If I had done badly I think I should have had to\nleave the islands. The people would have despised me. A 'duine\nuasal' who cannot shoot seems to these descendants of hunters a\nfallen type who is worse than an apostate.\n\nThe women of this island are before conventionality, and share some\nof the liberal features that are thought peculiar to the women of\nParis and New York.\n\nMany of them are too contented and too sturdy to have more than a\ndecorative interest, but there are others full of curious\nindividuality.\n\nThis year I have got to know a wonderfully humorous girl, who has\nbeen spinning in the kitchen for the last few days with the old\nwoman's spinning-wheel. The morning she began I heard her exquisite\nintonation almost before I awoke, brooding and cooing over every\nsyllable she uttered.\n\nI have heard something similar in the voices of German and Polish\nwomen, but I do not think men--at least European men--who are always\nfurther than women from the simple, animal emotions, or any speakers\nwho use languages with weak gutturals, like French or English, can\nproduce this inarticulate chant in their ordinary talk.\n\nShe plays continual tricks with her Gaelic in the way girls are fond\nof, piling up diminutives and repeating adjectives with a humorous\nscorn of syntax. While she is here the talk never stops in the\nkitchen. To-day she has been asking me many questions about Germany,\nfor it seems one of her sisters married a German husband in America\nsome years ago, who kept her in great comfort, with a fine 'capull\nglas' ('grey horse') to ride on, and this girl has decided to escape\nin the same way from the drudgery of the island.\n\nThis was my last evening on my stool in the chimney corner, and I\nhad a long talk with some neighbours who came in to bid me\nprosperity, and lay about on the floor with their heads on low\nstools and their feet stretched out to the embers of the turf. The\nold woman was at the other side of the fire, and the girl I have\nspoken of was standing at her spinning-wheel, talking and joking\nwith every one. She says when I go away now I am to marry a rich\nwife with plenty of money, and if she dies on me I am to come back\nhere and marry herself for my second wife.\n\nI have never heard talk so simple and so attractive as the talk of\nthese people. This evening they began disputing about their wives,\nand it appeared that the greatest merit they see in a woman is that\nshe should be fruitful and bring them many children. As no money can\nbe earned by children on the island this one attitude shows the\nimmense difference between these people and the people of Paris.\n\nThe direct sexual instincts are not weak on the island, but they are\nso subordinated to the instincts of the family that they rarely lead\nto irregularity. The life here is still at an almost patriarchal\nstage, and the people are nearly as far from the romantic moods of\nlove as they are from the impulsive life of the savage.\n\nThe wind was so high this morning that there was some doubt whether\nthe steamer would arrive, and I spent half the day wandering about\nwith Michael watching the horizon.\n\nAt last, when we had given her up, she came in sight far away to the\nnorth, where she had gone to have the wind with her where the sea\nwas at its highest.\n\nI got my baggage from the cottage and set off for the slip with\nMichael and the old man, turning into a cottage here and there to\nsay good-bye.\n\nIn spite of the wind outside, the sea at the slip was as calm as a\npool. The men who were standing about while the steamer was at the\nsouth island wondered for the last time whether I would be married\nwhen I came back to see them. Then we pulled out and took our place\nin the line. As the tide was running hard the steamer stopped a\ncertain distance from the shore, and gave us a long race for good\nplaces at her side. In the struggle we did not come off well, so I\nhad to clamber across two curaghs, twisting and fumbling with the\nroll, in order to get on board.\n\nIt seemed strange to see the curaghs full of well-known faces\nturning back to the slip without me, but the roll in the sound soon\ntook off my attention. Some men were on board whom I had seen on the\nsouth island, and a good many Kilronan people on their way home from\nGalway, who told me that in one part of their passage in the morning\nthey had come in for heavy seas.\n\nAs is usual on Saturday, the steamer had a large cargo of flour and\nporter to discharge at Kilronan, and, as it was nearly four o'clock\nbefore the tide could float her at the pier, I felt some doubt about\nour passage to Galway.\n\nThe wind increased as the afternoon went on, and when I came down in\nthe twilight I found that the cargo was not yet all unladen, and\nthat the captain feared to face the gale that was rising. It was\nsome time before he came to a final decision, and we walked\nbackwards and forwards from the village with heavy clouds flying\noverhead and the wind howling in the walls. At last he telegraphed\nto Galway to know if he was wanted the next day, and we went into a\npublic-house to wait for the reply.\n\nThe kitchen was filled with men sitting closely on long forms ranged\nin lines at each side of the fire. A wild-looking but beautiful girl\nwas kneeling on the hearth talking loudly to the men, and a few\nnatives of Inishmaan were hanging about the door, miserably drunk.\nAt the end of the kitchen the bar was arranged, with a sort of\nalcove beside it, where some older men were playing cards. Overhead\nthere were the open rafters, filled with turf and tobacco smoke.\n\nThis is the haunt so much dreaded by the women of the other islands,\nwhere the men linger with their money till they go out at last with\nreeling steps and are lost in the sound. Without this background of\nempty curaghs, and bodies floating naked with the tide, there would\nbe something almost absurd about the dissipation of this simple\nplace where men sit, evening after evening, drinking bad whisky and\nporter, and talking with endless repetition of fishing, and kelp,\nand of the sorrows of purgatory.\n\nWhen we had finished our whiskey word came that the boat might\nremain.\n\nWith some difficulty I got my bags out of the steamer and carried\nthem up through the crowd of women and donkeys that were still\nstruggling on the quay in an inconceivable medley of flour-bags and\ncases of petroleum. When I reached the inn the old woman was in\ngreat good humour, and I spent some time talking by the kitchen\nfire. Then I groped my way back to the harbour, where, I was told,\nthe old net-mender, who came to see me on my first visit to the\nislands, was spending the night as watchman.\n\nIt was quite dark on the pier, and a terrible gale was blowing.\nThere was no one in the little office where I expected to find him,\nso I groped my way further on towards a figure I saw moving with a\nlantern.\n\nIt was the old man, and he remembered me at once when I hailed him\nand told him who I was. He spent some time arranging one of his\nlanterns, and then he took me back to his office--a mere shed of\nplanks and corrugated iron, put up for the contractor of some work\nwhich is in progress on the pier.\n\nWhen we reached the light I saw that his head was rolled up in an\nextraordinary collection of mufflers to keep him from the cold, and\nthat his face was much older than when I saw him before, though\nstill full of intelligence.\n\nHe began to tell how he had gone to see a relative of mine in Dublin\nwhen he first left the island as a cabin-boy, between forty and\nfifty years ago.\n\nHe told his story with the usual detail:--\n\nWe saw a man walking about on the quay in Dublin, and looking at us\nwithout saying a word. Then he came down to the yacht. 'Are you the\nmen from Aran?' said he.\n\n'We are,' said we.\n\n'You're to come with me so,' said he. 'Why?' said we.\n\nThen he told us it was Mr. Synge had sent him and we went with him.\nMr. Synge brought us into his kitchen and gave the men a glass of\nwhisky all round, and a half-glass to me because I was a boy--though\nat that time and to this day I can drink as much as two men and not\nbe the worse of it. We were some time in the kitchen, then one of\nthe men said we should be going. I said it would not be right to go\nwithout saying a word to Mr. Synge. Then the servant-girl went up\nand brought him down, and he gave us another glass of whisky, and he\ngave me a book in Irish because I was going to sea, and I was able\nto read in the Irish.\n\nI owe it to Mr. Synge and that book that when I came back here,\nafter not hearing a word of Irish for thirty years, I had as good\nIrish, or maybe better Irish, than any person on the island.\n\nI could see all through his talk that the sense of superiority which\nhis scholarship in this little-known language gave him above the\nordinary seaman, had influenced his whole personality and been the\ncentral interest of his life.\n\nOn one voyage he had a fellow-sailor who often boasted that he had\nbeen at school and learned Greek, and this incident took place:--\n\nOne night we had a quarrel, and I asked him could he read a Greek\nbook with all his talk of it.\n\n'I can so,' said he.\n\n'We'll see that,' said I.\n\nThen I got the Irish book out of my chest, and I gave it into his\nhand.\n\n'Read that to me,' said I, 'if you know Greek.'\n\nHe took it, and he looked at it this way, and that way, and not a\nbit of him could make it out.\n\n'Bedad, I've forgotten my Greek,' said he.\n\n'You're telling a lie,' said I. 'I'm not,' said he; 'it's the divil\na bit I can read it.'