‘Finished!’ said one of the women; ’sure they haven’t rightly begun.  It’s only playing they are yet.’

It was just after sunset and the evening was bitterly cold, so I went into the house and left them.

An hour later the old man came down from my cottage to say that some of the lads and the ‘fear lionta’ (’the man of the nets’—­a young man from Aranmor who is teaching net-mending to the boys) were up at the house, and had sent him down to tell me they would like to dance, if I would come up and play for them.

I went out at once, and as soon as I came into the air I heard the dispute going on still to the west more violently than ever.  The news of it had gone about the island, and little bands of girls and boys were running along the lanes towards the scene of the quarrel as eagerly as if they were going to a racecourse.  I stopped for a few minutes at the door of our cottage to listen to the volume of abuse that was rising across the stillness of the island.  Then I went into the kitchen and began tuning the fiddle, as the boys were impatient for my music.  At first I tried to play standing, but on the upward stroke my bow came in contact with the salt-fish and oil-skins that hung from the rafters, so I settled myself at last on a table in the corner, where I was out of the way, and got one of the people to hold up my music before me, as I had no stand.  I played a French melody first, to get myself used to the people and the qualities of the room, which has little resonance between the earth floor and the thatch overhead.  Then I struck up the ’Black Rogue,’ and in a moment a tall man bounded out from his stool under the chimney and began flying round the kitchen with peculiarly sure and graceful bravado.

The lightness of the pampooties seems to make the dancing on this island lighter and swifter than anything I have seen on the mainland, and the simplicity of the men enables them to throw a naive extravagance into their steps that is impossible in places where the people are self-conscious.

The speed, however, was so violent that I had some difficulty in keeping up, as my fingers were not in practice, and I could not take off more than a small part of my attention to watch what was going on.  When I finished I heard a commotion at the door, and the whole body of people who had gone down to watch the quarrel filed into the kitchen and arranged themselves around the walls, the women and girls, as is usual, forming themselves in one compact mass crouching on their heels near the door.

I struck up another dance—­’Paddy get up’—­and the ‘fear lionta’ and the first dancer went through it together, with additional rapidity and grace, as they were excited by the presence of the people who had come in.  Then word went round that an old man, known as Little Roger, was outside, and they told me he was once the best dancer on the island.