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Sensors and Transducers 3rd ed Edition Ian Sinclair
Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Ian Sinclair
ISBN(s): 9780750649322, 0750649321
Edition: 3rd ed
File Details: PDF, 1.54 MB
Year: 2001
Language: english

Sensors and
Transducers
Third edition
Ian R. Sinclair
OXFORD AUCKLAND BOSTON JOHANNESBURG MELBOURNE NEW DELHI

Newnes
An imprint of Butterworth-Heinemann
Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP
225 Wildwood Avenue, Woburn, MA 01801-2041
A division of Reed Educational and Professional Publishing Ltd
A member of the Reed Elsevier plc group
First published by BSP Professional Books 1988
Reprinted by Butterworth-Heinemann 1991
Second edition published by Butterworth-Heinemann 1992
Third edition 2001
# I. R. Sinclair 1988, 1992, 2001
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced in any material form (including
photocopying or storing in any medium by electronic
means and whether or not transiently or incidentally
to some other use of this publication) without the
written permission of the copyright holder except
in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a
licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd,
90 Tottenham Court Road, London, England W1P 9HE.
Applications for the copyright holder's written permission
to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed
to the publishers
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 7506 4932 1
Typeset by David Gregson Associates, Beccles, Su¡olk
Printed and bound in Great Britain

Contents
Preface to Third Edition vii
Preface to First Edition ix
Introduction xi
1 Strain and pressure 1
2 Position, direction, distance and motion 21
3 Light and associated radiation 53
4 Temperature sensors and thermal transducers 87
5 Sound, infrasound and ultrasound 116
6 Solids, liquids and gases 142
7 Environmental sensors 170
8 Other sensing methods 197
9 Instrumentation techniques 206
10 Switch principles 233
11 Switch mechanisms 248
12 Signal-carrying switches 270
Appendix A: Suppliers of sensors and transducers 290
Appendix B: Glossary of terms 293
Index 296

Preface to Third Edition
This third edition of Sensors and Transducers has been thoroughly revised to
take account of the ever-increasing role of these components and of im-
provements in design. New tables of properties and illustrations have also
been added. The topic of switches and switching actions has also been
added because so many types of sensor are intended ultimately to provide a
switching action.
Ian Sinclair

Preface to First Edition
The purpose of this book is to explain and illustrate the use of sensors and
transducers associated with electronic circuits. The steady spread of elec-
tronic circuits into all aspects of life, but particularly into all aspects of
control technology, has greatly increased the importance of sensors which
can detect, as electrical signals, changes in various physical quantities. In
addition, the conversion by transducers of physical quantities into electronic
signals and vice versa has become an important part of electronics.
Because of this, the range of possible sensors and transducers is by now
very large, and most textbooks that are concerned with the interfaces
between electronic circuits and other devices tend to deal only with a few
types of sensors for speci¢c purposes. In this book, you will ¢nd described a
very large range of devices, some used industrially, some domestically,
some employed in teaching to illustrate e¡ects, some used only in research
laboratories. The important point is that the reader will ¢nd reference to a
very wide range of devices, much more than it would be possible to present
in a more specialized text.
In addition, I have assumed that the physical principles of each sensor or
transducer will not necessarily be familiar. To be useful, a book of this kind
should be accessible to a wide range of users, and since the correct use of
sensors and transducers often depends critically on an understanding of the
physical principles involved, these principles have been explained in as
much depth as is needed. I have made the reasonable assumption that elec-
trical principles will not be required to be explained in such depth as the
principles of, for example, relative humidity. In order for the book to be as
serviceable as possible to as many readers as possible, the use of mathematics
has been avoided unless absolutely essential to the understanding of a
device. I have taken here as my guide the remark by Lord Kelvin that if
he needed to use mathematics to explain something it was probably

because he didn't really understand it. The text should prove useful to
anyone who encounters sensors and transducers, whether from the point of
view of speci¢cation, design, servicing, or education.
I am most grateful to RS Components for much useful and well-organized
information, and to Bernard Watson, of BSP Professional Books, for advice
and encouragement.
Ian Sinclair
April 1988
x PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

Introduction
A sensor is a device that detects or measures a physical quantity, and in this
book the types of sensors that we are concerned with are the types whose
output is electrical. The opposite device is an actuator, which converts a
signal (usually electrical) to some action, usually mechanical. A transducer
is a device that converts energy from one form into another, and here we
are concerned only with the transducers in which one form of energy is elec-
trical. Actuators and sensors are therefore forms of transducers, and in this
book we shall deal with actuators under the heading of transducers.
The di¡erences between sensors and transducers are often very slight. A
sensor performs a transducing action, and the transducer must necessarily
sense some physical quantity. The di¡erence lies in the e¤ciency of energy
conversion. The purpose of a sensor is to detect and measure, and whether
its e¤ciency is 5% or 0.1% is almost immaterial, provided the ¢gure is
known. A transducer, by contrast, is intended to convert energy, and its e¤-
ciency is important, though in some cases it may not be high. Linearity of
response, de¢ned by plotting the output against the input, is likely to be
important for a sensor, but of much less signi¢cance for a transducer. By
contrast, e¤ciency of conversion is important for a transducer but not for a
sensor. The basic principles that apply to one, however, must apply to the
other, so that the descriptions that appear in this book will apply equally
to sensors and to transducers.
. Switches appear in this book both as transducers/sensors in their own
right, since any electrical switch is a mechanical^electrical transducer,
and also because switch action is such an important part of the action of
many types of sensors and transducers.
Classi¢cation of sensors is conventionally by the conversion principle, the
quantity being measured, the technology used, or the application. The

organization of this book is, in general, by the physical quantity that is
sensed or converted. This is not a perfect form of organization, but no form
is, because there are many `one-o¡' devices that sense or convert for some
unique purpose, and these have to be gathered together in an `assortment'
chapter. Nevertheless, by grouping devices according to the sensed
quantity, it is much easier for the reader to ¢nd the information that is
needed, and that is the guiding principle for this book. In addition, some of
the devices that are dealt with early in the book are those which form part
of other sensing or transducing systems that appear later. This avoids
having to repeat a description, or refer forward for a description.
Among the types of energy that can be sensed are those classed as radiant,
mechanical, gravitational, electrical, thermal, and magnetic. If we
consider the large number of principles that can be used in the design of
sensors and transducers, some 350 to date, it is obvious that not all are of
equal importance. By limiting the scope of this book to sensors and transdu-
cers with electrical/electronic inputs or outputs of the six forms listed
above, we can reduce this number to a more manageable level.
Several points should be noted at this stage, to avoid much tedious repeti-
tion in the main body of the book. One is that a fair number of physical
e¡ects are sensed or measured, but have no requirement for transducers ^
we do not, for example, generate electricity from earthquake shocks
though we certainly want to sense them. A second point is that the output
from a sensor, including the output from electronic circuits connected to
the sensor, needs to be proportional in some way to the e¡ect that is being
sensed, or at least to bear some simple mathematical relationship to the
quantity. This means that if the output is to be used for measurements,
then some form of calibration can be carried out. It also implies that the
equation that connects the electrical output with the input that is being
sensed contains various constants such as mass, length, resistance and so
on. If any of these quantities is varied at any time, then recalibration of the
equipment will be necessary.
Sensors can be classed as active or passive. An active or self-generating
sensor is one that can generate a signal without the need for any external
power supply. Examples include photovoltaic cells, thermocouples and
piezoelectric devices. The more common passive sensors need an external
source of energy, which for the devices featured in this book will be electri-
cal. These operate by modulating the voltage or current of a supply.
Another class of passive sensors, sometimes called modi¢ers, use the same
type of energy at the output as at the input. Typical of these types is a
diaphragm used to convert the pressure or velocity oscillations of sound
waves into movements of a solid sheet.
Another point that we need to be clear about is the meaning of resolution as
applied to a sensor. The resolution of a sensor measures its ability to detect
a change in the sensed quantity, and is usually quoted in terms of the
smallest change that can be detected. In some cases, resolution is virtually
xii INTRODUCTION