\n\nThen I took the book back into my hand, and said to him--'It's the\nsorra a word of Greek you ever knew in your life, for there's not a\nword of Greek in that book, and not a bit of you knew.'\n\nHe told me another story of the only time he had heard Irish spoken\nduring his voyages:--\n\nOne night I was in New York, walking in the streets with some other\nmen, and we came upon two women quarrelling in Irish at the door of\na public-house.\n\n'What's that jargon?' said one of the men.\n\n'It's no jargon,' said I.\n\n'What is it?' said he.\n\n'It's Irish,' said I.\n\nThen I went up to them, and you know, sir, there is no language like\nthe Irish for soothing and quieting. The moment I spoke to them they\nstopped scratching and swearing and stood there as quiet as two\nlambs.\n\nThen they asked me in Irish if I wouldn't come in and have a drink,\nand I said I couldn't leave my mates.\n\n'Bring them too,' said they.\n\nThen we all had a drop together.\n\nWhile we were talking another man had slipped in and sat down in the\ncorner with his pipe, and the rain had become so heavy we could\nhardly hear our voices over the noise on the iron roof.\n\nThe old man went on telling of his experiences at sea and the places\nhe had been to.\n\n'If I had my life to live over again,' he said, 'there's no other\nway I'd spend it. I went in and out everywhere and saw everything. I\nwas never afraid to take my glass, though I was never drunk in my\nlife, and I was a great player of cards though I never played for\nmoney.'\n\n'There's no diversion at all in cards if you don't play for money'\nsaid the man in the corner.\n\n'There was no use in my playing for money' said the old man, 'for\nI'd always lose, and what's the use in playing if you always lose?'\n\nThen our conversation branched off to the Irish language and the\nbooks written in it.\n\nHe began to criticise Archbishop MacHale's version of Moore's Irish\nMelodies with great severity and acuteness, citing whole poems both\nin the English and Irish, and then giving versions that he had made\nhimself.\n\n'A translation is no translation,' he said, 'unless it will give you\nthe music of a poem along with the words of it. In my translation\nyou won't find a foot or a syllable that's not in the English, yet\nI've put down all his words mean, and nothing but it. Archbishop\nMacHale's work is a most miserable production.'\n\nFrom the verses he cited his judgment seemed perfectly justified,\nand even if he was wrong, it is interesting to note that this poor\nsailor and night-watchman was ready to rise up and criticise an\neminent dignitary and scholar on rather delicate points of\nversification and the finer distinctions between old words of\nGaelic.\n\nIn spite of his singular intelligence and minute observation his\nreasoning was medieval.\n\nI asked him what he thought about the future of the language on\nthese islands.\n\n'It can never die out,' said he, 'because there's no family in the\nplace can live without a bit of a field for potatoes, and they have\nonly the Irish words for all that they do in the fields. They sail\ntheir new boats--their hookers--in English, but they sail a curagh\noftener in Irish, and in the fields they have the Irish alone. It\ncan never die out, and when the people begin to see it fallen very\nlow, it will rise up again like the phoenix from its own ashes.'\n\n'And the Gaelic League?' I asked him.\n\n'The Gaelic League! Didn't they come down here with their organisers\nand their secretaries, and their meetings and their speechifyings,\nand start a branch of it, and teach a power of Irish for five weeks\nand a half!' [a]\n\n'What do we want here with their teaching Irish?' said the man in\nthe corner; 'haven't we Irish enough?'\n\n'You have not,' said the old man; 'there's not a soul in Aran can\ncount up to nine hundred and ninety-nine without using an English\nword but myself.'\n\nIt was getting late, and the rain had lessened for a moment, so I\ngroped my way back to the inn through the intense darkness of a late\nautumn night.\n\n[a] This was written, it should be remembered, some years ago.\n\n\n\n\nPart IV\n\n\nNo two journeys to these islands are alike. This morning I sailed\nwith the steamer a little after five o'clock in a cold night air,\nwith the stars shining on the bay. A number of Claddagh fishermen\nhad been out all night fishing not far from the harbour, and without\nthinking, or perhaps caring to think, of the steamer, they had put\nout their nets in the channel where she was to pass. Just before we\nstarted the mate sounded the steam whistle repeatedly to give them\nwarning, saying as he did so--\n\n'If you were out now in the bay, gentlemen, you'd hear some fine\nprayers being said.'\n\nWhen we had gone a little way we began to see the light from the\nturf fires carried by the fishermen flickering on the water, and to\nhear a faint noise of angry voices. Then the outline of a large\nfishing-boat came in sight through the darkness, with the forms of\nthree men who stood on the course. The captain feared to turn aside,\nas there are sandbanks near the channel, so the engines were stopped\nand we glided over the nets without doing them harm. As we passed\nclose to the boat the crew could be seen plainly on the deck, one of\nthem holding the bucket of red turf, and their abuse could be\ndistinctly heard. It changed continually, from profuse Gaelic\nmaledictions to the simpler curses they know in English. As they\nspoke they could be seen writhing and twisting themselves with\npassion against the light which was beginning to turn on the ripple\nof the sea. Soon afterwards another set of voices began in front of\nus, breaking out in strange contrast with the dwindling stars and\nthe silence of the dawn.\n\nFurther on we passed many boats that let us go by without a word, as\ntheir nets were not in the channel. Then day came on rapidly with\ncold showers that turned golden in the first rays from the sun,\nfilling the troughs of the sea with curious transparencies and\nlight.\n\nThis year I have brought my fiddle with me so that I may have\nsomething new to keep up the interest of the people. I have played\nfor them several tunes, but as far as I can judge they do not feel\nmodern music, though they listen eagerly from curiosity. Irish airs\nlike 'Eileen Aroon' please them better, but it is only when I play\nsome jig like the 'Black Rogue'--which is known on the island--that\nthey seem to respond to the full meaning of the notes. Last night I\nplayed for a large crowd, which had come together for another\npurpose from all parts of the island.\n\nAbout six o'clock I was going into the schoolmaster's house, and I\nheard a fierce wrangle going on between a man and a woman near the\ncottages to the west, that lie below the road. While I was listening\nto them several women came down to listen also from behind the wall,\nand told me that the people who were fighting were near relations\nwho lived side by side and often quarrelled about trifles, though\nthey were as good friends as ever the next day. The voices sounded\nso enraged that I thought mischief would come of it, but the women\nlaughed at the idea. Then a lull came, and I said that they seemed\nto have finished at last.\n\n'Finished!' said one of the women; 'sure they haven't rightly begun.\nIt's only playing they are yet.'\n\nIt was just after sunset and the evening was bitterly cold, so I\nwent into the house and left them.\n\nAn hour later the old man came down from my cottage to say that some\nof the lads and the 'fear lionta' ('the man of the nets'--a young\nman from Aranmor who is teaching net-mending to the boys) were up at\nthe house, and had sent him down to tell me they would like to\ndance, if I would come up and play for them.\n\nI went out at once, and as soon as I came into the air I heard the\ndispute going on still to the west more violently than ever. The\nnews of it had gone about the island, and little bands of girls and\nboys were running along the lanes towards the scene of the quarrel\nas eagerly as if they were going to a racecourse. I stopped for a\nfew minutes at the door of our cottage to listen to the volume of\nabuse that was rising across the stillness of the island. Then I\nwent into the kitchen and began tuning the fiddle, as the boys were\nimpatient for my music. At first I tried to play standing, but on\nthe upward stroke my bow came in contact with the salt-fish and\noil-skins that hung from the rafters, so I settled myself at last on\na table in the corner, where I was out of the way, and got one of\nthe people to hold up my music before me, as I had no stand. I\nplayed a French melody first, to get myself used to the people and\nthe qualities of the room, which has little resonance between the\nearth floor and the thatch overhead. Then I struck up the 'Black\nRogue,' and in a moment a tall man bounded out from his stool under\nthe chimney and began flying round the kitchen with peculiarly sure\nand graceful bravado.\n\nThe lightness of the pampooties seems to make the dancing on this\nisland lighter and swifter than anything I have seen on the\nmainland, and the simplicity of the men enables them to throw a\nnaive extravagance into their steps that is impossible in places\nwhere the people are self-conscious.\n\nThe speed, however, was so violent that I had some difficulty in\nkeeping up, as my fingers were not in practice, and I could not take\noff more than a small part of my attention to watch what was going\non. When I finished I heard a commotion at the door, and the whole\nbody of people who had gone down to watch the quarrel filed into the\nkitchen and arranged themselves around the walls, the women and\ngirls, as is usual, forming themselves in one compact mass crouching\non their heels near the door.