ore our acquaintance was two minutes old he
invited me to dinner. Then I ran aground on an Arklow boatman, James
Doyle by name, a smart tweed-suited sailor, bright and gay. The Post
Office was near, and the letters were being given out. Three
deliveries a week, weather permitting. The parish priest was there,
grave, refined, slightly ascetic, with the azure blue eyes so common
in Connaught, never seen in England, although frequently met with in
Norway and North Germany. The waiting-women were barefoot, but all the
men were shod. The Araners have a speciality in shoes--pampooties, to
wit. These are made of raw hide, hair outwards, the toe-piece drawn
in, and the whole tied on with string or sinew. The cottages are
better built than many on the mainland. Otherwise the winter gales
would blow them into the Atlantic main. The thatch is pegged down
firmly, and then tied on with a close network of ropes. The people are
clean, smart, and good-looking. Miss Margaret Flanagan, who escorted
me in my search after pampooties, would pass for a pretty girl
anywhere, and the Aran Irish flowed from her lips like a rivulet of
cream. She spoke English too. An accomplished young lady, Miss
Margaret Kilmartin, aged nineteen, said her father had been wrongfully
imprisoned for two and a half years for shooting a bailiff. The
national sports are therefore not altogether unknown in the Arans.
Miss Kilmartin was _en route_ for America, per Teutonic, first to New
York, and then a thousand miles by rail, alone, and without a bonnet.
She had never been off the island. This little run would be her first
flutter from the paternal nest.

The Araners know little of politics, save that the Balfour Government
lifted them out of the horrible pit and the miry clay, and set their
feet upon a rock and established their goings. The Balfour boats are
there, the Balfour nets are full of fish, the Balfour boys are
learning a useful occupation, and earning money meanwhile. If there is
anything in the Aran cupboards, the Araners know who enabled them to
put it there. If the young ladies have new shoes, new shawls, new
brooches; if the Aran belles make money by mending nets; if the men
sometimes see beef; if they compass the thick twist; if they manage
without the everlasting hat going round, they have Mr. Balfour to
thank, and they know it. They own it, not grudgingly or of necessity,
but cheerfully. One battered old wreck raised his hat at every mention
of the