in¢nite, meaning that a small change in the sensed quantity will cause a
small change in the electrical output, and these changes can be detected to
the limits of our measuring capabilities. For other sensors, particularly
when digital methods are used, there is a de¢nite limit to the size of change
that can be either detected or converted.
It is important to note that very few sensing methods provide a digital
output directly, and most digital outputs are obtained by converting from
analogue quantities. This implies that the limits of resolution are deter-
mined by the analogue to digital conversion circuits rather than by the
sensor itself. Where a choice of sensing methods exists, a method that
causes a change of frequency of an oscillator is to be preferred. This is
because frequency is a quantity that lends itself very easily to digital
handling methods with no need for other analogue to digital conversion
methods.
The sensing of any quantity is liable to error, and the errors can be static
or dynamic. A static error is the type of error that is caused by reading
problems, such as the parallax of a needle on a meter scale, which causes
the apparent reading to vary according to the position of the observer's
eye. Another error of this type is the interpolation error, which arises when
a needle is positioned between two marks on a scale, and the user has to
make a guess as to the amount signi¢ed by this position. The amount of an
interpolation error is least when the scale is linear. One distinct advantage
of digital readouts is that neither parallax nor interpolation errors exist,
though this should not be taken to mean that errors corresponding to inter-
polation errors are not present. For example, if a digital display operates to
three places of decimals, the user has no way of knowing if a reading
should be 1.2255 because this will be shown as 1.225, and a slight increase
in the measured quantity will change the reading to 1.226.
The other form of error is dynamic, and a typical error of this type is a dif-
ference between the quantity as it really is and the amount that is
measured, caused by the loading of the measuring instrument itself. A
familiar example of this is the false voltage reading measured across a
high-resistance potential divider with a voltmeter whose input resistance is
not high enough. All forms of sensors are liable to dynamic errors if they
are used only for sensing, and to both dynamic and static errors if they are
used for measurement.
Since the development of microprocessors, a new breed of sensors has
been developed, termed intelligent or smart sensors. This type of system uses
a miniature sensor that is integrated on a single chip with a processor.
Strictly speaking, this is a monolithic integrated sensor to distinguish it
from the hybrid type in which the sensor and the processor are fabricated
on the same substrate but not on the same chip. This book is
concerned mainly with sensor and transducer principles rather than with
the details of signal processing. The advantages of such integration
methods include:
INTRODUCTION xiii

. Improved signal-to-noise ratio
. improved linearity and frequency response
. improved reliability.
Finally, two measurable quantities can be quoted in connection with any
sensor or transducer. These are responsivity and detectivity, and although
the names are not necessarily used by the manufacturer of any given
device, the ¢gures are normally quoted in one form or another. The respon-
sivity is:
output signal
input signal
which will be a measure of transducing e¤ciency if the two signals are in
comparable units (both in watts, for example), but which is normally
expressed with very di¡erent units for the two signals. The detectivity is
de¢ned as:
S=N of output signal
size of output signal
where S/N has its usual electrical meaning of signal to noise ratio. This
latter de¢nition can be reworked as:
responsivity
output noise signal
if this makes it easier to measure.
xiv INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1
Strain and pressure
1.1 Mechanical strain
The words stress and strain are often confused in everyday life, and a clear
de¢nition is essential at this point. Strain is the result of stress, and is
de¢ned as the fractional change of the dimensions of an object. By fractional
change, I mean that the change of dimension is divided by the original
dimension, so that in terms of length, for example, the strain is the change
of length divided by the original length. This is a quantity that is a pure
number, one length divided by another, having no physical dimensions.
Strain can be de¢ned for area or for volume measurements in a similar
way as change divided by original quantity. For example, area strain is
change of area divided by original area, and volume strain is change of
volume divided by original volume.
A stress, by contrast, is a force divided by an area. As applied to a wire or a
bar in tension or compression, for example, the tensile (pulling) stress is the
applied force divided by the area over which it is applied, which will be the
area of cross section of the wire or bar. For materials such as liquids or gases
which can be compressed uniformly in all dimensions, the bulk stress is the
force per unit area, which is identical to the pressure applied, and the strain
is the change of volume divided by the original volume. The most common
strain transducers are for tensile mechanical strain. The measurement of
strain allows the amount of stress to be calculated through a knowledge of
the elastic modulus. The de¢nition of any type of elastic modulus is stress/
strain (which has the units of stress, since strain has no physical units), and
the most commonly used elastic moduli are the linear Young's modulus, the
shear (twisting) modulus, and the (pressure) bulk modulus.
For small amounts of strain, the strain is proportional to stress, and an
elastic modulus is a quantity that expresses the ratio stress/strain in the

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she looked up and down the cabin, and presently she cast eyes on the
creature, which was laid in a basket by the fire, that being the place it stayed
easiest in, and—
‘ “Arrah! what’s that you’ve got at all in there?” says she, staring at it,
and it staring back at her with its two eyes as wicked as wicked.
‘ “My child, what else?” says Katty, speaking quite angrily.
‘With that the woman gave a screech of laughter so that you could have
heard her across the Foul Sound with the wind blowing west, and “Your
child!” says she. “Your child! Sure, God save you, woman, you might as
well call a black arth-looghra a salmon any day in the week as that thing
there a child!”
‘Well, Katty was going to throw her into the sea, she was so mad! But
first she looked at the basket, and with that she began to shake and tremble
all over, for the creature was winking up so knowing at her, and opening
and shutting its mouth as no Christian child in this world or any other ever
would or could.
‘ “Why, what ails it now, at all, at all?’ says she, turning to the other, and
her face growing as white as the inside of a potato.
‘ “Listen to me, woman,” says Nora Cronohan, holding up her hand at
her. “That’s not your child at all, you ignorant creature, as anyone can see,
and there’s but two ways for you to get your own right child back again.
You must either take that up the next time there’s a south wind blowing and
set it to roast on the gridiron with the door open, or if you won’t do that you
must gather a handful of the boliaun bwee and another handful of the
boliaun dhas, and put them down to boil, and boil them both in the pot for
an hour, and then throw the whole potful right over it; and if you’ll do either
of those things I’ll be your warrant but it will be glad to be quit of you, and
you’ll get your own fine child again!”
‘Well, you’d think that would be enough for any reasonable woman! But
no. Katty wouldn’t do either the one thing nor the other, but held to it that it
was her own child, not changed at all, only sick; such fool’s talk! as if
anyone with half an eye, and that one blind, couldn’t have told the
difference! She had ne’er another child, you see, nor the sign of one, and
that perhaps was what made her so set on it. Anyhow the neighbours tried to
get her to see reason, and her husband, too, though he was but a poor
shadow of a man, did what he could. At last her mother-in-law, that was a

