‘There was more than that in it,’ said another man, ’for the night before a woman had a great sight out to the west in this island, and saw all the people that were dead a while back in this island and the south island, and they all talking with each other.  There was a man over from the other island that night, and he heard the woman talking of what she had seen.  The next day he went back to the south island, and I think he was alone in the curagh.  As soon as he came near the other island he saw a man fishing from the cliffs, and this man called out to him—­

’"Make haste now and go up and tell your mother to hide the poteen”—­his mother used to sell poteen—­“for I’m after seeing the biggest party of peelers and yeomanry passing by on the rocks was ever seen on the island.”  It was at that time the wool was taken with the other man above, under the hill, and no peelers in the island at all.’

A little after that the old men went away, and I was left with some young men between twenty and thirty, who talked to me of different things.  One of them asked me if ever I was drunk, and another told me I would be right to marry a girl out of this island, for they were nice women in it, fine fat girls, who would be strong, and have plenty of children, and not be wasting my money on me.

When the horses were coming ashore a curagh that was far out after lobster-pots came hurrying in, and a man out of her ran up the sandhills to meet a little girl who was coming down with a bundle of Sunday clothes.  He changed them on the sand and then went out to the hooker, and went off to Connemara to bring back his horses.

A young married woman I used often to talk with is dying of a fever—­typhus I am told—­and her husband and brothers have gone off in a curagh to get the doctor and the priest from the north island, though the sea is rough.

I watched them from the Dun for a long time after they had started.  Wind and rain were driving through the sound, and I could see no boats or people anywhere except this one black curagh splashing and struggling through the waves.  When the wind fell a little I could hear people hammering below me to the east.  The body of a young man who was drowned a few weeks ago came ashore this morning, and his friends have been busy all day making a coffin in the yard of the house where he lived.

After a while the curagh went out of sight into the mist, and I came down to the cottage shuddering with cold and misery.

The old woman was keening by the fire.

‘I have been to the house where the young man is,’ she said, ’but I couldn’t go to the door with the air was coming out of it.  They say his head isn’t on him at all, and indeed it isn’t any wonder and he three weeks in the sea.  Isn’t it great danger and sorrow is over every one on this island?’

I asked her if the curagh would soon be coming back with the priest.  ‘It will not be coming soon or at all to-night,’ she said.  ’The wind has gone up now, and there will come no curagh to this island for maybe two days or three.  And wasn’t it a cruel thing to see the haste was on them, and they in danger all the time to be drowned themselves?’