\n\nI struck up another dance--'Paddy get up'--and the 'fear lionta' and\nthe first dancer went through it together, with additional rapidity\nand grace, as they were excited by the presence of the people who\nhad come in. Then word went round that an old man, known as Little\nRoger, was outside, and they told me he was once the best dancer on\nthe island.\n\nFor a long time he refused to come in, for he said he was too old to\ndance, but at last he was persuaded, and the people brought him in\nand gave him a stool opposite me. It was some time longer before he\nwould take his turn, and when he did so, though he was met with\ngreat clapping of hands, he only danced for a few moments. He did\nnot know the dances in my book, he said, and did not care to dance\nto music he was not familiar with. When the people pressed him again\nhe looked across to me.\n\n'John,' he said, in shaking English, 'have you got \"Larry Grogan,\"\nfor it is an agreeable air?'\n\nI had not, so some of the young men danced again to the 'Black\nRogue,' and then the party broke up. The altercation was still going\non at the cottage below us, and the people were anxious to see what\nwas coming of it.\n\nAbout ten o'clock a young man came in and told us that the fight was\nover.\n\n'They have been at it for four hours,' he said, 'and now they're\ntired.'\n\nIndeed it is time they were, for you'd rather be listening to a man\nkilling a pig than to the noise they were letting out of them.'\n\nAfter the dancing and excitement we were too stirred up to be\nsleepy, so we sat for a long time round the embers of the turf,\ntalking and smoking by the light of the candle.\n\nFrom ordinary music we came to talk of the music of the fairies, and\nthey told me this story, when I had told them some stories of my\nown:--\n\nA man who lives in the other end of the village got his gun one day\nand went out to look for rabbits in a thicket near the small Dun. He\nsaw a rabbit sitting up under a tree, and he lifted his gun to take\naim at it, but just as he had it covered he heard a kind of music\nover his head, and he looked up into the sky. When he looked back\nfor the rabbit, not a bit of it was to be seen.\n\nHe went on after that, and he heard the music again.\n\nThen he looked over a wall, and he saw a rabbit sitting up by the\nwall with a sort of flute in its mouth, and it playing on it with\nits two fingers!\n\n'What sort of rabbit was that?' said the old woman when they had\nfinished. 'How could that be a right rabbit? I remember old Pat\nDirane used to be telling us he was once out on the cliffs, and he\nsaw a big rabbit sitting down in a hole under a flagstone. He called\na man who was with him, and they put a hook on the end of a stick\nand ran it down into the hole. Then a voice called up to them--\n\n'\"Ah, Phaddrick, don't hurt me with the hook!\"\n\n'Pat was a great rogue,' said the old man. 'Maybe you remember the\nbits of horns he had like handles on the end of his sticks? Well,\none day there was a priest over and he said to Pat--\"Is it the\ndevil's horns you have on your sticks, Pat?\" \"I don't rightly know\"\nsaid Pat, \"but if it is, it's the devil's milk you've been drinking,\nsince you've been able to drink, and the devil's flesh you've been\neating and the devil's butter you've been putting on your bread, for\nI've seen the like of them horns on every old cow through the\ncountry.\"'\n\nThe weather has been rough, but early this afternoon the sea was\ncalm enough for a hooker to come in with turf from Connemara, though\nwhile she was at the pier the roll was so great that the men had to\nkeep a watch on the waves and loosen the cable whenever a large one\nwas coming in, so that she might ease up with the water.\n\nThere were only two men on board, and when she was empty they had\nsome trouble in dragging in the cables, hoisting the sails, and\ngetting out of the harbour before they could be blown on the rocks.\n\nA heavy shower came on soon afterwards, and I lay down under a stack\nof turf with some people who were standing about, to wait for\nanother hooker that was coming in with horses. They began talking\nand laughing about the dispute last night and the noise made at it.\n\n'The worst fights do be made here over nothing,' said an old man\nnext me. 'Did Mourteen or any of them on the big island ever tell\nyou of the fight they had there threescore years ago when they were\nkilling each other with knives out on the strand?'\n\n'They never told me,' I said.\n\n'Well,' said he, 'they were going down to cut weed, and a man was\nsharpening his knife on a stone before he went. A young boy came\ninto the kitchen, and he said to the man--\"What are you sharpening\nthat knife for?\"'\n\n'\"To kill your father with,\" said the man, and they the best of\nfriends all the time. The young boy went back to his house and told\nhis father there was a man sharpening a knife to kill him.\n\n'\"Bedad,\" said the father, \"if he has a knife I'll have one, too.\"\n\n'He sharpened his knife after that, and they went down to the\nstrand. Then the two men began making fun about their knives, and\nfrom that they began raising their voices, and it wasn't long before\nthere were ten men fighting with their knives, and they never\nstopped till there were five of them dead.\n\n'They buried them the day after, and when they were coming home,\nwhat did they see but the boy who began the work playing about with\nthe son of the other man, and their two fathers down in their\ngraves.'\n\nWhen he stopped, a gust of wind came and blew up a bundle of dry\nseaweed that was near us, right over our heads.\n\nAnother old man began to talk.\n\n'That was a great wind,' he said. 'I remember one time there was a\nman in the south island who had a lot of wool up in shelter against\nthe corner of a wall. He was after washing it, and drying it, and\nturning it, and he had it all nice and clean the way they could card\nit. Then a wind came down and the wool began blowing all over the\nwall. The man was throwing out his arms on it and trying to stop it,\nand another man saw him.\n\n'\"The devil mend your head!\" says he, \"the like of that wind is too\nstrong for you.\"\n\n'\"If the devil himself is in it,\" said the other man, \"I'll hold on\nto it while I can.\"\n\n'Then whether it was because of the word or not I don't know, but\nthe whole of the wool went up over his head and blew all over the\nisland, yet, when his wife came to spin afterwards she had all they\nexpected, as if that lot was not lost on them at all.'\n\n'There was more than that in it,' said another man, 'for the night\nbefore a woman had a great sight out to the west in this island, and\nsaw all the people that were dead a while back in this island and\nthe south island, and they all talking with each other. There was a\nman over from the other island that night, and he heard the woman\ntalking of what she had seen. The next day he went back to the south\nisland, and I think he was alone in the curagh. As soon as he came\nnear the other island he saw a man fishing from the cliffs, and this\nman called out to him--\n\n'\"Make haste now and go up and tell your mother to hide the\npoteen\"--his mother used to sell poteen--\"for I'm after seeing the\nbiggest party of peelers and yeomanry passing by on the rocks was\never seen on the island.\" It was at that time the wool was taken\nwith the other man above, under the hill, and no peelers in the\nisland at all.'\n\nA little after that the old men went away, and I was left with some\nyoung men between twenty and thirty, who talked to me of different\nthings. One of them asked me if ever I was drunk, and another told\nme I would be right to marry a girl out of this island, for they\nwere nice women in it, fine fat girls, who would be strong, and have\nplenty of children, and not be wasting my money on me.\n\nWhen the horses were coming ashore a curagh that was far out after\nlobster-pots came hurrying in, and a man out of her ran up the\nsandhills to meet a little girl who was coming down with a bundle of\nSunday clothes. He changed them on the sand and then went out to the\nhooker, and went off to Connemara to bring back his horses.\n\nA young married woman I used often to talk with is dying of a\nfever--typhus I am told--and her husband and brothers have gone off\nin a curagh to get the doctor and the priest from the north island,\nthough the sea is rough.\n\nI watched them from the Dun for a long time after they had started.\nWind and rain were driving through the sound, and I could see no\nboats or people anywhere except this one black curagh splashing and\nstruggling through the waves. When the wind fell a little I could\nhear people hammering below me to the east. The body of a young man\nwho was drowned a few weeks ago came ashore this morning, and his\nfriends have been busy all day making a coffin in the yard of the\nhouse where he lived.\n\nAfter a while the curagh went out of sight into the mist, and I came\ndown to the cottage shuddering with cold and misery.\n\nThe old woman was keening by the fire.\n\n'I have been to the house where the young man is,' she said, 'but I\ncouldn't go to the door with the air was coming out of it. They say\nhis head isn't on him at all, and indeed it isn't any wonder and he\nthree weeks in the sea. Isn't it great danger and sorrow is over\nevery one on this island?'\n\nI asked her if the curagh would soon be coming back with the priest.\n'It will not be coming soon or at all to-night,' she said. 