decent well-reared woman, and knew what was right, tried to get at the
creature one day when Katty was out on the rocks, so as to serve it the right
way, and have her own fine grandchild back. But if she did Katty was in on
her before she could do a thing, and set upon the decent woman, and tore
the good clothes off her back, and scratched her face with her nails so that
there was blood running along her two cheeks when the neighbours came
up, and but for their getting between them in time, God knows but she’d
have had her life. After that no one, you may believe, would have hand, act,
or part with Katty Mulcahy! Indeed, it soon came to this, that her husband
durstn’t stop with her in the cabin, what between her goings on and the
screeches of the creature, which got worse and worse till you could hear
them upon the road to Ballintemple, a good half-mile away. Yarra! the
whole of that side of the island got a bad name through her, and there’s
many doesn’t care even now to walk from Aillinera to Aillyhaloo, specially
towards evening, not knowing what they might hear!
‘Well, one day—’ here the narrator paused, looked first at one and then
at the other of her listeners, coughed, spat, twitched the big cloak higher
round her shoulders, and settled herself down again in her chair with an air
of intense satisfaction. ‘One day, it was a desperate wild afternoon just
beginning December, and the wind up at Aillyhaloo enough to blow the
head of you off your two shoulders. Most of the people were at home and
the houses shut, but there were a few of us colleens colloguing together
outside the doors, talking of one thing and another, when all of a sudden
who should come running up the road but Katty Mulcahy, with the bawl in
her mouth, and a look on her face would frighten the life out of an
Inishboffin pig.
‘ “Och! och! och!” says she, screeching. “Och! och! och! my child’s
dying! It’s got the fits. It’s turning blue. Where’s Phil? Where’s its father?
Run, some of you, for God’s sake, and see if he’s in yet from the fishing.”
‘Well, at first we all stared, wondering like, and one or two of the little
girshas ran off home to their mothers, being scared at her looks. But at last
some of us began laughing—I was one that did myself, and so I tell you
women both—you see we knew of course all the time that it wasn’t her own
child at all, only a changeling, and that as for Phil he had never been near
the fishing, but was just keeping out of the way, not wishing, honest man, to
be mixed up with any such doings. Well, when she heard us laughing she
stopped in the middle of her screeching, and she just gave us one look, and

before anyone knew what was coming there she was in the very thick of us,
and her arms going up and down like two flails beating the corn!
‘Och, Mary Queen of Heaven, but that was a hubbuboo! We turned and
we run, and our blood was like sea-water down our backs, for we made sure
we’d carry the marks of her to our graves, for she had a bitter hard hand,
and God knows I’m speaking the truth, had Katty Mulcahy when you
roused her! Well, at the screams of us a heap more people came running out
of the houses, and amongst them who should put his head out of one of the
doors but Phil Mulcahy himself, with no hat to his head and a pipe to his
mouth, for he had no time to take it out, and she thinking, you know, he was
away at the fishing!
‘At that Katty stood still like one struck, and the eyes of her growing that
round you’d think they must fall out of her head, so big were they, and her
mouth working like a sea pool in the wind. And presently she let out
another bawl, and she made for him! I was the nearest to him, and there was
some three or four more between the two, but you may believe me, we
didn’t stop long! It was something awful, women both, and so I tell you, to
see her coming up the road with that rage on her face, and it as white as the
foam on the sea. Phil stood shaking and shaking, staring at her and his
knees knocking, thinking his hour was come, till just as she was within
touch of him, when he turned and he ran for his life. He ran and he ran, and
she ran after him. Now there’s no place at all, as everyone knows, to run on
that side of Aillyhaloo only along by the cliff, for the rest is all torn and
destroyed, with great cracks running down God knows where to the heart of
the earth. So he kept along by the edge, and she after him, and we after the
two of them presently to see the end of it. Phil ran as a man runs for his life,
but Katty, she ran like a woman possessed! Holy Bridget! you could hardly
see the feet of her as she raced over the ground! The boys cried out that
she’d have him for sure, and if she had caught him and this rage still on her
God knows she’d have thrown him over the cliff, and you know ’tis
hundreds of feet deep there, and never an inch of landing. Poor Phil thought
himself done for, and kept turning and turning, and far away as he was now
we could see the terror on the face of him, and we all screeched to him to
turn away from the edge, but he did not know where he was going, he was
that dazed. Well, she was just within grip of him when she stopped all at
once as if she was shot, and lifted her head in the air like that! Whether she
heard something, or what ailed her I can’t tell, but she gathered herself up

and began running in the opposite way, not along by the sea but over the
rocks, the nearest way back to her own house. How she got across nobody
knows, for the cracks there are something awful, but you’d think it was
wings she had to see the leaps she threw in the air, for all the world like a
bird! Anyhow, she got over them at last, and into her house with her, and
the door shut with a bang you might have heard across the Sound at
Killeany.
‘Nobody, you may believe me, troubled to go after her or near her that
night, and the wind being so cold, after a bit we all went home, and Phil,
too, by-and-by come creeping back, looking like a pullet that had had its
neck wrung, and the boys all laughing at him for being ’fraid of a woman—
as if it was only a woman Katty was, with that black look on her face and
she leaping and going on as no woman in this world ever could, if she was
left to herself! That night there was no more about it one way or another,
nor the next morning either, but by the middle of the afternoon a man that
was passing brought us word that he heard a noise of hammering inside of
the house. Well, at that we all wondered what was doing now, and some
said one thing and some another. But a boy—a young devil’s imp he was by
the name of Mick Caroll—peeped in at the end window and came running
up to say he had seen something like a coffin standing on the floor, only no
bigger he said than the top of a keg of butter. Well, that was the queerest
start of all! For who, I ask you both, could have made that coffin for her,
and what could she have wanted with a coffin either? For you’re not so
ignorant, women, either of you, as need to be told there wouldn’t be
anything to put into it! ’Twasn’t likely that thing she had in the house with
her would stop to be put into any coffin! ’Tis out of the window or up the
chimney it would have been long before it came to that, as everyone knows
that knows anything. Anyhow, ’twas the truth it seems he told, for the very
next day out she came from the house herself, and the coffin or the box or
whatever it was under her arm, and carried it down did she sure enough to
the shore, and paid a man handsome to let her put it in a curragh—as well
she’d need, and him losing his soul on her!—and away with her to Cashla
over the “Old Sea”! And whether she found a priest to bury it for her is
more than I can tell you, but they do say out there on the Continent there’re
none so particular, so long as they get their dues. As for Phil, he went over
only the very next week to her father’s house, the poor foolish innocent
creature, but all he got for his pains was a pailful of pig’s wash over his

