In stories of this kind he always speaks in the first person, with
minute details to show that he was actually present at the scenes
that are described.
At the beginning of this story he gave me a long account of what had
made him be on his way to Dublin on that occasion, and told me about
all the rich people he was going to see in the finest streets of the
city.
A week of sweeping fogs has passed over and given me a strange sense
of exile and desolation. I walk round the island nearly every day,
yet I can see nothing anywhere but a mass of wet rock, a strip of
surf, and then a tumult of waves.
The slaty limestone has grown black with the water that is dripping
on it, and wherever I turn there is the same grey obsession twining
and wreathing itself among the narrow fields, and the same wail from
the wind that shrieks and whistles in the loose rubble of the walls.
At first the people do not give much attention to the wilderness
that is round them, but after a few days their voices sink in the
kitchen, and their endless talk of pigs and cattle falls to the
whisper of men who are telling stories in a haunted house.
The rain continues; but this evening a number of young men were in
the kitchen mending nets, and the bottle of poteen was drawn from
its hiding-place.