'The wind\nhas gone up now, and there will come no curagh to this island for\nmaybe two days or three. And wasn't it a cruel thing to see the\nhaste was on them, and they in danger all the time to be drowned\nthemselves?'\n\nThen I asked her how the woman was doing.\n\n'She's nearly lost,' said the old woman; 'she won't be alive at all\ntomorrow morning. They have no boards to make her a coffin, and\nthey'll want to borrow the boards that a man below has had this two\nyears to bury his mother, and she alive still. I heard them saying\nthere are two more women with the fever, and a child that's not\nthree. The Lord have mercy on us all!'\n\nI went out again to look over the sea, but night had fallen and the\nhurricane was howling over the Dun. I walked down the lane and heard\nthe keening in the house where the young man was. Further on I could\nsee a stir about the door of the cottage that had been last struck\nby typhus. Then I turned back again in the teeth of the rain, and\nsat over the fire with the old man and woman talking of the sorrows\nof the people till it was late in the night.\n\nThis evening the old man told me a story he had heard long ago on\nthe mainland:--\n\nThere was a young woman, he said, and she had a child. In a little\ntime the woman died and they buried her the day after. That night\nanother woman--a woman of the family--was sitting by the fire with\nthe child on her lap, giving milk to it out of a cup. Then the woman\nthey were after burying opened the door, and came into the house.\nShe went over to the fire, and she took a stool and sat down before\nthe other woman. Then she put out her hand and took the child on her\nlap, and gave it her breast. After that she put the child in the\ncradle and went over to the dresser and took milk and potatoes off\nit, and ate them. Then she went out. The other woman was frightened,\nand she told the man of the house when he came back, and two young\nmen. They said they would be there the next night, and if she came\nback they would catch hold of her. She came the next night and gave\nthe child her breast, and when she got up to go to the dresser, the\nman of the house caught hold of her, but he fell down on the floor.\nThen the two young men caught hold of her and they held her. She\ntold them she was away with the fairies, and they could not keep her\nthat night, though she was eating no food with the fairies, the way\nshe might be able to come back to her child. Then she told them they\nwould all be leaving that part of the country on the Oidhche\nShamhna, and that there would be four or five hundred of them riding\non horses, and herself would be on a grey horse, riding behind a\nyoung man. And she told them to go down to a bridge they would be\ncrossing that night, and to wait at the head of it, and when she\nwould be coming up she would slow the horse and they would be able\nto throw something on her and on the young man, and they would fall\nover on the ground and be saved.\n\nShe went away then, and on the Oidhche Shamhna the men went down and\ngot her back. She had four children after that, and in the end she\ndied.\n\nIt was not herself they buried at all the first time, but some old\nthing the fairies put in her place.\n\n'There are people who say they don't believe in these things,' said\nthe old woman, 'but there are strange things, let them say what they\nwill. There was a woman went to bed at the lower village a while\nago, and her child along with her. For a time they did not sleep,\nand then something came to the window, and they heard a voice and\nthis is what it said--\n\n'\"It is time to sleep from this out.\"\n\n'In the morning the child was dead, and indeed it is many get their\ndeath that way on the island.'\n\nThe young man has been buried, and his funeral was one of the\nstrangest scenes I have met with. People could be seen going down to\nhis house from early in the day, yet when I went there with the old\nman about the middle of the afternoon, the coffin was still lying in\nfront of the door, with the men and women of the family standing\nround beating it, and keening over it, in a great crowd of people. A\nlittle later every one knelt down and a last prayer was said. Then\nthe cousins of the dead man got ready two oars and some pieces of\nrope--the men of his own family seemed too broken with grief to know\nwhat they were doing--the coffin was tied up, and the procession\nbegan. The old woman walked close behind the coffin, and I happened\nto take a place just after them, among the first of the men. The\nrough lane to the graveyard slopes away towards the east, and the\ncrowd of women going down before me in their red dresses, cloaked\nwith red pethcoats, with the waistband that is held round the head\njust seen from behind, had a strange effect, to which the white\ncoffin and the unity of colour gave a nearly cloistral quietness.\n\nThis time the graveyard was filled with withered grass and bracken\ninstead of the early ferns that were to be seen everywhere at the\nother funeral I have spoken of, and the grief of the people was of a\ndifferent kind, as they had come to bury a young man who had died in\nhis first manhood, instead of an old woman of eighty. For this\nreason the keen lost a part of its formal nature, and was recited as\nthe expression of intense personal grief by the young men and women\nof the man's own family.\n\nWhen the coffin had been laid down, near the grave that was to be\nopened, two long switches were cut out from the brambles among the\nrocks, and the length and breadth of the coffin were marked on them.\nThen the men began their work, clearing off stones and thin layers\nof earth, and breaking up an old coffin that was in the place into\nwhich the new one had to be lowered. When a number of blackened\nboards and pieces of bone had been thrown up with the clay, a skull\nwas lifted out, and placed upon a gravestone. Immediately the old\nwoman, the mother of the dead man, took it up in her hands, and\ncarried it away by herself. Then she sat down and put it in her\nlap--it was the skull of her own mother--and began keening and\nshrieking over it with the wildest lamentation.\n\nAs the pile of mouldering clay got higher beside the grave a heavy\nsmell began to rise from it, and the men hurried with their work,\nmeasuring the hole repeatedly with the two rods of bramble. When it\nwas nearly deep enough the old woman got up and came back to the\ncoffin, and began to beat on it, holding the skull in her left hand.\nThis last moment of grief was the most terrible of all. The young\nwomen were nearly lying among the stones, worn out with their\npassion of grief, yet raising themselves every few moments to beat\nwith magnificent gestures on the boards of the coffin. The young men\nwere worn out also, and their voices cracked continually in the wail\nof the keen.\n\nWhen everything was ready the sheet was unpinned from the coffin,\nand it was lowered into its place. Then an old man took a wooden\nvessel with holy water in it, and a wisp of bracken, and the people\ncrowded round him while he splashed the water over them. They seemed\neager to get as much of it as possible, more than one old woman\ncrying out with a humorous voice--\n\n'Tabhair dham braon eile, a Mhourteen.' ('Give me another drop,\nMartin.')\n\nWhen the grave was half filled in, I wandered round towards the\nnorth watching two seals that were chasing each other near the surf.\nI reached the Sandy Head as the light began to fail, and found some\nof the men I knew best fishing there with a sort of dragnet. It is a\ntedious process, and I sat for a long time on the sand watching the\nnet being put out, and then drawn in again by eight men working\ntogether with a slow rhythmical movement.\n\nAs they talked to me and gave me a little poteen and a little bread\nwhen they thought I was hungry, I could not help feeling that I was\ntalking with men who were under a judgment of death. I knew that\nevery one of them would be drowned in the sea in a few years and\nbattered naked on the rocks, or would die in his own cottage and be\nburied with another fearful scene in the graveyard I had come from.\n\nWhen I got up this morning I found that the people had gone to Mass\nand latched the kitchen door from the outside, so that I could not\nopen it to give myself light.\n\nI sat for nearly an hour beside the fire with a curious feeling that\nI should be quite alone in this little cottage. I am so used to\nsitting here with the people that I have never felt the room before\nas a place where any man might live and work by himself. After a\nwhile as I waited, with just light enough from the chimney to let me\nsee the rafters and the greyness of the walls, I became\nindescribably mournful, for I felt that this little corner on the\nface of the world, and the people who live in it, have a peace and\ndignity from which we are shut for ever.\n\nWhile I was dreaming, the old woman came in in a great hurry and\nmade tea for me and the young priest, who followed her a little\nlater drenched with rain and spray.\n\nThe curate who has charge of the middle and south islands has a\nwearisome and dangerous task. He comes to this island or Inishere on\nSaturday night--whenever the sea is calm enough--and has Mass the\nfirst thing on Sunday morning. Then he goes down fasting and is\nrowed across to the other island and has Mass again, so that it is\nabout midday when he gets a hurried breakfast before he sets off\nagain for Aranmore, meeting often on both passages a rough and\nperilous sea.\n\nA couple of Sundays ago I was lying outside the cottage in the\nsunshine smoking my pipe, when the curate, a man of the greatest\nkindliness and humour, came up, wet and worn out, to have his first\nmeal. He looked at me for a moment and then shook his head.