head, and back he came to Inishmaan complaining bitterly, though it was
thankful on his two knees to Almighty God he ought to have been it was no
worse, and so we all told him. However, there was no putting sense into his
head, and not a word would he say good or bad, only cried and talked of his
Katty! Lucky for him his troubles didn’t last very long, for the next thing
we heard of her was that she was dead, and about a year after that, or maybe
two years, he married a decent little girl, a cousin of my own, and took her
to live with him up at the house at Aillyhaloo. And, but that he was killed
through having his head broke one dark night by Larry Connel in mistake
for the youngest of the Lynches, ’tis likely he’d be in it still! Any way, he
had a grand wake, the finest money could buy, for Larry Connel, that had
always a good heart, paid for it himself, and got upon a stool, so he did, and
spoke very handsomely of poor Phil, so that Molly Mulcahy the widow
didn’t know whether it was crying she should be or laughing, the creature,
with glory! And for eating and drinking and fiddling and jig-dancing, it was
like nothing either of you ever saw in your lives, and a pride and
satisfaction to all concerned. But,’—here Peggy Dowd hitched her cloak
once more about her shoulders and spat straight in front of her with an air of
reprobation—‘but—there was never a man nor yet a woman either, living
upon Inishmaan at the time, that would have danced one foot, and so I tell
you, women both—not if you’d have paid them for doing it—at Katty
Mulcahy’s wake.’
CHAPTER IX
The two listeners remained silent a minute after the tale had ended. Peggy
Dowd filled her pipe and puffed at it solemnly, with the air of one who has
fulfilled a social duty and sustained a widely-known reputation. Suddenly
Mrs. Durane, glancing towards the door, uttered an ejaculation of
annoyance.
‘My conscience! if there is not that Pete Durane! God help the world, but
he’s back early from his work this day!’
Almost before she had finished the words the little man came suddenly
round the doorway into the cabin, hardly finding room to enter his own
house owing to the three women, two of them in their big woollen cloaks,
who already filled it to the very walls. His face wore a deprecating smile,

which hardly ever left it, and which was the more noticeable from the
absence of most of his front teeth. His hair, unlike that of most Irishmen of
his rank, was very thin, so that he had the effect of being almost bald, and
this with his short stature, bent back, and hesitating air, gave a general look
of feebleness and ineffectiveness to his whole aspect. A poor pittiogue his
wife called him, and as he stood there her two friends mentally endorsed the
description.
‘Well now, well now, is this yourselves? Bless me, ladies, but ’tis the
proud man I am to see you in my poor house,’ he exclaimed as he entered.
‘Yes, indeed, Mrs. O’Flanagan, ma’am! and how is that good man your
husband? and your fine girl, too? But it is a sight to see her coming up the
road, so it is!’
‘Och! Pete Durane, get along then, with your fine speeches,’ said his
wife irritably. ‘What a murrain brings you back at this time of day? Is it to
torment me before you need you’re wanting?’
‘Arrah, don’t be speaking to him like that, Rosha Durane!’ said the aunt
from the other side of the island, with a short derisive laugh. ‘I tell you,
Pete, there has been a very fine girl asking for you yourself, this day, so
there has. Och, but a fine girl, as fine as any in Inishmaan. Saints alive! but
’twas herself was disappointed not to find you within. “Will he come to see
me this evening, do you think, Mrs. Durane?” says she, putting her head on
one side. “ ’Tis the unfortunate colleen I am to miss him,” says she. So you
may be the proud man, Pete Durane, then you may!’
Poor Pete’s face got as red as his wife’s petticoat. His susceptibility was
one of the many standing jokes upon Inishmaan, where jokes were rare, and
once started lasted long. It was quite true. By one of those humorous freaks
of which nature is fond, while his handsome stalwart contemporaries were
all but invulnerable in this respect, the poor little pittiogue was known to be
intensely susceptible to the tender passion. It had made him a slave all his
life to his wife Rosha, and even now, after years of consistent ill-usage on
her part, he was still slavishly devoted to her, and took her buffets, physical
no less than verbal, with all the meekness of an attached and well-broken-in
house-dog.
‘Ugh! ugh! ’tis going I must be,’ old Peggy Dowd said suddenly,
struggling to rise from her low seat. ‘Will you put the cloak around me,

Mrs. Durane, ma’am, if you please. Ugh! ugh! ’Tis myself is scarce fit to
walk back alone, so I am not.’
‘Will I send the girl Juggy Kelly with you to help you up the hill? Yes,
indeed, but it is a great help, so it is. You must make her go behind you and
push—push hard. Trouble? Och! what are the young people for if not to be
of some good to those that’s better and older than themselves? But where is
she, that girl Juggy Kelly? It is always out of the way she is when she is
wanted. Run, Pete, run out down the road and look for her. Quick, man,
don’t be standing there like a stuck pig over against the door, taking up all
the light.’
Then, as the obedient Pete flew off hatless down the path—‘It is not
known the trouble I have had with that girl!’ Mrs. Durane continued,
turning for sympathy to her friends. ‘Would you believe it, Mrs.
O’Flanagan, ma’am, ’tis sleeping with the chickens now she complains of!
There is not a morning of her life but she comes to me with her face all
scratched, crying and saying she’ll not stop in it. “Then don’t,” says I; “go
sleep with the crows if you like, since the chickens won’t serve you.” That
is what I say; yes, indeed! such impudence!’
‘Och! there is no satisfying the young people, do what you will for them
these times,’ Mrs. O’Flanagan replied sympathetically. ‘Did you hear of
young Macdara Kilbride—Manus Kilbride’s eldest son, him that’s just back
from America?—it is not into his own father and mother’s house he will go
almost, so it is not. “Phew! phew!” says he; “why, what a lot of smoke!”
And so there is some smoke, and why would there not be? It is a very good
house, Mary Kilbride’s house is, there is no better house in all Inishmaan. It
is true it is built on a bit of a slope, and the door is at the top, so that the rain
comes into it in wet weather; God He sends the rain, and it is a very bad
season for Inishmaan when He does not send enough—oh yes, a very bad
season, everyone knows that. But Macdara Kilbride is just so. His feet do
be sticking in the floor of the house, he says, every time he crosses it. It is a
soft floor, there is no denying that, and the chimney never was a good one
to draw, being fallen in a good deal at the top, and the stones off. But, Man
Above! does he think his father can be going into Galway every day in the
week for more bricks? Besides, it is a good house; a very good house is
Mary Kilbride’s.’

‘Ugh! ugh! what did I tell you just now? ’Tis the same everywhere.
Young people they are the same, all the same; there is no good in them at
all, so there is not!’ Peggy Dowd again spat vigorously into the fire to
emphasise her disgust, then hitched her big cloak about her shoulders, and
began preparing with many groans and wheezing sighs to depart without the
aid of her proffered assistant.
Just as she had hobbled across to the doorway it was again filled by a
figure, and the elder Durane, Pete’s father, came in.
He was a curious contrast to his insignificant-looking little son. A tall,
stately old man, with that peculiarly well-bred air not unfrequently still to
be seen amongst the elder Irish peasants. His white hair was very thick, and
hung over his forehead and around his hat in a dense silky thatch. His eyes
were drooping and tired-looking, and his whole air that of a man who has
done his work in the world, and asks for nothing now but to be left in peace.
By an arrangement common enough in the west of Ireland, when the parent
is old, and the son or sons married, he had surrendered all ownership in the
house and all rights of possession, with a few trifling exceptions. The single
stuffed chair, for instance, was his, so was the one drinking-glass, and an
old two-handled black oak mether bound with brass, a relic this of unknown
antiquity. These and a few similar articles of personal use were his own
private property, and to these he clung punctiliously, and in case of a
dispute would doubtless have defended them to the death.
On the whole his daughter-in-law and he got on better than might have
been expected. Rosha, to tell truth, was rather in awe of her father-in-law.
His old world politeness, combined with a certain power he occasionally
showed of being uncomfortably caustic if provoked, were not without effect
upon the rough-tongued, coarse-natured woman. In the endless domestic
storms between her and her husband—storms, it must be said, which raged
almost exclusively on one side—old Durane never took his son’s part,
though often appealed to by that much-bullied person to do so. On the other
hand he had a way of dreamily watching Rosha as she raged about the cabin
which had more effect upon the virago than might have been expected from
so very negative a form of attack. He now stood perfectly silent upon the
threshold, and having politely removed his hat, bent his white head first to
one and then to the other of the visitors, leaning as he did so upon the big
black stick which he held in his hand. He was still in the same attitude when

