the
greatest efforts or good-luck.

When we got to the village the people scattered for supper, and in
our cottage the little hostess swept the floor and sprinkled it with
some sand she had brought home in her apron. Then she filled a crock
with drinking water, lit the lamp and sat down by the fire to comb
her hair. Some time afterwards, when a number of young men had come
in, as was usual, to spend the evening, some one said a niavogue was
on its way home from the sports. We went out to the door, but it was
too dark to see anything except the lights of a little steamer that
was passing up the sound, almost beneath us, on its way to Limerick
or Tralee. When it had gone by we could hear a furious drunken
uproar coming up from a canoe that was somewhere out in the bay. It
sounded as if the men were strangling or murdering each other, and
it seemed almost miraculous that they should be able to manage their
canoe. The people seemed to think they were in no special danger,
and we went in again to the fire and talked about porter and whisky
(I have never heard the men here talk for half an hour of anything
without some allusion to drink), discussing how much a man could
drink with comfort in a day, whether it is better to drink when a
man is thirsty or at ordinary times, and what food gives the best
liking for porter. Then they asked me how much porter I could drink
myself and I told them I could drink whisky, but that I had no taste
for porter, and would only take a pint or two at odd times, when I
was thirsty.

'The girls are laughing to hear you say that,' said an old man; 'but
whisky is a lighter drink, and I'd sooner have it myself, and any
old man would say the same.' A little later some young men came in,
in their Sunday clothes, and told us the news of the sports.

This morning it was raining heavily, and the host got out some nets
and set to work with his son and son-in-law, mending many holes that
had been cut by dog-fish, as the mackerel season is soon to begin.
While they were at work the kitchen emptied and filled continually
with islanders passing in and out, and discussing the weather and
the season. Then they started cutting each other's hair, the man who
was being cut sitting with an oilskin round him on a little stool by
the door, and some other men came in to sharpen their razors on the
host's razor-strop, which seems to be the only one on the island. I
had not shaved since I arrived, so the little hos