me goodbye.
He met me in the village this morning and took me into 'his little
tint,' a miserable hovel where he spends the night.

I sat for a long time on his threshold, while he leaned on a stool
behind me, near his bed, and told me the last story I shall have
from him--a rude anecdote not worth recording. Then he told me with
careful emphasis how he had wandered when he was a young man, and
lived in a fine college, teaching Irish to the young priests!

They say on the island that he can tell as many lies as four men:
perhaps the stories he has learned have strengthened his
imagination. When I stood up in the doorway to give him God's
blessing, he leaned over on the straw that forms his bed, and shed
tears. Then he turned to me again, lifting up one trembling hand,
with the mitten worn to a hole on the palm, from the rubbing of his
crutch.

'I'll not see you again,' he said, with tears trickling on his face,
'and you're a kindly man. When you come back next year I won't be in
it. I won't live beyond the winter. But listen now to what I'm
telling you; let you put insurance on me in the city of Dublin, and
it's five hundred pounds you'll get on my burial.'

This evening, my last in the island, is also the evening of the
'Pattern'--a festival something like 'Pardons' of Brittany.

I waited especially to see it, but a piper who was expected did not
come, and there was no amusement. A few friends and relations came
over from the other island and stood about the public-house in their
best clothes, but without music dancing was impossible.

I believe on some occasions when the piper is present there is a
fine day of dancing and excitement, but the Galway piper is getting
old, and is not easily induced to undertake the voyage.

Last night, St. John's Eve, the fires were lighted and boys ran
about with pieces of the burning turf, though I could not find out
if the idea of lighting the house fires from the bonfires is still
found on the island.

I have come out of an hotel full of tourists and commercial
travelers, to stroll along the edge of Galway bay, and look out in
the direction of the islands. The sort of yearning I feel towards
those lonely rocks is indescribably acute. This town, that is
usually so full of wild human interest, seems in my present mood a
tawdry medley of all that is crudest in modern life. The nullity of
the rich and the squalor of the poor give me the same pang of
wondering disgust; yet the