\n\n'Tell me,' he said, 'did you read your Bible this morning?'\n\nI answered that I had not done so.\n\n'Well, begod, Mr. Synge,' he went on, 'if you ever go to Heaven,\nyou'll have a great laugh at us.'\n\nAlthough these people are kindly towards each other and to their\nchildren, they have no feeling for the sufferings of animals, and\nlittle sympathy for pain when the person who feels it is not in\ndanger. I have sometimes seen a girl writhing and howling with\ntoothache while her mother sat at the other side of the fireplace\npointing at her and laughing at her as if amused by the sight.\n\nA few days ago, when we had been talking of the death of President\nMcKinley, I explained the American way of killing murderers, and a\nman asked me how long the man who killed the President would be\ndying.\n\n'While you'd be snapping your fingers,' I said.\n\n'Well,' said the man, 'they might as well hang him so, and not be\nbothering themselves with all them wires. A man who would kill a\nKing or a President knows he has to die for it, and it's only giving\nhim the thing he bargained for if he dies easy. It would be right he\nshould be three weeks dying, and there'd be fewer of those things\ndone in the world.'\n\nIf two dogs fight at the slip when we are waiting for the steamer,\nthe men are delighted and do all they can to keep up the fury of the\nbattle.\n\nThey tie down donkeys' heads to their hoofs to keep them from\nstraying, in a way that must cause horrible pain, and sometimes when\nI go into a cottage I find all the women of the place down on their\nknees plucking the feathers from live ducks and geese.\n\nWhen the people are in pain themselves they make no attempt to hide\nor control their feelings. An old man who was ill in the winter took\nme out the other day to show me how far down the road they could\nhear him yelling 'the time he had a pain in his head.'\n\nThere was a great storm this morning, and I went up on the cliff to\nsit in the shanty they have made there for the men who watch for\nwrack. Soon afterwards a boy, who was out minding sheep, came up\nfrom the west, and we had a long talk.\n\nHe began by giving me the first connected account I have had of the\naccident that happened some time ago, when the young man was drowned\non his way to the south island.\n\n'Some men from the south island,' he said, 'came over and bought\nsome horses on this island, and they put them in a hooker to take\nacross. They wanted a curagh to go with them to tow the horses on to\nthe strand, and a young man said he would go, and they could give\nhim a rope and tow him behind the hooker. When they were out in the\nsound a wind came down on them, and the man in the curagh couldn't\nturn her to meet the waves, because the hooker was pulling her and\nshe began filling up with water.\n\n'When the men in the hooker saw it they began crying out one thing\nand another thing without knowing what to do. One man called out to\nthe man who was holding the rope: \"Let go the rope now, or you'll\nswamp her.\"\n\n'And the man with the rope threw it out on the water, and the curagh\nhalf-filled already, and I think only one oar in her. A wave came\ninto her then, and she went down before them, and the young man\nbegan swimming about; then they let fall the sails in the hooker the\nway they could pick him up. And when they had them down they were\ntoo far off, and they pulled the sails up again the way they could\ntack back to him. He was there in the water swimming round, and\nswimming round, and before they got up with him again he sank the\nthird time, and they didn't see any more of him.'\n\nI asked if anyone had seen him on the island since he was dead.\n\n'They have not,' he said, 'but there were queer things in it. Before\nhe went out on the sea that day his dog came up and sat beside him\non the rocks, and began crying. When the horses were coming down to\nthe slip an old woman saw her son, that was drowned a while ago,\nriding on one of them, She didn't say what she was after seeing, and\nthis man caught the horse, he caught his own horse first, and then\nhe caught this one, and after that he went out and was drowned. Two\ndays after I dreamed they found him on the Ceann gaine (the Sandy\nHead) and carried him up to the house on the plain, and took his\npampooties off him and hung them up on a nail to dry. It was there\nthey found him afterwards as you'll have heard them say.'\n\n'Are you always afraid when you hear a dog crying?' I said.\n\n'We don't like it,' he answered; 'you will often see them on the top\nof the rocks looking up into the heavens, and they crying. We don't\nlike it at all, and we don't like a cock or hen to break anything in\nthe house, for we know then some one will be going away. A while\nbefore the man who used to live in that cottage below died in the\nwinter, the cock belonging to his wife began to fight with another\ncock. The two of them flew up on the dresser and knocked the glass\nof the lamp off it, and it fell on the floor and was broken. The\nwoman caught her cock after that and killed it, but she could not\nkill the other cock, for it was belonging to the man who lived in\nthe next house. Then himself got a sickness and died after that.'\n\nI asked him if he ever heard the fairy music on the island.\n\n'I heard some of the boys talking in the school a while ago,' he\nsaid, 'and they were saying that their brothers and another man went\nout fishing a morning, two weeks ago, before the cock crew. When\nthey were down near the Sandy Head they heard music near them, and\nit was the fairies were in it. I've heard of other things too. One\ntime three men were out at night in a curagh, and they saw a big\nship coming down on them. They were frightened at it, and they tried\nto get away, but it came on nearer them, till one of the men turned\nround and made the sign of the cross, and then they didn't see it\nany more.'\n\nThen he went on in answer to another question:\n\n'We do often see the people who do be away with them. There was a\nyoung man died a year ago, and he used to come to the window of the\nhouse where his brothers slept, and be talking to them in the night.\nHe was married a while before that, and he used to be saying in the\nnight he was sorry he had not promised the land to his son, and that\nit was to him it should go. Another time he was saying something\nabout a mare, about her hoofs, or the shoes they should put on her.\nA little while ago Patch Ruadh saw him going down the road with\nbrogaarda (leather boots) on him and a new suit. Then two men saw\nhim in another place.\n\n'Do you see that straight wall of cliff?' he went on a few minutes\nlater, pointing to a place below us. 'It is there the fairies do be\nplaying ball in the night, and you can see the marks of their heels\nwhen you come in the morning, and three stones they have to mark the\nline, and another big stone they hop the ball on. It's often the\nboys have put away the three stones, and they will always be back\nagain in the morning, and a while since the man who owns the land\ntook the big stone itself and rolled it down and threw it over the\ncliff, yet in the morning it was back in its place before him.'\n\nI am in the south island again, and I have come upon some old men\nwith a wonderful variety of stories and songs, the last, fairly\noften, both in English and Irish, I went round to the house of one\nof them to-day, with a native scholar who can write Irish, and we\ntook down a certain number, and heard others. Here is one of the\ntales the old man told us at first before he had warmed to his\nsubject. I did not take it down, but it ran in this way:--\n\nThere was a man of the name of Charley Lambert, and every horse he\nwould ride in a race he would come in the first.\n\nThe people in the country were angry with him at last, and this law\nwas made, that he should ride no more at races, and if he rode, any\none who saw him would have the right to shoot him. After that there\nwas a gentleman from that part of the country over in England, and\nhe was talking one day with the people there, and he said that the\nhorses of Ireland were the best horses. The English said it was the\nEnglish horses were the best, and at last they said there should be\na race, and the English horses would come over and race against the\nhorses of Ireland, and the gentleman put all his money on that race.\n\nWell, when he came back to Ireland he went to Charley Lambert, and\nasked him to ride on his horse. Charley said he would not ride, and\ntold the gentleman the danger he'd be in. Then the gentleman told\nhim the way he had put all his property on the horse, and at last\nCharley asked where the races were to be, and the hour and the day.\nThe gentleman told him.\n\n'Let you put a horse with a bridle and saddle on it every seven\nmiles along the road from here to the racecourse on that day,' said\nLambert, 'and I'll be in it.'\n\nWhen the gentleman was gone, Charley stripped off his clothes and\ngot into his bed. Then he sent for the doctor, and when he heard him\ncoming he began throwing about his arms the way the doctor would\nthink his pulse was up with the fever.\n\nThe doctor felt his pulse and told him to stay quiet till the next\nday, when he would see him again.\n\nThe next day it was the same thing, and so on till the day of the\nraces. That morning Charley had his pulse beating so hard the doctor\nthought bad of him.\n\n'I'm going to the races now, Charley,' said he, 'but I'll come in\nand see you again when I'll be coming back in the evening, and let\nyou be very careful and quiet till you see me.'