be, by the next day, and then what good will be your song?'

After a while we went upstairs to a large room in the inn, where a
number of young men and girls were dancing jigs and reels. These
young people, although they are as Irish-speaking as the people of
Connemara, are pushing forward in their ways of living and dress; so
that this group of dancers could hardly have been known, by their
appearance, from any Sunday party in Limerick or Cork. After a long
four-hand reel, my friend, who was dressed in homespun, danced a jig
to the whistling of a young man with great energy and spirit. Then
he sat down beside me in the corner, and we talked about spring
trawling and the price of nets. I told him about the ways of Aran
and Connemara; and then he told me about the French trawlers who
come to this neighbourhood in April and May.

'The Frenchmen from Fecamp,' he said, 'are Catholics and decent
people; but those who come from Boulogne have no religion, and are
little better than a wild beast would lep on you out of a wood. One
night there was a drift of them below in the public-house, where
there is a counter, as you've maybe seen, with a tin top on it.
Well, they were talking together, and they had some little
difference among themselves, and from that they went on raising
their voices, till one of them out with his knife and drove it down
through the tin into the wood! Wasn't that a dangerous fellow?'

Then he told me about their tobacco.

'The French do have two kinds of tobacco; one of them is called
hay-tobacco, and if you give them a few eggs, or maybe nine little
cabbage plants, they'll give you as much of it as would fill your
hat. Then we get a pound of our own tobacco and mix the two of them
together, and put them away in a pig's bladder--it's that way we
keep our tobacco--and we have enough with that lot for the whole
winter.'

This evening a circus was advertised in Dingle, for one night only;
so I made my way there towards the end of the afternoon, although
the weather was windy and threatening. I reached the town an hour
too soon, so I spent some time watching the wild-looking fishermen
and fish-women who stand about the quays. Then I wandered up and saw
the evening train coming in with the usual number of gaily-dressed
young women and half-drunken jobbers and merchants; and at last,
about eight o'clock, I went to the circus field, just above the
town, in a heavy splash of rain. The tent was set up in th