him to play us a dance. He made
excuses, and would not get his fiddle; but two of the girls slipped
off and brought it. The young man tuned it and offered it to me, but
I insisted that he should take it first. Then he played one or two
tunes, without tone, but with good intonation and rhythm. When it
was my turn I played a few tunes also; but the pitch was so low I
could not do what I wanted, and I had not much success with the
people, though the fiddler himself watched me with interest. 'That
is great playing,' he said, when I had finished; and I never seen
anyone the like of you for moving your hand and getting the sound
out of it with the full drag of the bow.' Then he played a polka and
four couples danced. The women, as usual, were in their naked feet,
and whenever there was a figure for women only there was a curious
hush and patter of bare feet, till the heavy pounding and shuffling
of the men's boots broke in again. The whirl of music and dancing in
this little kitchen stirred me with an extraordinary effect. The
kindliness and merrymaking of these islanders, who, one knows, are
full of riot and severity and daring, has a quality and
attractiveness that is absent altogether from the life of towns, and
makes one think of the life that is shown in the ballads of
Scotland.

After the dance the host, who had come in, sang a long English
doggerel about a poor scholar who went to Maynooth and had great
success in his studies, so that he was praised by the bishop. Then
he went home for his holiday, and a young woman who had great riches
asked him into her parlour and told him it was no fit life for a
fine young man to be a priest, always saying Mass for poor people,
and that he would have a right to give up his Latin and get married
to herself. He refused her offers and went back to his college. When
he was gone she went to the justice in great anger, and swore an
oath against him that he had seduced her and left her with child. He
was brought back for his trial, and he was in risk to be degraded
and hanged, when a man rode up on a horse and said it was himself
was the lover of the lady, and the father of her child.

Then they told me about an old man of eighty years, who is going to
spend the winter alone on Inishvickillaun, an island six miles from
this village. His son is making canoes and doing other carpenter's
jobs on this island, and the other children have scattered also;
but the old man refuses to leave the