It was Jamesey McKeown who caused the decision to hold the dancing classes to be made as quickly as it was. Jamesey was one of the pupils in the advanced section of the Gaelic class ... a bright-witted boy of thirteen, with a quick, sharp way. One day, Marsh and Henry had climbed a steep hill outside the village, and when they reached the top of it, they found Jamesey lying there, looking down on the fields beneath. His chin was resting in the cup of his upturned palms.

"God save you, Jamesey!" said Marsh, and "God save you kindly!" Jamesey answered.

The greeting and the reply are not native to Ulster, but Marsh had made them part of the Gaelic studies, and whenever he encountered friends he always saluted them so. His pupils, falling in with his whim, replied to his salute as he wished them to reply, but the older people merely nodded their heads or said "It's a soft day!" or "It's a brave day!" or, more abruptly, "Morra, Mr. Marsh!" The Protestants among them suspected that the Gaelic salutation was a form of furtive Popery....

They sat down beside the boy. "I suppose you'll be leaving school soon, Jamesey?" Marsh asked.

"Aye, I will in a while," Jamesey answered.

"What class are you in?"

"I'm a monitor, Mr. Marsh. I'm in my first year!..."

Henry sat up and joined in the conversation. "Then you're going to be a teacher?" he said.

"No, I'm not," Jamesey replied. "My ma put me in for the monitor to get the bit of extra education. That's all!"

"What are you going to be, Jamesey? A farmer?" said Marsh.

"No. I wouldn't be a farmer for the world!..."

"But why?"

The boy changed his position and faced round to them. "Sure, there's nothin' to do but work from the dawn till the dark," he said, "an' you never get no diversion at all. I'm quaren tired of this place, I can tell you, an' my ma's tired of it too. She wudden be here if she could help it, but sure she can't. It's terrible in the winter, an' the win' fit to blow the head off you, an' you with nothin' to do on'y look after a lot of oul' cows an' pigs an' things. I'm goin' to a town as soon as I'm oul' enough!..."

They talked to him of the beauty of the country....

"Och, it's all right for a holiday in the summer," he said.

... and they talked to him of the fineness of a farmer's life, but he would not agree with them. A farmer's life was too hard and too dull. He was set on joining his brother in Glasgow....

"What does your brother do, Jamesey?" Marsh asked.

"He's a barman."

"A barman!" they repeated, a little blankly.

"Aye. That's what I'm goin' to be ... in the same place as him!"

They did not speak for a while. It seemed to both of them to be incredible that any one could wish to exchange the loveliness of the Antrim country for a Glasgow bar....

"What hours does your brother work?" Marsh asked drily.

"He works from eight in the mornin' till eight at night, an' it's later on Saturdays, but he has a half-day a week til himself, an' he has all day Sunday. They don't drink on Sunday in Glasgow!"

Marsh smiled. "Don't they?" he said.

"It's long hours," Jamesey admitted, "but he has great diversion. D'ye know this, Mr. Marsh!" he continued, rolling over on his side and speaking more quickly, "he can go to a music-hall twice on the one night an' hear all the latest songs for tuppence. That's all it costs him. He goes to the gallery an' he hears gran', an' he can go to two music-halls in the one night ... in the one night, mind you ... for fourpence! Where would you bate that? You never get no diversion of that sort in this place ... only an oul' magic-lantern an odd time, or the Band of Hope singin' songs about teetotallers!..."

That was the principal burden of Jamesey's complaint, that there was no diversion in Ballymartin. "If you were to go up the street now," he said, "you'd see the fellas stan'in' at the corner, houl'in' up the wall, an' wonderin' what the hell to do with themselves, an' never gettin' no answer!..."

"You never hear noan of the latest songs here," he complained again. "I got a quare cut from my brother once, me singin' a song that I thought was new, an' he toul' me it was as oul' as the hills. It was more nor a year oul', anyway!..."