'Ah!' she said, 'It's Mike sure enough, and please God they'll give
him a decent burial.'
Then she began to keen slowly to herself. She had loose yellow hair
plastered round her head with the rain, and as she sat by the door
sucking her infant, she seemed like a type of the women's life upon
the islands.
For a while the people sat silent, and one could hear nothing but
the lips of the infant, the rain hissing in the yard, and the
breathing of four pigs that lay sleeping in one corner. Then one of
the men began to talk about the new boats that have been sent to the
south island, and the conversation went back to its usual round of
topics.
The loss of one man seems a slight catastrophe to all except the
immediate relatives. Often when an accident happens a father is lost
with his two eldest sons, or in some other way all the active men of
a household die together.
A few years ago three men of a family that used to make the wooden
vessels - like tiny barrels - that are still used among the people,
went to the big island together. They were drowned on their way
home, and the art of making these little barrels died with them, at
least on Inishmaan, though it still lingers in the north and south
islands.
Another catastrophe that took place last winter gave a curious zest
to the observance of holy days. It seems that it is not the custom
for the men to go out fishing on the evening of a holy day, but one
night last December some men, who wished to begin fishing early the
next morning, rowed out to sleep in their hookers.
Towards morning a terrible storm rose, and several hookers with
their crews on board were blown from their moorings and wrecked. The
sea was so high that no attempt at rescue could be made, and the men
were drowned.
'Ah!' said the man who told me the story, 'I'm thinking it will be a
long time before men will go out again on a holy day. That storm was
the only storm that reached into the harbour the whole winter, and
I'm thinking there was something in it.'
Today when I went down to the slip I found a pig-jobber from
Kilronan with about twenty pigs that were to be shipped for the
English market.
When the steamer was getting near, the whole drove was moved down on
the slip and the curaghs were carried out close to the sea. Then
each beast was caught in its turn and thrown on its side, while its
legs were hitched together in a single knot, with a tag of rope
remaining, by which it could be carried.
Probably the pain inflicted was not great, yet the animals shut
their eyes and shrieked with almost human intonations, till the
suggestion of the noise became so intense that the men and women who
were merely looking on grew wild with excitement, and the pigs
waiting their turn foamed at the mouth and tore each other with
their teeth.
After a while there was a pause. The whole slip was covered with a
mass of sobbing animals, with here and there a terrified woman
crouching among the bodies, and patting some special favourite to
keep it quiet while the curaghs were being launched.
Then the screaming began again while the pigs were carried out and
laid in their places, with a waistcoat tied round their feet to keep
them from damaging the canvas. They seemed to know where they were
going, and looked up at me over the gunnel with an ignoble
desperation that made me shudder to think that I had eaten of this
whimpering flesh. When the last curagh went out I was left on the
slip with a band of women and children, and one old boar who sat
looking out over the sea.
The women were over-excited, and when I tried to talk to them they
crowded round me and began jeering and shrieking at me because I am
not married. A dozen screamed at a time, and so rapidly that I could
not understand all that they were saying, yet I was able to make out
that they were taking advantage of the absence of their husbands to
give me the full volume of their contempt. Some little boys who were
listening threw themselves down, writhing with laughter among the
seaweed, and the young girls grew red with embarrassment and stared
down into the surf.
For a moment I was in confusion. I tried to speak to them, but I
could not make myself heard, so I sat down on the slip and drew out
my wallet of photographs. In an instant I had the whole band
clambering round me, in their ordinary mood.
When the curaghs came back - one of them towing a large kitchen table
that stood itself up on the waves and then turned somersaults in an
extraordinary manner - word went round that the ceannuighe (pedlar)
was arriving.
He opened his wares on the slip as soon as he landed, and sold a
quantity of cheap knives and jewellery to the girls and the younger
women. He spoke no Irish, and the bargaining gave immense amusement
to the crowd that collected round him.
I was surprised to notice that several women who professed to know
no English could make themselves understood without difficulty when
it pleased them.
'The rings is too dear at you, sir,' said one girl using the Gaelic
construction; 'let you put less money on them and all the girls will
be buying.'
After the jewellery' he displayed some cheap religious
pictures - abominable oleographs - but I did not see many buyers.