\n\nAs soon as he had gone Charley leapt up out of bed and got on his\nhorse, and rode seven miles to where the first horse was waiting for\nhim. Then he rode that horse seven miles, and another horse seven\nmiles more, till he came to the racecourse.\n\nHe rode on the gentleman's horse and he won the race.\n\nThere were great crowds looking on, and when they saw him coming in\nthey said it was Charley Lambert, or the devil was in it, for there\nwas no one else could bring in a horse the way he did, for the leg\nwas after being knocked off of the horse and he came in all the\nsame.\n\nWhen the race was over, he got up on the horse was waiting for him,\nand away with him for seven miles. Then he rode the other horse\nseven miles, and his own horse seven miles, and when he got home he\nthrew off his clothes and lay down on his bed.\n\nAfter a while the doctor came back and said it was a great race they\nwere after having.\n\nThe next day the people were saying it was Charley Lambert was the\nman who rode the horse. An inquiry was held, and the doctor swore\nthat Charley was ill in his bed, and he had seen him before the race\nand after it, so the gentleman saved his fortune.\n\nAfter that he told me another story of the same sort about a fairy\nrider, who met a gentleman that was after losing all his fortune but\na shilling, and begged the shilling of him. The gentleman gave him\nthe shilling, and the fairy rider--a little red man--rode a horse\nfor him in a race, waving a red handkerchief to him as a signal when\nhe was to double the stakes, and made him a rich man.\n\nThen he gave us an extraordinary English doggerel rhyme which I took\ndown, though it seems singularly incoherent when written out at\nlength. These rhymes are repeated by the old men as a sort of chant,\nand when a line comes that is more than usually irregular they seem\nto take a real delight in forcing it into the mould of the\nrecitative. All the time he was chanting the old man kept up a kind\nof snakelike movement in his body, which seemed to fit the chant and\nmake it part of him.\n\n\n\n\n  THE WHITE HORSE\n\n  My horse he is white,\n  Though at first he was bay,\n  And he took great delight\n  In travelling by night\n    And by day.\n\n  His travels were great\n  If I could but half of them tell,\n  He was rode in the garden by Adam,\n  The day that he fell.\n\n  On Babylon plains\n  He ran with speed for the plate,\n  He was hunted next day\n  By Hannibal the great.\n\n  After that he was hunted\n  In the chase of a fox,\n  When Nebuchadnezzar ate grass,\n  In the shape of an ox.\n\nWe are told in the next verses of his going into the ark with Noah,\nof Moses riding him through the Red Sea; then\n\n  He was with king Pharaoh in Egypt\n  When fortune did smile,\n  And he rode him stately along\n  The gay banks of the Nile.\n\n  He was with king Saul and all\n  His troubles went through,\n  He was with king David the day\n  That Goliath he slew.\n\nFor a few verses he is with Juda and Maccabeus the great, with\nCyrus, and back again to Babylon. Next we find him as the horse that\ncame into Troy.\n\n  When ( ) came to Troy with joy,\n  My horse he was found,\n  He crossed over the walls and entered\n  The city I'm told.\n\n  I come on him again, in Spain,\n  And he in full bloom,\n  By Hannibal the great he was rode,\n  And he crossing the Alps into Rome.\n\n  The horse being tall\n  And the Alps very high,\n  His rider did fall\n  And Hannibal the great lost an eye.\n\nAfterwards he carries young Sipho (Scipio), and then he is ridden by\nBrian when driving the Danes from Ireland, and by St. Ruth when he\nfell at the battle of Aughrim, and by Sarsfield at the siege of\nLimerick.\n\n  He was with king James who sailed\n  To the Irish shore,\n  But at last he got lame,\n  When the Boyne's bloody battle was o'er.\n\n  He was rode by the greatest of men\n  At famed Waterloo,\n  Brave Daniel O'Connell he sat\n  On his back it is true.\n\n  * * * * * * *\n\n  Brave Dan's on his back,\n  He's ready once more for the field.\n  He never will stop till the Tories,\n  He'll make them to yield.\n\nGrotesque as this long rhyme appears, it has, as I said, a sort of\nexistence when it is crooned by the old man at his fireside, and it\nhas great fame in the island. The old man himself is hoping that I\nwill print it, for it would not be fair, he says, that it should die\nout of the world, and he is the only man here who knows it, and none\nof them have ever heard it on the mainland. He has a couple more\nexamples of the same kind of doggerel, but I have not taken them\ndown.\n\nBoth in English and in Irish the songs are full of words the people\ndo not understand themselves, and when they come to say the words\nslowly their memory is usually uncertain.\n\nAll the morning I have been digging maidenhair ferns with a boy I\nmet on the rocks, who was in great sorrow because his father died\nsuddenly a week ago of a pain in his heart.\n\n'We wouldn't have chosen to lose our father for all the gold there\nis in the world,' he said, 'and it's great loneliness and sorrow\nthere is in the house now.'\n\nThen he told me that a brother of his who is a stoker in the Navy\nhad come home a little while before his father died, and that he had\nspent all his money in having a fine funeral, with plenty of drink\nat it, and tobacco.\n\n'My brother has been a long way in the world,' he said, 'and seen\ngreat wonders. He does be telling us of the people that do come out\nto them from Italy, and Spain, and Portugal, and that it is a sort\nof Irish they do be talking--not English at all--though it is only a\nword here and there you'd understand.'\n\nWhen we had dug out enough of roots from the deep crannies in the\nrocks where they are only to be found, I gave my companion a few\npence, and sent him back to his cottage.\n\nThe old man who tells me the Irish poems is curiously pleased with\nthe translations I have made from some of them.\n\nHe would never be tired, he says, listening while I would be reading\nthem, and they are much finer things than his old bits of rhyme.\n\nHere is one of them, as near the Irish as I am able to make it:--\n\n\n  RUCARD MOR.\n\n  I put the sorrow of destruction on the bad luck,\n  For it would be a pity ever to deny it,\n  It is to me it is stuck,\n  By loneliness my pain, my complaining.\n\n  It is the fairy-host\n  Put me a-wandering\n  And took from me my goods of the world.\n\n  At Mannistir na Ruaidthe\n  It is on me the shameless deed was done:\n  Finn Bheara and his fairy-host\n  Took my little horse on me from under the bag.\n\n  If they left me the skin\n  It would bring me tobacco for three months,\n  But they did not leave anything with me\n  But the old minister in its place.\n\n  Am not I to be pitied?\n  My bond and my note are on her,\n  And the price of her not yet paid,\n  My loneliness, my pain, my complaining.\n\n  The devil a hill or a glen, or highest fort\n  Ever was built in Ireland,\n  Is not searched on me for my mare;\n  And I am still at my complaining.\n\n  I got up in the morning,\n  I put a red spark in my pipe.\n  I went to the Cnoc-Maithe\n  To get satisfaction from them.\n\n  I spoke to them,\n  If it was in them to do a right thing,\n  To get me my little mare,\n  Or I would be changing my wits.\n\n  'Do you hear, Rucard Mor?\n  It is not here is your mare,\n  She is in Cnoc Bally Brishlawn\n  With the fairy-men these three months.'\n\n  I ran on in my walking,\n  I followed the road straightly,\n  I was in Glenasmoil\n  Before the moon was ended.\n\n  I spoke to the fairy-man,\n  If it was in him to do a right thing,\n  To get me my little mare,\n  Or I would be changing my wits.\n\n  'Do you hear Rucard Mor?\n  It is not here is your mare,\n  She is in Cnoc Bally Brishlawn\n  With the horseman of the music these three months.'\n\n  I ran off on my walking,\n  I followed the road straightly,\n  I was in Cnoc Bally Brishlawn\n  With the black fall of the night.\n\n  That is a place was a crowd\n  As it was seen by me,\n  All the weavers of the globe,\n  It is there you would have news of them.\n\n  I spoke to the horseman,\n  If it was in him to do the right thing,\n  To get me my little mare,\n  Or I would be changing my wits.\n\n  'Do you hear, Rucard Mor?\n  It is not here is your mare,\n  She is in Cnoc Cruachan,\n  In the back end of the palace.'\n\n  I ran off on my walking,\n  I followed the road straightly,\n  I made no rest or stop\n  Till I was in face of the palace.\n\n  That is the place was a crowd\n  As it appeared to me,\n  The men and women of the country,\n  And they all making merry.\n\n  Arthur Scoil (?) stood up\n  And began himself giving the lead,\n  It is joyful, light and active,\n  I would have danced the course with them.\n\n  They drew up on their feet\n  And they began to laugh,--\n  'Look at Rucard Mor,\n  And he looking for his little mare.'\n\n  I spoke to the man,\n  And he ugly and humpy,\n  Unless he would get me my mare\n  I would break a third of his bones.\n\n  'Do you hear, Rucard Mor?\n  It is not here is your mare,\n  She is in Alvin of Leinster,\n  On a halter with my mother.'\n\n  I ran off on my walking,\n  And I came to Alvin of Leinster.\n  I met the old woman--\n  On my word she was not pleasing.\n\n  I spoke to the old woman,\n  And she broke out in English:\n  'Get agone, you rascal,\n  I don't like your notions.'\n\n  'Do you hear, you old woman?\n  Keep away from me with your English,\n  But speak to me with the tongue\n  I hear from every person.'\n\n  'It is from me you will get word of her,\n  Only you come too late--\n  I made a hunting cap\n  For Conal Cath of her yesterday.'