These distinctions
are present in the middle island also, but over there they have had
no effect on the people, among whom there is still absolute
equality.
A little later the steamer came in sight and lay to in the offing.
While the curaghs were being put out I noticed in the crowd several
men of the ragged, humorous type that was once thought to represent
the real peasant of Ireland. Rain was now falling heavily, and as we
looked out through the fog there was something nearly appalling in
the shrieks of laughter kept up by one of these individuals, a man
of extraordinary ugliness and wit.
At last he moved off toward the houses, wiping his eyes with the
tail of his coat and moaning to himself 'Ta me marbh,' ('I'm
killed'), till some one stopped him and he began again pouring out a
medley of rude puns and jokes that meant more than they said.
There is quaint humour, and sometimes wild humour, on the middle
island, but never this half-sensual ecstasy of laughter. Perhaps a
man must have a sense of intimate misery, not known there, before he
can set himself to jeer and mock at the world. These strange men
with receding foreheads, high cheekbones, and ungovernable eyes seem
to represent some old type found on these few acres at the extreme
border of Europe, where it is only in wild jests and laughter that
they can express their loneliness and desolation.
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