Such a man, they say, will be quiet all the rest of his life, and if you suggest that punishment is needed as an example, they ask, ‘Would any one kill his father if he was able to help it?’

Some time ago, before the introduction of police, all the people of the islands were as innocent as the people here remain to this day.  I have heard that at that time the ruling proprietor and magistrate of the north island used to give any man who had done wrong a letter to a jailer in Galway, and send him off by himself to serve a term of imprisonment.

As there was no steamer, the ill-doer was given a passage in some chance hooker to the nearest point on the mainland.  Then he walked for many miles along a desolate shore till he reached the town.  When his time had been put through he crawled back along the same route, feeble and emaciated, and had often to wait many weeks before he could regain the island.  Such at least is the story.

It seems absurd to apply the same laws to these people and to the criminal classes of a city.  The most intelligent man on Inishmaan has often spoken to me of his contempt of the law, and of the increase of crime the police have brought to Aranmor.  On this island, he says, if men have a little difference, or a little fight, their friends take care it does not go too far, and in a little time it is forgotten.  In Kilronan there is a band of men paid to make out cases for themselves; the moment a blow is struck they come down and arrest the man who gave it.  The other man he quarreled with has to give evidence against him; whole families come down to the court and swear against each other till they become bitter enemies.  If there is a conviction the man who is convicted never forgives.  He waits his time, and before the year is out there is a cross summons, which the other man in turn never forgives.  The feud continues to grow, till a dispute about the colour of a man’s hair may end in a murder, after a year’s forcing by the law.  The mere fact that it is impossible to get reliable evidence in the island—­not because the people are dishonest, but because they think the claim of kinship more sacred than the claims of abstract truth—­turns the whole system of sworn evidence into a demoralising farce, and it is easy to believe that law dealings on this false basis must lead to every sort of injustice.

While I am discussing these questions with the old men the curaghs begin to come in with cargoes of salt, and flour, and porter.

To-day a stir was made by the return of a native who had spent five years in New York.  He came on shore with half a dozen people who had been shopping on the mainland, and walked up and down on the slip in his neat suit, looking strangely foreign to his birthplace, while his old mother of eighty-five ran about on the slippery seaweed, half crazy with delight, telling every one the news.

When the curaghs were in their places the men crowded round him to bid him welcome.  He shook hands with them readily enough, but with no smile of recognition.