speak good English when he chose to. As we came nearer the island,
which seemed to rise like a mountain straight out of the sea, we
could make out a crowd of people in their holiday clothes standing
or sitting along the brow of the cliff watching our approach, and
just beyond them a patch of cottages with roofs of tarred felt. A
little later we doubled into a cove among the rocks, where I landed
at a boat slip, and then scrambled up a steep zig-zag pathway to the
head of the cliff where the people crowded round us and shook hands
with the men who had come with me.

This cottage where I am to stay is one of the highest of the group,
and as we passed up to it through little paths among the cottages
many white, wolfish-looking dogs came out and barked furiously. My
host had gone on in front with my bag, and when I reached his
threshold he came forward and shook hands with me again, with a
finished speech of welcome. His eldest daughter, a young married
woman of about twenty, who manages the house, shook hands with me
also, and then, without asking if we were hungry, began making us
tea in a metal teapot and frying rashers of bacon. She is a small,
beautifully-formed woman, with brown hair and eyes--instead of the
black hair and blue eyes that are usually found with this type in
Ireland--and delicate feet and ankles that are not common in these
parts, where the woman's work is so hard. Her sister, who lives in
the house also, is a bonny girl of about eighteen, full of humour
and spirits.

The schoolmaster made many jokes in English and Irish while the
little hostess served our tea and then the kitchen filled up with
young men and women--the men dressed like ordinary fishermen, the
women wearing print bodices and coloured skirts, that had none of
the distinction of the dress of Aran--and a polka was danced, with
curious solemnity, in a whirl of dust. When it was over it was time
for my companions to go back to the mainland. As soon as we came out
and began to go down to the sea, a large crowd, made up of nearly
all the men and women and children of the island, came down also,
closely packed round us. At the edge of the cliff the young men and
the schoolmaster bade me good-bye and went down the zig-zag path,
leaving me alone with the islanders on the ledge of rock, where I
had seen the people as we came in. I sat for a long time watching
the sail of the canoe moving away to Dunquin, and talking to a young
man who had spen