his son Pete returned hastily, without the girl he had been sent for, but
dragging two of the children after him by the hand.
‘Augh, then, Pete Durane, will you never get the sense?’ his wife
exclaimed furiously. ‘Who bade you bring back the children, and they sent
out on purpose? Pulling them up the rocks, too, like that, and Patsy smoking
red with the heat this minute, the creature’—passing her hand over her
offspring’s forehead, and turning the palm round to the company to prove
her assertion. ‘Auch, Mr. Durane, sir, but it is the fool you have for a son,
God love you! yes, indeed, the very biggest fool on all Inishmaan, and it
was myself was the next biggest ever to go and marry him, so I was, God
knows.’
The elder Durane looked at his son, and then at his daughter-in-law, an
air of vague disturbance beginning to cloud his face, but he said nothing.
Then, equally silently, his eyes began to wander slowly round the cabin, as
if he were calculating the probabilities of any food being forthcoming. Not
seeing signs of anything of the sort at present, he again lifted his hat with
the same air of dreamy civility, and backing cautiously out of the doorway,
beyond which he had not yet ventured, retraced his steps a little way down
the pathway, until he had reached a spot where the planes of rock had got
accidentally worn away into the likeness of a sort of roughly-hewn arm-
chair. Here he seated himself, his legs stretched out in front of him, his eyes
beginning, evidently from long habit, to seek out one particular spot in the
far-reaching, dull-tinted horizon. Gradually as he did so the serenity,
disturbed by Rosha’s appeal and by the general sense of disturbance which
was apt to surround that vigorous woman, returned to his face, a look of
reminiscence, undefined but on the whole pleasurable, settling down upon
his handsome weather-beaten old features.
The aunt from the other side of the island had nearly reached her own
home again, and even Peggy Dowd had long disappeared, wheezing and
grunting up the craggy pathway, before he ventured to leave his arm-chair
and contemplative gaze at the horizon, and once more seek out the cabin
and that atmosphere of storm which seemed to hang about it as closely and
almost as persistently as its veil of peat smoke.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] ‘What is the matter?’
[2] ‘Hold your tongue and come here.’
[3] ‘My soul from the devil.’
[4] Cripple.
[5] What is the price of that horse?
[6] Fifteen pounds.
[7] Laughing-stock.

G R A N I A
VOL. II.
By the same Author
———
HURRISH: a Study
IRELAND (Story of the Nations Series)
MAJOR LAWRENCE, F.L.S.
PLAIN FRANCES MOWBRAY, &c.

WITH ESSEX IN IRELAND
G R A N I A
THE STORY OF AN ISLAND
BY THE
HON. EMILY LAWLESS
AUTHOR OF ‘HURRISH, A STUDY’
ETC.
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II.
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1892
[All rights reserved]
PART III
CHAPTER I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI.
PART IV
CHAPTER I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII.

PART III
MAY TO AUGUST
CHAPTER I
Thus the weeks went on, one week after the other, all exactly alike, and
no new light came to aid Grania in her investigations about the stolen turf.
What was hardly less important, however, the depredations themselves
ceased. From the night on which she had pursued the thief through the gully
and lost him at the mouth of it, no fresh inroads, so far as she could
discover, had been made in the stack, and, this being the case, she was
content for the present to let the matter be. She had a kindly feeling towards
poor Pete Durane, and if he were the culprit would have been sorry to have
been forced to bring the guilt home to him. If, on the other hand, it was
Shan Daly—the only other person she could think of as likely to be guilty—
though she hated that miscreant as she hated no other person in the world,
still, there was his wretched wife to be thought of, and his equally wretched
family. As well, too, hope to extract blood from flints as get any satisfaction
or compensation out of Shan Daly, and, as for the mere vindictive pleasure
of punishment, the ties of kinship and acquaintanceship are far too closely
drawn in so limited a community as Inishmaan for that sort of pleasure to
be often resorted to. If we were on visiting terms with the families of our
pick-pockets and burglars, those artists would be even less interrupted in the
exercise of their vocations than they are at present.
Meanwhile the work of the year had to be gone on with. Grania was
feeding up a calf, as well as two pigs, to be sold at the Galway spring fair.
The freight charges from Inishmaan to Galway were serious—not less than
half a crown for every calf and a shilling apiece for the pigs; whereas the
freight charges to Ennistimon were much less; but, then, the chances of a
good sale at the Galway fair were considerably greater, and, on the whole,
therefore, she had decided to send them there.

Her other work was now lighter, for there was nothing to be done to the
potatoes till autumn, and she had hardly any oats. In the Aran isles the land
is divided into townlands, every townland containing so many ‘quarters,’
every quarters so many ‘croggeries,’ every croggery so many acres.
Inishmaan possesses but two townlands, containing six quarters each, with
sixteen croggeries to every quarter, and sixteen acres to every croggery.
Grania and Honor held a little over one croggery, six acres of which was
pure stone, leaving some ten or eleven to be reckoned upon. Of these, half
were laid down in potatoes, while the remainder served as pasturage, eked
out, of course, with a good deal of surreptitious aid from the bent-grass
below.
As for the weather, it seemed to be getting daily worse. So wet and
miserable a spring had rarely been experienced, even upon Inishmaan. To
rain in moderation, nay, something more than moderation, no Aranite, as
explained, objects, but, even of the best thing, it is just possible to have too
much, and such incessant deluges as followed day after day, and night after
night, were this year beyond the recollection of the oldest inhabitant. If the
destiny of the islands was sooner or later to be washed away and to vanish
from sight in the sea, it seemed as if now was the time that destiny was
likely to be fulfilled. The rain came down in literal sheets, and in sheets it
swept over the surface. There being no earth for it to dry into, it poured over
the level slabs, sweeping from slab to slab almost as the sea swept over the
rocks between the tide-marks. Watching it at such moments, it would have
seemed to you as if the whole island would shortly become one great
waterfall, or scarcely perceptible reef for the Atlantic to roll over, the water,
as it descended upon the slabs, falling into the troughs or tunnels laid ready
for it, and out of them again until it found rest in the final trough awaiting it
at the bottom.
About a fortnight after her visit to the Duranes, Grania was standing one
evening at the door of the cabin looking down the track towards the sea. It
had been raining heavily all day, and had now come on to blow hard.
Across the nearest sound and above the cliffs of Clare the sky wore a
greenish look, especially where it showed between dark roving patches of
cloud. At the base of the island the cooses and small bays on the west and
north-west were astir with the hissing of waves. The rising wind tore and
whistled its way noisily through the sparse hawthorn-bushes and ragged