\n\n  I ran off on my walking,\n  Through roads that were cold and dirty.\n  I fell in with the fairy-man,\n  And he lying down in the Ruadthe.\n\n  'I pity a man without a cow,\n  I pity a man without a sheep,\n  But in the case of a man without a horse\n  It is hard for him to be long in the world.'\n\n\n\n\nThis morning, when I had been lying for a long time on a rock near\nthe sea watching some hooded crows that were dropping shellfish on\nthe rocks to break them, I saw one bird that had a large white\nobject which it was dropping continually without any result. I got\nsome stones and tried to drive it off when the thing had fallen, but\nseveral times the bird was too quick for me and made off with it\nbefore I could get down to him. At last, however, I dropped a stone\nalmost on top of him and he flew away. I clambered down hastily, and\nfound to my amazement a worn golf-ball! No doubt it had been brought\nout in some way or other from the links in County Glare, which are\nnot far off, and the bird had been trying half the morning to break\nit.\n\nFurther on I had a long talk with a young man who is inquisitive\nabout modern life, and I explained to him an elaborate trick or\ncorner on the Stock Exchange that I heard of lately. When I got him\nto understand it fully, he shouted with delight and amusement.\n\n'Well,' he said when he was quiet again, 'isn't it a great wonder to\nthink that those rich men are as big rogues as ourselves.'\n\nThe old story-teller has given me a long rhyme about a man who\nfought with an eagle. It is rather irregular and has some obscure\npassages, but I have translated it with the scholar.\n\n\n\n\n  PHELIM AND THE EAGLE\n\n  On my getting up in the morning\n  And I bothered, on a Sunday,\n  I put my brogues on me,\n  And I going to Tierny\n  In the Glen of the Dead People.\n  It is there the big eagle fell in with me,\n  He like a black stack of turf sitting up stately.\n\n  I called him a lout and a fool,\n  The son of a female and a fool,\n  Of the race of the Clan Cleopas, the biggest rogues in the land.\n  That and my seven curses\n  And never a good day to be on you,\n  Who stole my little cock from me that could crow the sweetest.\n\n  'Keep your wits right in you\n  And don't curse me too greatly,\n  By my strength and my oath\n  I never took rent of you,\n  I didn't grudge what you would have to spare\n  In the house of the burnt pigeons,\n  It is always useful you were to men of business.\n\n  'But get off home\n  And ask Nora\n  What name was on the young woman that scalded his head.\n  The feathers there were on his ribs\n  Are burnt on the hearth,\n  And they eat him and they taking and it wasn't much were thankful.'\n\n  'You are a liar, you stealer,\n  They did not eat him, and they're taking\n  Nor a taste of the sort without being thankful,\n  You took him yesterday\n  As Nora told me,\n  And the harvest quarter will not be spent till I take a tax of you.'\n\n  'Before I lost the Fianna\n  It was a fine boy I was,\n  It was not about thieving was my knowledge,\n  But always putting spells,\n  Playing games and matches with the strength of Gol MacMorna,\n  And you are making me a rogue\n  At the end of my life.'\n\n  'There is a part of my father's books with me,\n  Keeping in the bottom of a box,\n  And when I read them the tears fall down from me.\n  But I found out in history\n  That you are a son of the Dearg Mor,\n  If it is fighting you want and you won't be thankful.'\n\n  The Eagle dressed his bravery\n  With his share of arms and his clothes,\n  He had the sword that was the sharpest\n  Could be got anywhere.\n  I and my scythe with me,\n  And nothing on but my shirt,\n  We went at each other early in the day.\n\n  We were as two giants\n  Ploughing in a valley in a glen of the mountains.\n  We did not know for the while which was the better man.\n  You could hear the shakes that were on our arms under each other,\n  From that till the sunset,\n  Till it was forced on him to give up.\n\n  I wrote a 'challenge boxail' to him\n  On the morning of the next day,\n  To come till we would fight without doubt at the dawn of the day.\n  The second fist I drew on him I struck him on the hone of his jaw,\n  He fell, and it is no lie there was a cloud in his head.\n\n  The Eagle stood up,\n  He took the end of my hand:--\n  'You are the finest man I ever saw in my life,\n  Go off home, my blessing will be on you for ever,\n  You have saved the fame of Eire for yourself till the Day of the Judgment.'\n\n  Ah! neighbors, did you hear\n  The goodness and power of Felim?\n  The biggest wild beast you could get,\n  The second fist he drew on it\n  He struck it on the jaw,\n  It fell, and it did not rise\n  Till the end of two days.\n\nWell as I seem to know these people of the islands, there is hardly\na day that I do not come upon some new primitive feature of their\nlife.\n\nYesterday I went into a cottage where the woman was at work and very\ncarelessly dressed. She waited for a while till I got into\nconversation with her husband, and then she slipped into the corner\nand put on a clean petticoat and a bright shawl round her neck. Then\nshe came back and took her place at the fire.\n\nThis evening I was in another cottage till very late talking to the\npeople. When the little boy--the only child of the house--got\nsleepy, the old grandmother took him on her lap and began singing to\nhim. As soon as he was drowsy she worked his clothes off him by\ndegrees, scratching him softly with her nails as she did so all over\nhis body. Then she washed his feet with a little water out of a pot\nand put him into his bed.\n\nWhen I was going home the wind was driving the sand into my face so\nthat I could hardly find my way. I had to hold my hat over my mouth\nand nose, and my hand over my eyes while I groped along, with my\nfeet feeling for rocks and holes in the sand.\n\nI have been sitting all the morning with an old man who was making\nsugawn ropes for his house, and telling me stories while he worked.\nHe was a pilot when he was young, and we had great talk at first\nabout Germans, and Italians, and Russians, and the ways of seaport\ntowns. Then he came round to talk of the middle island, and he told\nme this story which shows the curious jealousy that is between the\nislands:--\n\nLong ago we used all to be pagans, and the saints used to be coming\nto teach us about God and the creation of the world. The people on\nthe middle island were the last to keep a hold on the fire-worshipping,\nor whatever it was they had in those days, but in the long run a saint\ngot in among them and they began listening to him, though they would\noften say in the evening they believed, and then say the morning after\nthat they did not believe. In the end the saint gained them over and\nthey began building a church, and the saint had tools that were in use\nwith them for working with the stones. When the church was halfway up\nthe people held a kind of meeting one night among themselves, when the\nsaint was asleep in his bed, to see if they did really believe and no\nmistake in it.\n\nThe leading man got up, and this is what he said: that they should\ngo down and throw their tools over the cliff, for if there was such\na man as God, and if the saint was as well known to Him as he said,\nthen he would be as well able to bring up the tools out of the sea\nas they were to throw them in.\n\nThey went then and threw their tools over the cliff.\n\nWhen the saint came down to the church in the morning the workmen\nwere all sitting on the stones and no work doing.\n\n'For what cause are you idle?' asked the saint.\n\n'We have no tools,' said the men, and then they told him the story\nof what they had done.\n\nHe kneeled down and prayed God that the tools might come up out of\nthe sea, and after that he prayed that no other people might ever be\nas great fools as the people on the middle island, and that God\nmight preserve theft dark minds of folly to them fill the end of the\nworld. And that is why no man out of that island can tell you a\nwhole story without stammering, or bring any work to end without a\nfault in it.\n\nI asked him if he had known old Pat Dirane on the middle island, and\nheard the fine stories he used to tell.\n\n'No one knew him better than I did,' he said; 'for I do often be in\nthat island making curaghs for the people. One day old Pat came down\nto me when I was after tarring a new curagh, and he asked me to put\na little tar on the knees of his breeches the way the rain wouldn't\ncome through on him.\n\n'I took the brush in my hand, and I had him tarred down to his feet\nbefore he knew what I was at. \"Turn round the other side now,\" I\nsaid, \"and you'll be able to sit where you like.\" Then he felt the\ntar coming in hot against his skin and he began cursing my soul, and\nI was sorry for the trick I'd played on him.'\n\nThis old man was the same type as the genial, whimsical old men one\nmeets all through Ireland, and had none of the local characteristics\nthat are so marked on lnishmaan.\n\nWhen we were tired talking I showed some of my tricks and a little\ncrowd collected. When they were gone another old man who had come up\nbegan telling us about the fairies. One night when he was coming\nhome from the lighthouse he heard a man riding on the road behind\nhim, and he stopped to wait for him, but nothing came. Then he heard\nas if there was a man trying to catch a horse on the rocks, and in a\nlittle time he went on. The noise behind him got bigger as he went\nalong as if twenty horses, and then as if a hundred or a thousand,\nwere galloping after him. When he came to the stile where he had to\nleave the road and got out over it, something hit against him and\nthrew him down on the rock, and a gun he had in his hand fell into\nthe field beyond him.