Some men were on board whom I had seen on the
south island, and a good many Kilronan people on their way home from
Galway, who told me that in one part of their passage in the morning
they had come in for heavy seas.
As is usual on Saturday, the steamer had a large cargo of flour and
porter to discharge at Kilronan, and, as it was nearly four o'clock
before the tide could float her at the pier, I felt some doubt about
our passage to Galway.
The wind increased as the afternoon went on, and when I came down in
the twilight I found that the cargo was not yet all unladen, and
that the captain feared to face the gale that was rising. It was
some time before he came to a final decision, and we walked
backwards and forwards from the village with heavy clouds flying
overhead and the wind howling in the walls. At last he telegraphed
to Galway to know if he was wanted the next day, and we went into a
public-house to wait for the reply.
The kitchen was filled with men sitting closely on long forms ranged
in lines at each side of the fire. A wild-looking but beautiful girl
was kneeling on the hearth talking loudly to the men, and a few
natives of Inishmaan were hanging about the door, miserably drunk.
At the end of the kitchen the bar was arranged, with a sort of
alcove beside it, where some older men were playing cards. Overhead
there were the open rafters, filled with turf and tobacco smoke.
This is the haunt so much dreaded by the women of the other islands,
where the men linger with their money till they go out at last with
reeling steps and are lost in the sound. Without this background of
empty curaghs, and bodies floating naked with the tide, there would
be something almost absurd about the dissipation of this simple
place where men sit, evening after evening, drinking bad whisky and
porter, and talking with endless repetition of fishing, and kelp,
and of the sorrows of purgatory.
When we had finished our whiskey word came that the boat might
remain.
With some difficulty I got my bags out of the steamer and carried
them up through the crowd of women and donkeys that were still
struggling on the quay in an inconceivable medley of flour-bags and
cases of petroleum. When I reached the inn the old woman was in
great good humour, and I spent some time talking by the kitchen
fire. Then I groped my way back to the harbour, where, I was told,
the old net-mender, who came to see me on my first visit to the
islands, was spending the night as watchman.
