He comes to this island or Inishere on
Saturday night--whenever the sea is calm enough--and has Mass the
first thing on Sunday morning. Then he goes down fasting and is
rowed across to the other island and has Mass again, so that it is
about midday when he gets a hurried breakfast before he sets off
again for Aranmore, meeting often on both passages a rough and
perilous sea.
A couple of Sundays ago I was lying outside the cottage in the
sunshine smoking my pipe, when the curate, a man of the greatest
kindliness and humour, came up, wet and worn out, to have his first
meal. He looked at me for a moment and then shook his head.
'Tell me,' he said, 'did you read your Bible this morning?'
I answered that I had not done so.
'Well, begod, Mr. Synge,' he went on, 'if you ever go to Heaven,
you'll have a great laugh at us.'
Although these people are kindly towards each other and to their
children, they have no feeling for the sufferings of animals, and
little sympathy for pain when the person who feels it is not in
danger. I have sometimes seen a girl writhing and howling with
toothache while her mother sat at the other side of the fireplace
pointing at her and laughing at her as if amused by the sight.
A few days ago, when we had been talking of the death of President
McKinley, I explained the American way of killing murderers, and a
man asked me how long the man who killed the President would be
dying.
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