congers in the monster hole. Returning home, a great eel on my
shoulder, his head flapping down in front, his tail sweeping the ground
behind, I met a fisherman of my acquaintance. I began a tale of an
immense conger, three times larger than the one I carried, that had
broken my line and escaped. "That was him," said the fisherman. "Did
you ever hear how he made my brother emigrate? My brother was a diver,
you know, and grubbed stones for the Harbour Board. One day the beast
comes up to him, and says, 'What are you after?' 'Stones, sur,' says
he. 'Don't you think you had better be going?' 'Yes, sur,' says he. And
that's why my brother emigrated. The people said it was because he got
poor, but that's not true."

You--you will make no terms with the spirits of fire and earth and air
and water. You have made the Darkness your enemy. We--we exchange
civilities with the world beyond.




WAR


When there was a rumour of war with France a while ago, I met a poor
Sligo woman, a soldier's widow, that I know, and I read her a sentence
out of a letter I had just had from London: "The people here are mad
for war, but France seems inclined to take things peacefully," or some
like sentence. Her mind ran a good deal on war, which she imagined
partly from what she had heard from soldiers, and partly from tradition
of the rebellion of '98, but the word London doubled her interest, for
she knew there were a great many people in London, and she herself had