\n\n'I asked the priest we had at that time what was in it,' he said,\n'and the priest told me it was the fallen angels; and I don't know\nbut it was.'\n\n'Another time,' he went on, 'I was coming down where there is a bit\nof a cliff and a little hole under it, and I heard a flute playing\nin the hole or beside it, and that was before the dawn began.\nWhatever anyone says there are strange things. There was one night\nthirty years ago a man came down to get my wife to go up to his\nwife, for she was in childbed.\n\n'He was something to do with the lighthouse or the coastguard, one\nof them Protestants who don't believe in any of these things and do\nbe making fun of us. Well, he asked me to go down and get a quart of\nspirits while my wife would be getting herself ready, and he said he\nwould go down along with me if I was afraid.\n\n'I said I was not afraid, and I went by myself.\n\n'When I was coming back there was something on the path, and wasn't\nI a foolish fellow, I might have gone to one side or the other over\nthe sand, but I went on straight till I was near it--till I was too\nnear it--then I remembered that I had heard them saying none of\nthose creatures can stand before you and you saying the De\nProfundis, so I began saying it, and the thing ran off over the sand\nand I got home.\n\n'Some of the people used to say it was only an old jackass that was\non the path before me, but I never heard tell of an old jackass\nwould run away from a man and he saying the De Profundis.'\n\nI told him the story of the fairy ship which had disappeared when\nthe man made the sign of the cross, as I had heard it on the middle\nisland.\n\n'There do be strange things on the sea,' he said. 'One night I was\ndown there where you can see that green point, and I saw a ship\ncoming in and I wondered what it would be doing coming so close to\nthe rocks. It came straight on towards the place I was in, and then\nI got frightened and I ran up to the houses, and when the captain\nsaw me running he changed his course and went away.\n\n'Sometimes I used to go out as a pilot at that time--I went a few\ntimes only. Well, one Sunday a man came down and said there was a\nbig ship coming into the sound. I ran down with two men and we went\nout in a curagh; we went round the point where they said the ship\nwas, and there was no ship in it. As it was a Sunday we had nothing\nto do, and it was a fine, calm day, so we rowed out a long way\nlooking for the ship, till I was further than I ever was before or\nafter. When I wanted to turn back we saw a great flock of birds on\nthe water and they all black, without a white bird through them.\nThey had no fear of us at all, and the men with me wanted to go up\nto them, so we went further. When we were quite close they got up,\nso many that they blackened the sky, and they lit down again a\nhundred or maybe a hundred and twenty yards off. We went after them\nagain, and one of the men wanted to kill one with a thole-pin, and\nthe other man wanted to kill one with his rowing stick. I was afraid\nthey would upset the curagh, but they would go after the birds.\n\n'When we were quite close one man threw the pin and the other man\nhit at them with his rowing stick, and the two of them fell over in\nthe curagh, and she turned on her side and only it was quite calm\nthe lot of us were drowned.\n\n'I think those black gulls and the ship were the same sort, and\nafter that I never went out again as a pilot. It is often curaghs go\nout to ships and find there is no ship.\n\n'A while ago a curagh went out to a ship from the big island, and\nthere was no ship; and all the men in the curagh were drowned. A\nfine song was made about them after that, though I never heard it\nmyself.\n\n'Another day a curagh was out fishing from this island, and the men\nsaw a hooker not far from them, and they rowed up to it to get a\nlight for their pipes--at that time there were no matches--and when\nthey up to the big boat it was gone out of its place, and they were\nin great fear.'\n\nThen he told me a story he had got from the mainland about a man who\nwas driving one night through the country, and met a woman who came\nup to him and asked him to take her into his cart. He thought\nsomething was not right about her, and he went on. When he had gone\na little way he looked back, and it was a pig was on the road and\nnot a woman at all.\n\nHe thought he was a done man, but he went on. When he was going\nthrough a wood further on, two men came out to him, one from each\nside of the road, and they took hold of the bridle of the horse and\nled it on between them. They were old stale men with frieze clothes\non them, and the old fashions. When they came out of the wood he\nfound people as if there was a fair on the road, with the people\nbuying and selling and they not living people at all. The old men\ntook him through the crowd, and then they left him. When he got home\nand told the old people of the two old men and the ways and fashions\nthey had about them, the old people told him it was his two\ngrandfathers had taken care of him, for they had had a great love\nfor him and he a lad growing up.\n\nThis evening we had a dance in the inn parlour, where a fire had\nbeen lighted and the tables had been pushed into the corners. There\nwas no master of the ceremonies, and when I had played two or three\njigs and other tunes on my fiddle, there was a pause, as I did not\nknow how much of my music the people wanted, or who else could be\ngot to sing or play. For a moment a deadlock seemed to be coming,\nbut a young girl I knew fairly well saw my difficulty, and took the\nmanagement of our festivities into her hands. At first she asked a\ncoastguard's daughter to play a reel on the mouth organ, which she\ndid at once with admirable spirit and rhythm. Then the little girl\nasked me to play again, telling me what I should choose, and went on\nin the same way managing the evening till she thought it was time to\ngo home. Then she stood up, thanked me in Irish, and walked out of\nthe door, without looking at anybody, but followed almost at once by\nthe whole party.\n\nWhen they had gone I sat for a while on a barrel in the public-house\ntalking to some young men who were reading a paper in Irish. Then I\nhad a long evening with the scholar and two story-tellers--both old\nmen who had been pilots--taking down stories and poems. We were at\nwork for nearly six hours, and the more matter we got the more the\nold men seemed to remember.\n\n'I was to go out fishing tonight,' said the younger as he came in,\n'but I promised you to come, and you're a civil man, so I wouldn't\ntake five pounds to break my word to you. And now'--taking up his\nglass of whisky--'here's to your good health, and may you live till\nthey make you a coffin out of a gooseberry bush, or till you die in\nchildbed.'\n\nThey drank my health and our work began.\n\n'Have you heard tell of the poet MacSweeny?' said the same man,\nsitting down near me.\n\n'I have,' I said, 'in the town of Galway.'\n\n'Well,' he said, 'I'll tell you his piece \"The Big Wedding,\" for\nit's a fine piece and there aren't many that know it. There was a\npoor servant girl out in the country, and she got married to a poor\nservant boy. MacSweeny knew the two of them, and he was away at that\ntime and it was a month before he came back. When he came back he\nwent to see Peggy O'Hara--that was the name of the girl--and he\nasked her if they had had a great wedding. Peggy said it was only\nmiddling, but they hadn't forgotten him all the same, and she had a\nbottle of whisky for him in the cupboard. He sat down by the fire\nand began drinking the whisky. When he had a couple of glasses taken\nand was warm by the fire, he began making a song, and this was the\nsong he made about the wedding of Peggy O'Hara.'\n\nHe had the poem both in English and Irish, but as it has been found\nelsewhere and attributed to another folk-poet, I need not give it.\n\nWe had another round of porter and whisky, and then the old man who\nhad MacSweeny's wedding gave us a bit of a drinking song, which the\nscholar took down and I translated with him afterwards:--\n\n'This is what the old woman says at the Beulleaca when she sees a\nman without knowledge--\n\n'Were you ever at the house of the Still, did you ever get a drink\nfrom it? Neither wine nor beer is as sweet as it is, but it is well\nI was not burnt when I fell down after a drink of it by the fire of\nMr. Sloper.\n\n'I praise Owen O'Hernon over all the doctors of Ireland, it is he\nput drugs on the water, and it lying on the barley.\n\n'If you gave but a drop of it to an old woman who does be walking\nthe world with a stick, she would think for a week that it was a\nfine bed was made for her.'\n\nAfter that I had to get out my fiddle and play some tunes for them\nwhile they finished their whisky. A new stock of porter was brought\nin this morning to the little public-house underneath my room, and I\ncould hear in the intervals of our talk that a number of men had\ncome in to treat some neighbors from the middle island, and were\nsinging many songs, some of them in English or of the kind I have\ngiven, but most of them in Irish.\n\nA little later when the party broke up downstairs my old men got\nnervous about the fairies--they live some distance away--and set off\nacross the sandhills.\n\nThe next day I left with the steamer.","title":"The Aran Islands","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":49956}