When he came to the last sentence he hesitated for a
moment, and then omitted it altogether.
This young man had come up to bring me a copy of the 'Love Songs of
Connaught,' which he possesses, and I persuaded him to read, or
rather chant me some of them. When he had read a couple I found that
the old woman knew many of them from her childhood, though her
version was often not the same as what was in the book. She was
rocking herself on a stool in the chimney corner beside a pot of
indigo, in which she was dyeing wool, and several times when the
young man finished a poem she took it up again and recited the
verses with exquisite musical intonation, putting a wistfulness and
passion into her voice that seemed to give it all the cadences that
are sought in the profoundest poetry.
The lamp had burned low, and another terrible gale was howling and
shrieking over the island. It seemed like a dream that I should be
sitting here among these men and women listening to this rude and
beautiful poetry that is filled with the oldest passions of the
world.
The horses have been coming back for the last few days from their
summer's grazing in Connemara. They are landed at the sandy beach
where the cattle were shipped last year, and I went down early this
morning to watch their arrival through the waves. The hooker was
anchored at some distance from the shore, but I could see a horse
standing at the gunnel surrounded by men shouting and flipping at it
with bits of rope.
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