w," he added. "Mr. Quinn'll give you a lesson!..."

3

It was Jamesey McKeown who caused the decision to hold the dancing
classes to be made as quickly as it was. Jamesey was one of the pupils
in the advanced section of the Gaelic class ... a bright-witted boy of
thirteen, with a quick, sharp way. One day, Marsh and Henry had climbed
a steep hill outside the village, and when they reached the top of it,
they found Jamesey lying there, looking down on the fields beneath. His
chin was resting in the cup of his upturned palms.

"God save you, Jamesey!" said Marsh, and "God save you kindly!" Jamesey
answered.

The greeting and the reply are not native to Ulster, but Marsh had made
them part of the Gaelic studies, and whenever he encountered friends he
always saluted them so. His pupils, falling in with his whim, replied
to his salute as he wished them to reply, but the older people merely
nodded their heads or said "It's a soft day!" or "It's a brave day!" or,
more abruptly, "Morra, Mr. Marsh!" The Protestants among them suspected
that the Gaelic salutation was a form of furtive Popery....

They sat down beside the boy. "I suppose you'll be leaving school soon,
Jamesey?" Marsh asked.

"Aye, I will in a while," Jamesey answered.

"What class are you in?"

"I'm a monitor, Mr. Marsh. I'm in my first year!..."

Henry sat up and joined in the conversation. "Then you're going to be a
teacher?" he said.

"No, I'm not," Jamesey replied. "My ma put me in for the monitor to get
the bit of extra education. That's all!"

"What are you going to be, Jamesey? A farmer?" said Marsh.

"No. I wouldn't be a farmer for the world!..."

"But why?"

The boy changed his position and faced round to them. "Sure, there's
nothin' to do but work from the dawn till the dark," he said, "an' you
never get no diversion at all. I'm quaren tired of this place, I can
tell you, an' my ma's tired of it too. She wudden be here if she could
help it, but sure she can't. It's terrible in the winter, an' the win'
fit to blow the head off you, an' you with nothin' to do on'y look after
a lot of oul' cows an' pigs an' things. I'm goin' to a town as soon as
I'm oul' enough!..."

They talked to him of the beauty of the country....

"Och, it's all right for a holiday in the summer," he said.

... and they talked to him of the fineness of a farmer's life, but he
would not agree with them. A farmer's life was too hard and too dull. He
was set on joi