As I came in she was busy getting ready my dinner, and old Pat
Dirane, who usually comes at this hour, was rocking the cradle. It
is made of clumsy wicker-work, with two pieces of rough wood
fastened underneath to serve as rockers, and all the time I am in my
room I can hear it bumping on the floor with extraordinary violence.
When the baby is awake it sprawls on the floor, and the old woman
sings it a variety of inarticulate lullabies that have much musical
charm.
Another daughter, who lives at home, has gone to the fair also, so
the old woman has both the baby and myself to take care of as well
as a crowd of chickens that live in a hole beside the fire, Often
when I want tea, or when the old woman goes for water, I have to
take my own turn at rocking the cradle.
One of the largest Duns, or pagan forts, on the islands, is within a
stone's throw of my cottage, and I often stroll up there after a
dinner of eggs or salt pork, to smoke drowsily on the stones. The
neighbours know my habit, and not infrequently some one wanders up
to ask what news there is in the last paper I have received, or to
make inquiries about the American war. If no one comes I prop my
book open with stones touched by the Fir-bolgs, and sleep for hours
in the delicious warmth of the sun. The last few days I have almost
lived on the round walls, for, by some miscalculation, our turf has
come to an end, and the fires are kept up with dried cow-dung - a
common fuel on the island - the smoke from which filters through into
my room and lies in blue layers above my table and bed.
Fortunately the weather is fine, and I can spend my days in the
sunshine. When I look round from the top of these walls I can see
the sea on nearly every side, stretching away to distant ranges of
mountains on the north and south. Underneath me to the east there is
the one inhabited district of the island, where I can see red
figures moving about the cottages, sending up an occasional fragment
of conversation or of old island melodies.
The baby is teething, and has been crying for several days. Since
his mother went to the fair they have been feeding him with cow's
milk, often slightly sour, and giving him, I think, more than he
requires.
This morning, however, he seemed so unwell they sent out to look for
a foster-mother in the village, and before long a young woman, who
lives a little way to the east, came in and restored him to his
natural food.
A few hours later, when I came into the kitchen to talk to old Pat,
another woman performed the same kindly office, this time a person
with a curiously whimsical expression.
Pat told me a story of an unfaithful wife, which I will give further
down, and then broke into a moral dispute with the visitor, which
caused immense delight to some young men who had come down to listen
to the story. Unfortunately it was carried on so rapidly in Gaelic
that I lost most of the points.
This old man talks usually in a mournful tone about his ill-health,
and his death, which he feels to be approaching, yet he has
occasional touches of humor that remind me of old Mourteen on the
north island. To-day a grotesque twopenny doll was lying on the
floor near the old woman. He picked it up and examined it as if
comparing it with her. Then he held it up: 'Is it you is after
bringing that thing into the world,' he said, 'woman of the house?'
Here is the story: -
One day I was travelling on foot from Galway to Dublin, and the
darkness came on me and I ten miles from the town I was wanting to
pass the night in. Then a hard rain began to fall and I was tired
walking, so when I saw a sort of a house with no roof on it up
against the road, I got in the way the walls would give me shelter.
As I was looking round I saw a light in some trees two perches off,
and thinking any sort of a house would be better than where I was, I
got over a wall and went up to the house to look in at the window.
I saw a dead man laid on a table, and candles lighted, and a woman
watching him. I was frightened when I saw him, but it was raining
hard, and I said to myself, if he was dead he couldn't hurt me. Then
I knocked on the door and the woman came and opened it.
'Good evening, ma'am,' says I.
'Good evening kindly, stranger,' says she, 'Come in out of the
rain.' Then she took me in and told me her husband was after dying
on her, and she was watching him that night.
'But it's thirsty you'll be, stranger,' says she, 'Come into the
parlour.' Then she took me into the parlour - and it was a fine clean
house - and she put a cup, with a saucer under it, on the table
before me with fine sugar and bread.
When I'd had a cup of tea I went back into the kitchen where the
dead man was lying, and she gave me a fine new pipe off the table
with a drop of spirits.
