to the mainland with the young men--her husband and sister. I told
them I was sleepy, and ready to go to bed; so the little hostess
lighted a candle, carried it into the room beyond the kitchen, and
stuck it up on the end of the bedpost of one of the beds with a few
drops of grease. Then she took off her apron, and fastened it up in
the window as a blind, laid another apron on the wet earthen floor
for me to stand on, and left me to myself. The room had two beds,
running from wall to wall with a small space between them, a chair
that the little hostess had brought in, an old hair-brush that was
propping the window open, and no other article. When I had been in
bed for some time, I heard the host's voice in the kitchen, and a
moment or two later he came in with a candle in his hand, and made a
long apology for having been away the whole of my first evening on
the island, holding the candle while he talked very close to my
face. I told him I had been well entertained by his family and
neighbours, and had hardly missed him. He went away, and half an
hour later opened the door again with the iron spoon which serves to
lift the latch, and came in, in a suit of white homespuns, and said
he must ask me to let him stretch out in the other bed, as there was
no place else for him to lie. I told him that he was welcome, and he
got into the other bed and lit his pipe. Then we had a long talk
about this place and America and the younger generations.

'There has been no one drowned on this island,' he said, 'for forty
years, and that is a great wonder, for it is a dangerous life. There
was a man--the brother of the man you were talking to when the
girls were dancing--was married to a widow had a public-house away
to the west of Ballydavid, and he was out fishing for mackerel, and
he got a great haul of them; then he filled his canoe too full, so
that she was down to the edge in the water, and a wave broke into