growth of brambles and hemlocks. The night, clearly, was going to be a
nasty one.
The girl leaned against the shelter of the doorway and looked out
towards the ‘Old Sea.’ It was growing dark, but there was a pale splinter of
white light far away, almost lost on the horizon—a sinister light, like a
broken war-arrow. Everywhere else the plain was one mass of leaden-
coloured waves, solid and unillumined. The sense of a vast crowd, coming
steadily onward, struggling together by fits and starts, with many side-
battles and cross-currents, but on the whole bearing steadily down upon
some devoted foe, pressed upon the mind as you looked out seaward.
Nearer, the prospect was not much more cheerful. The wind howled
viciously, tearing off fragments of scaly stone from the rocks and flinging
them against the windows and over the roof like so many forest leaves.
Little Phelim Daly was in the O’Malleys’ cabin. He had come, as he often
did, to share their evening meal, and Grania had decided to keep him,
finding the night so wild, and had run across in the teeth of the rising gale to
tell his mother so. He was not exactly an enlivening guest, and this evening
seemed to be even more nerve-ridden than usual. After finishing his share
of the potatoes and milk, he sat for some time hunched up, with his knees
and his chin together, close to the fire. As the storm rose louder and the gust
came faster and faster down the widely-gaping chimney, he grew uneasy,
looked furtively round the walls, then up at the narrow slip of sky visible
through the small pane of glass, shaking from head to foot as he did so, and
seeming to see something out there that he dreaded, something that he was
unable to resist staring at, but which scared him with the utterly
unreasoning fear of an animal in presence of that which arouses all its latent
hereditary terrors.
Glancing round from her post beside the doorway, Grania saw him
staring thus, with parted lips and glassy eyes, agonising fear written in
every lineament. Suddenly, as she watched him, a great shiver ran through
his whole body, his very shadow thrown by the firelight against the opposite
wall vibrating violently as a leaf vibrates in a sudden storm.
‘Why, then! Why, then!—God look down on the child!—what ails him
to-night?’ she asked in a tone of astonishment. ‘What is it, Phelim—what do
you see out there, sonny, at all, at all?’ she added, going over and stooping
down beside him upon the hearth.

For all answer the boy only shivered the harder, clutching her at the
same time, and holding her petticoat tight in his two hands, as if to hinder
himself from being forcibly dragged away by someone.
‘ ’Tis in his bed he should be at this hour, the creature!’ Honor said from
her own corner, where her pale face showed extremely like a ghost’s,
framed as it was on two sides by the smoke-stained chocolate walls. ‘It is
not a night for anyone to be looking about them, either in or out of the
house, so it is not,’ she added, crossing herself fervently. ‘Shut the door,
Grania, and put on another sod of the turf. God save us! but it is the wild
weather! There is no end to the bad weather this year, so there is not. Glory
be to Him that sent it, wet or fine!’
Grania obeyed, shut the door and heaped on an additional armful of turf;
then stood for awhile beside the fireplace, listening to the wind as it roared
down the unprotected chimney.
It was indeed a night to set even sober brains afloat with nervous terrors.
The little house seemed to be an atom lost in the hungry vortex of the storm
and oncoming darkness. A sense of vast, uncurtained space—of tossing,
interminable vastness—of an aërial ocean without bourne or limits, seemed
to press upon the mind as you sat and listened. They were as lonely, those
three, as though they had been the only occupants of some star or planet set
in the hollow void of space. Even the yellow cat, who was rarely or never
friendly, seemed to feel the influence of the weather, and came of her own
accord close up to Grania, rubbing against her as if glad to increase the
sense of home and shelter by touching someone.
As Honor had said, the only thing, clearly, to do with Phelim was to put
him to bed. Grania accordingly made him lie down close to the wall, upon
the sort of make-shift of a bed which filled the corner where she herself
slept, telling him, as she did so, to turn his head well away from the light,
and to cover his ears close up with her old flannel petticoat, so as not to
hear the storm. This done, she returned to her former place beside the
fireplace.
CHAPTER II
She drew up her own particular creepy stool, and sat down, staring at the
tongues of red flame as they were blown in towards her, every now and

then, by a fresh gust from above.
Her thoughts and the night seemed to her to match one another. She had
seen little or nothing of Murdough Blake for the last fortnight, one reason
being that he had been away from Inishmaan at Ballyvaughan, in company
with Shan Daly and other kindred spirits, sharing in a sort of rude regatta,
got up by the hooker and curragh owners of the neighbourhood. A report
had come to her through a friendly neighbour that he had been all this time
drinking hard—nay, had been seen by someone lying dead drunk in the
Ballyvaughan street. Whether this was the case or not, she knew that he was
spending money, for the only time she had seen him had been late one
evening, when he had come up to beg for a loan—not for the first or the
third time either that year. She had given him the money, it being for a debt,
he said, and she having a little that she could spare, and had not even
reproached him, beyond telling him that it must positively be for the last
time.
Grania suffered as strong people suffer. Not patiently, nor yet with any
particular inclination to complain, but with a suffering that was a sort of fire
in her veins. She would have liked to have taken the matter, then and there,
into her own strong hands; to have beaten Shan Daly—recognised aider and
abettor in every misdeed—soundly with her own two fists; to have dragged
Murdough by force out of this ditch which his own folly was slowly
digging below him. Yet, what could she do? There was only one way of
getting any more hold on him, and that was by marrying him. That,
however, was at present impossible. Apart from Honor’s increasing illness
there was no place ready for them, excepting this cabin, and how could he
come there? Besides, even if she did marry him, what then? could she be
sure of getting any more hold over him? of stopping him from drinking? of
inducing him to do anything she wished? Did he even care much about
what she wished? Did he care much about her in any way, in fact, except so
far as he cared for the cows and the pigs, and the other possessions she
owned? Did he—Would he—Had he—?
She thrust her pampootie-shod foot suddenly into the turf, kicking it to
right and left, as these thoughts crowded upon her mind, and making it flare
away wildly up the chimney in a tangle of scarlet sparks.
She had forgotten Honor for the moment, or thought perhaps that she
had fallen asleep. This, however, was clearly not the case, for at that

