They told me that several men had stayed on Inishmaan to learn
Irish, and the boy pointed out a line of hovels where they had
lodged running like a belt of straw round the middle of the island.
The place looked hardly fit for habitation. There was no green to be
seen, and no sign of the people except these beehive-like roofs, and
the outline of a Dun that stood out above them against the edge of
the sky.
After a while my companions went away and two other boys came and
walked at my heels, till I turned and made them talk to me. They
spoke at first of their poverty, and then one of them said--'I dare
say you do have to pay ten shillings a week in the hotel?' 'More,'
I answered.
'Twelve?'
'More.'
'Fifteen?'
'More still.'
Then he drew back and did not question me any further, either
thinking that I had lied to check his curiosity, or too awed by my
riches to continue.
Repassing Killeany I was joined by a man who had spent twenty years
in America, where he had lost his health and then returned, so long
ago that he had forgotten English and could hardly make me
understand him. He seemed hopeless, dirty and asthmatic, and after
going with me for a few hundred yards he stopped and asked for
coppers. I had none left, so I gave him a fill of tobacco, and he
went back to his hovel.
When he was gone, two little girls took their place behind me and I
drew them in turn into conversation.
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