sing stops for an hour or two to talk
on his way to the sea, so that, like the kelp-burning in the
summer-time, this work is full of sociability.

When the threshing is over the straw is taken up to the cottages and
piled up in an outhouse, or more often in a corner of the kitchen,
where it brings a new liveliness of colour.

A few days ago when I was visiting a cottage where there are the
most beautiful children on the island, the eldest daughter, a girl
of about fourteen, went and sat down on a heap of straw by the
doorway. A ray of sunlight fell on her and on a portion of the rye,
giving her figure and red dress with the straw under it a curious
relief against the nets and oilskins, and forming a natural picture
of exquisite harmony and colour.

In our own cottage the thatching--it is done every year--has just
been carried out. The rope-twisting was done partly in the lane,
partly in the kitchen when the weather was uncertain. Two men
usually sit together at this work, one of them hammering the straw
with a heavy block of wood, the other forming the rope, the main
body of which is twisted by a boy or girl with a bent stick
specially formed for this employment.

In wet weather, when the work must be done indoors, the person who
is twisting recedes gradually out of the door, across the lane, and
sometimes across a field or two beyond it. A great length is needed
to form the close network which is spread over the thatch, as each
piece measures about fifty yards. When this work is in progress in
half the cottages of the village, the road has a curious look, and
one has to pick one's steps through a maze of twisting ropes that
pass from the dark doorways on either side into the fields.

When four or five immense balls of rope have been completed, a
thatching party is arranged, and before dawn some morning they come
down to the house, and the work is taken in hand with such energy
that it is usually ended within the day.

Like all work that is done in common on the island, the thatching is
regarded as a sort of festival. From the moment a roof is taken in
hand there is a whirl of laughter and talk till it is ended, and, as
the man whose house is being covered is a host instead of an
employer, he lays himself out to please the men who work with him.

The day our own house was thatched the large table was taken into
the kitchen from my room, and high teas were given every few hours.
Most of the people who came along