moment her soft guttural voice made itself heard from the corner.
‘What ails you then to-night, sister dear?’ she asked gently. ‘What makes
you look so wild? Is it the storm that scares you?’
Grania started, then recovered herself. ‘May be indeed, Honor, it was the
storm I was thinking of,’ she said in as indifferent a tone as she could
muster. ‘It is a bitter black night and an ugly one, God knows,’ she added,
looking up at the square of window, through which a faint drizzle of light
still shone. There was a few minutes’ silence in the cabin, broken only by
the moaning of the wind, the spitting of the fire, and the soft recurrent
sound of the boy’s breathing. Suddenly a hollow, bull-voiced roar came
rushing up the gully, followed by the angry thud of the sea against the rocks
at the bottom of the slope. It seemed to Grania like a voice outside herself, a
voice roaring confirmations of her own thoughts, and, with an impulse of
disburdening herself of some at least of these, she went on:
‘Isn’t it queer, Honor, to think of all the trouble there is, far and near,
over the whole, big world? Sure when one looks out over the sea and the
land yonder, and beyond that again, and thinks of it all, there seems to be
nothing but trouble and trouble and trouble, and more trouble upon the top
of trouble. God help us! what are we brought into it for at all, at all, I
sometimes wonder, if there’s to be nothing for us but trouble and trouble
and trouble? ’Tis bad enough for the men, but it’s worse a hundred times for
the women! Where’s any happiness coming to any of us from at all, at all, I
want to know? I can’t see much of it, look where I will, Honor, so I can’t.
Can you?—say, sister allanah—can you?’
Honor opened her mild brown eyes to their widest possible extent, and
half raised herself up in bed in wonder at such questionings.
‘Sure, child! isn’t God everywhere?’ she exclaimed simply. ‘And
happiness! Why, saints above! who ever heard of such talk! Happiness?
God love the child! what were any of us, and women specially, sent into the
world for, except to save our souls and learn to bear what’s given us to
bear? Augh, Grania, Grania! don’t be looking for happiness, child, for I tell
you you won’t get it—not married nor single, sick nor well, rich nor poor,
young nor old; for ’tisn’t in it at all, at all, so how can you expect to find it?
’Tis only in heaven there’s any real, right happiness, child, as I’m always
telling you, and ’tis not till you get there that any one need think to find it,
nor couldn’t, not though they were to hunt for it the whole world over, and

get under the sea-water, too, looking for it! And for a woman!—why, child,
’tis impossible! To bear and bear, that’s all she’s got to do, so she has, till
God sends her rest—nothing else. Isn’t that what she has come into the
world for, no other? Oh, but ’tis the priest himself should be telling you all
that, and not me that knows so little. If you could only once get your heart
to the right way of thinking, child asthore, ’tisn’t tormenting yourself with
any such follies you’d be this night, nor any night, either! Sure, the priest
would tell you that there’s no happiness in this world for a man, let alone
for a woman; only trouble, and trouble, as you say, on the top of trouble,
and will be as long as the grass grows and the rain falls, and the streams
run, and the sea goes round Ireland, and that will be till the world itself
comes to an end, so it will!’
Grania for all answer thrust her foot again amongst the turf, making it
flare and sputter like a Catherine wheel.
‘Then I don’t believe it—nor want to believe it—nor to hear it, what’s
more—not though every priest in Ireland or the world were to say it!’ she
suddenly burst out angrily. ‘And it is all very well for you, Honor, a saint
born, wanting nothing and caring for nothing, only just the bit to keep you
alive and the spot to pray on. But all women are not made like that. My
God, no! There’s many and many a one would let themselves be cut in little
pieces or burned alive, any day in the week, if so be they were loved back,
but, if not, ’tisn’t better they’d get, but worse and wickeder every day, till
they’d be fit to kill themselves or other people, so they would, and what
good would that do to anyone? Sure, I know ’tis just nonsense talking like
that to you. A nun born you are, Honor, and always have been; but I’m not
—so there, I tell you, sister—for what’s the good of me lying to you, and
only us two left alone in the world and likely soon, God help me! to be only
one of us! Sure, He knows I’d do anything to please you, Honor—you that
were a mother to me, and more. But say I’d sit down easy with such a skin
and a bones of a life as that, and no happiness till I come to die?—and
saints know what I’d be like then!—why, I can’t, Honor, I can’t, and that’s
the whole truth! The priests may tell all they will of heaven, but what is it to
me?—just gosther! ’Tis here I want a little bit of the happiness, so I do.
Maybe ’tis very wicked, but I could not feel different, not except I was to
die first and to be born right over again, so I couldn’t!’
She looked over at her sister’s corner as she finished speaking, half-
defiantly, half with a feeling of apprehension, expecting a fresh burst of

reprobation in response to this outburst. Poor Honor’s remonstrances,
however, were exhausted. Her strength was so slight that a very little
overset it, and she began to cry helplessly, uttering a soft sobbing sort of
wail, more to herself than to Grania, repeating over and over again that it
was all her fault—all her fault the child was lost and destroyed, and all
through her! What had she been doing? what had she been doing? Oh God!
Oh God! what had she been doing?
Grania’s compunction awoke in a minute at the words. They had far
more effect on her than a more finished remonstrance would have had.
Leaping up from where she was squatting beside the fire, she ran over to the
bed, and, leaning over the sick woman, began trying to soothe her back into
quietness, heaping abuse upon herself at the same time for having disturbed
her.
‘Sorrow take me for a fool! what ailed me at all to be troubling you, and
you just beginning to settle down, and enough trouble of your own to bear,
God knows! and more than enough?’ she exclaimed penitently. ‘ ’Tis beat I
should be if I got my rights this minute, and if you’d the strength to do it I’d
ask you to beat me with a big stick, and welcome, Honor. Bad end to myself
if I know what ailed me! ’Twas just the wild looks of that creature Phelim
that put foolish thoughts in my head, that and the storm, ne’er another thing.
Sure, sister dear, Honor sweet, you’ll settle to sleep again and be easy,
won’t you? Don’t be punishing me by saying you won’t, or ’tis biting off
my tongue another time I’ll be, rather than talking to you. Don’t all people
have foolish thoughts in their heads some time or other, and you wouldn’t
be troubling about any nonsense I’d say? Is it your own foolish little
Grania, that always was a troublesome, ignorant little preghaun from the
time she could run by herself?—only you so good and patient ’twas more
like one of the saints out of heaven than a woman. Will I sing you the
“Moderagh rue” then, or “Sheela na guira” till you’ll sleep? Weary upon
this wind! ’Tis that that sets us all mad this night, I think, and puts it into
my head to be talking nonsense. Hark at it battering against the door, as if it
was wanting to burst it in, whether or no! There, there, Honor, you’ll shut
your poor eyes, and not be thinking about another thing, good or bad, till
the morning. And, maybe, please God! it will be fine then, and you’ll see
the sun shining in at the door, and the little boats dancing up and down on
the water, the way you like. Sure, ’tis in May we are now, and the bad
weather can’t last for ever and ever, so it can’t.’

Honor shut her eyes, more to please Grania and satisfy her entreaties,
than because she felt any inclination to sleep. Little by little, however,
exhaustion crept over her, and she fell into a doze, which passed by degrees
into broken, uneasy slumbers. Even in her sleep, however, it was clear that
the same thoughts pursued her, for from time to time she would sigh
heavily, her lips uttering now a broken prayer, now some tender self-
accusing word, while in her eyes, had there been light to see them, the large
tears might have been seen gathering slowly, and stealing one after the other
down the hollows of her poor thin cheeks.
Finding that she really was sleeping, Grania presently left her bedside,
and sat down again beside the now all but invisible fire, her thoughts
wandering first to one thing then to another as she listened to the wind.
Once, too, she got up and went over to the door to make sure that there was
no danger of its being burst in by the blasts that kept rushing one after the
other against it like battering rams through the narrow funnel. Then, having
carefully covered up the greeshaugh, or hot embers, so as to be able to light
the fire in the morning, she, too, lay down beside little Phelim, pushing him
gently over a little nearer to the wall in order to find room for herself upon
the same well-worn narrow pallet.
CHAPTER III
About the still more exposed cabin of the Duranes the storm raged yet
more furiously, and awoke, one after the other, all its inhabitants, no less
than nine of whom were sleeping under its roof that night. It blew the white
turf-ashes out from the chimney in such a shower over Pete himself, who
was sleeping upon the right-hand side of the fireplace, and whose mouth
happened to be wide open at the time, that it became filled with them, in
getting rid of which he uttered a succession of sputtering sounds which had
the undesirable effect of arousing his wife and exciting her never very
distant wrath.
‘Monnum a Dhea! is it waking the children you want to be after now?’
she asked in a tone all the more acrid from its enforced lowness. Then, with
a ‘Whist! whist! whist!’ addressed to the baby, she began, gently but
rapidly, thumping that important personage’s back, so as to hinder it, if
possible, from awaking.

Unfortunately the action brought her elbow into sudden sharp contact
with the head of the youngest little girl who had nestled close up to her for
warmth, and who immediately responded with a loud howl, which in its
turn aroused Juggy Kelly, Pete’s niece and the general servant of the
establishment, who slept with the chickens in a sort of loft overhead, and
who, with a vague idea that something was suddenly being required of her,
began, half awake, to hist and hoost vigorously, as if she were driving in
geese or turkeys to roost.
‘Auch! listen to that creature!’ muttered the mistress of the house in a
tone of yet more acrid displeasure—a displeasure only kept low by the fear
of awakening the rest of the still slumbering flock. ‘Bedhe husth! Bedhe
husth!’ she called up in a shrill whisper in the direction of the offender.
‘Troth, and I might speak to the chickens themselves and better,’ she added
to herself in a mutter of indignation. ‘A fool that Juggy came into the world,
and a fool she’ll stop in it as long as the head stays on her! What ails me to
be letting myself be troubled with her, I wonder? Isn’t one fool enough for a
decent woman to have on her hands at the same time?—yes, indeed, and
more than enough! ’Tis the right baulyore I am with my easy-going ways,
slaving and slaving from morning till night, and getting no thanks, only
feeding them that never yet did a day’s work—nor couldn’t either, I believe,
though you covered them with gold from head to foot, and promised them
all Ireland in return for doing it. Whist! whist! whist, I tell you! Will you
whist, I say?’ she continued to the baby, who had by this time joined its
plaintive howls to the other confusion of noises within and without the
cabin. ‘Whist this very minute! Arrah, will you hold the tongue of you then,
and stop bawling? What! and will nothing else content ye? There, then,
there, then; now be easy, and let me hear no more of you.’ Then, as the
baby’s voice sank into a chuckle and murmur of content, ‘Weary on you,
one and all, for torments! my life’s destroyed amongst you, late and early!
Never a day’s peace or quiet upon this earth, God knows!’
‘Dada, my foot’s sore! There’s a big thorn sticking out of the top of it!’
suddenly exclaimed the youngest child but two, a small, red-headed, lively
creature called Norah, its father’s chief favourite, who was sleeping in an
obscure corner of the cabin along with a brother of about a year older.
‘Arrah, hush, my dotey! Be easy, now, there’s a good child, and don’t be
crossing your mother!’ Pete answered apprehensively, creeping out of his
own bed and feeling his way over in the darkness to where the child’s voice

came from. ‘There, there; go to sleep quick, acushla agus, and sure dada
will look for the ugly devil of a thorn in the morning and pull it out, never
fear,’ he whispered soothingly, whereupon the child, satisfied by his
assurance, put up her little face to be kissed and then settled down again,
curling her little legs under her as a small drowsy bird curls itself into its
own corner of the nest.
‘Man Above! it is the terrible night it is, and no mistake!’ Pete added to
himself in a tone of apprehension, looking round him with a terrified glance
as a wilder gust than ever swept down the chimney, rattling the ill-fitting
woodwork, once more filling the cabin with white ashes, and threatening to
bring the whole crazy construction about their ears.
‘Wild weather! God save all mariners upon the sea, far and near, this
night, amen!’ muttered old Durane from his own corner behind the door, the
one most out of the draught, and partially protected also by the corrag, or
screen of dry branches of furze and alder. He was only half awake, but the
formula was so familiar that it rose unbidden to his lips even in his sleep.
‘True to you, father, the same, amen!’ dutifully responded his son, as he
skipped back across the cabin and into his own lair, pulling the great coat
which was his chief covering by night as well as by day close up to his chin.
‘Yerra! you’re the nice pair, the two of you, talking and carrying on in
the black heart of the night as if it was the broad middle of the day!’ his
wife exclaimed angrily. ‘And I that have not had one taste of sleep yet, and
my two arms broke with holding up the child! I take the holy Mother of
God to witness that ’tis enough to make any woman curse the hour she was
born, let alone the day she ever laid her two eyes upon such a man—not to
say he is a man at all, for he isn’t, nor hasn’t the spirit nor the courage nor
the sense of a man, only clever at putting upon one that’s too soft and easy
ever to say a ‘no’ to him! Yerra! give him his bit and his sup and his bed,
and his easy life, and ’tis all he wants. Wurrah deelish! Wurrah deelish! ’tis
the queer husband I have, anyhow! God, He knows that, so He does!’
To all this, Pete the submissive made no reply, only rolled himself up
into a ball, trying to get his feet out of the piercing draught, a performance
which, despite the shortness of his legs, he utterly failed to accomplish. By
degrees the scolding voice died away for mere lack of anything to feed
upon; the baby, too, slept; little red-headed Norah crept closer and closer to
her brother, pushing him against another sister who lay just beyond, till the

three became an indistinguishable mass of small mottled arms and legs. The
old man had relapsed into the placid dreamless slumbers of old age. Up in
the chicken-loft poor, much-abused Juggy Kelly lay, her troubles and
stupidities alike forgotten, one fat arm, utterly bare of covering, hanging
outside the thin coverlet, her mouth wide open, and deep snores heaving her
capacious chest.
Thus, despite the blasts which unceasingly shook it, all the inmates of
the cabin little by little fell asleep. In other cabins scattered over the face of
the island the inhabitants, too, slept, notwithstanding the storm, till, towards
daybreak, the wind itself—sweeping over and over, and round and round its
unprotected top; playing mad pranks along the steep perpendicular cliffs;
rushing vociferously through the narrow fluted channels and fissures, in at
one end, out at the other; loosening the thin flakes of limestone and
dropping them with a hollow or tinkling clatter upon the next ledge—
producing, in short, every variety of sound of which that not very
responsive musical instrument was capable—was the only thing left awake
and astir upon Inishmaan.
CHAPTER IV
The art of weaving is one that has been practised upon the Aran isles for a
longer time than it is easy to reckon. It cannot, however, be said to have, so
far, reached any very high point of perfection. At the time at which this
story opened there were no fewer than four professional weavers upon
Inishmaan. Dumb Denny O’Shaughnessy, however, had always been
considered to stand at the top of his profession, especially as the maker of
the thick yellowish-white flannel used by the women for their bodices and
by the men for their entire suits. Dumb Denny had now been dead some
months, but the weaving trade was still carried on by his nephew Teige,
though there were not wanting captious housewives ready to cry out that the
stuff produced by him was of a very inferior quality to that produced by old
Denny. Changes, no matter of what sort or from what cause, are naturally
condemned in such places as Inishmaan.
Grania had for some time back been intending to get Honor the materials
for a new bedgown, the only garment the poor woman now ever needed.
Honor herself had deprecated the expense, declaring that the old one did

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