In West Kerry

AT Tralee station--I was on my way to a village many miles beyond

Dingle--I found a boy who carried my bag some way along the road to

an open yard, where the light railway starts for the west. There was

a confused mass of peasants struggling on the platform, with all

sort of baggage, which the people lifted into the train for

themselves as well as they were able. The seats ran up either side

of the cars, and the space between them was soon filled with sacks

of flour, cases of porter, chairs rolled in straw, and other

household goods. A drunken young man got in just before we started,

and sang songs for a few coppers, telling us that he had spent all

his money, and had nothing left to pay for his ticket. Then, when

the carriage was closely packed, we moved slowly out of the station.

At my side there was an old man who explained the Irish names of the

places that we came to, and pointed out the Seven Pigs, a group of

islands in the bay; Kerry Head, further off; and many distant

mountains. Beyond him a dozen big women in shawls were crowded

together; and just opposite me there was a young woman wearing a

wedding ring, who was one of the peculiarly refined women of Kerry,

with supreme charm in every movement and expression. The big woman

talked to her about some elderly man who had been sick--her

husband, it was likely--and some young man who had gone away to

England, and was breaking his heart with loneliness.

'Ah, poor fellow!' she said; 'I suppose he will get used to it like

another; and wouldn't he be worse off if he was beyond the seas in

Saint Louis, or the towns of America?'

This woman seemed to unite the healthiness of the country people

with the greatest sensitiveness, and whenever there was any little

stir or joke in the carriage, her face and neck flushed with

pleasure and amusement. As we went on there were superb sights--first

on the north, towards Loop Head, and then when we reached the

top of the ridge, to the south also, to Drung Hill, Macgillicuddy's

Reeks, and other mountains of South Kerry. A little further on,

nearly all the people got out at a small station; and the young

woman I had admired gathered up most of the household goods and got

down also, lifting heavy boxes with the power of a man. Then two

returned American girls got in, fine, stout-looking women, with

distress in their expression, and we started again. Dingle Bay could

now be seen through narrow valleys on our left, and had

extraordinary beauty in the evening light. In the carriage next to

ours a number of herds and jobbers were travelling, and for the last

hour they kept up a furious altercation that seemed always on the

verge of breaking out into a dangerous quarrel, but no blows were

given.

At the end of the line an old blue side-car was waiting to take me

to the village where I was going. I was some time fastening on my

goods, with the raggedy boy who was to drive me; and then we set off

passing through the usual streets of a Kerry town, with public-houses

at the corners, till we left the town by a narrow quay with a

few sailing boats and a small steamer with coal. Then we went over a

bridge near a large water-mill, where a number of girls were

standing about, with black shawls over their heads, and turned sharp

to the right, against the face of the mountains. At first we went up

hill for several miles, and got on slowly, though the boy jumped

down once or twice and gathered a handful of switches to beat the

tall mare he was driving. Just as the twilight was beginning to

deepen we reached the top of the ridge and came out through a gap

into sight of Smerwick Harbour, a wild bay with magnificent

headlands beyond it, and a long stretch of the Atlantic. We drove on

towards the west, sometimes very quickly, where the slope was

gradual, and then slowly again when the road seemed to fall away

under us, like the wall of a house. As the night fell the sea became

like a piece of white silver on our right; and the mountains got

black on our left, and heavy night smells began to come up out of

the bogs. Once or twice I noticed a blue cloud over the edge of the

road, and then I saw that we were nearly against the gables of a

little village, where the houses were so closely packed together

there was no light from any of them. It was now quite dark, and the

boy got cautious in his driving, pulling the car almost into the

ditch once or twice to avoid an enormous cavity where the middle of

the road had settled down into the bogs. At last we came to another

river and a public-house, and went up a hill, from which we could

see the outline of a chapel; then the boy turned to me: 'Is it ten

o'clock yet?' he said; 'for we're mostly now in the village.'

This morning, a Sunday, rain was threatening; but I went out west

after my breakfast under Croagh Martin, in the direction of the

Atlantic. At one of the first villages I came to I had a long talk

with a man who was sitting on the ditch waiting till it was time for

Mass. Before long we began talking about the Irish language.

'A few years ago,' he said, 'they were all for stopping it off; and

when I was a boy they tied a gobban into my mouth for the whole

afternoon because I was heard speaking Irish. Wasn't that great

cruelty? And now when I hear the same busybodies coming around and

telling us for the love of God to speak nothing but Irish, I've a

good mind to tell them to go to hell. There was a priest out here a

while since who was telling us to stay always where we are, and to

speak nothing but Irish; but, I suppose, although the priests are

learned men, and great scholars, they don't understand the life of

the people the same as another man would. In this place the land is

poor--you can see that for yourself--and the people have little

else to live on; so that when there is a long family, one son will

stay at home and keep on the farm, and the others will go away

because they must go. Then when they once pass out of the Dingle

station in Tralee they won't hear a word of Irish, or meet anyone

who'd understand it; so what good, I ask you, is a man who hasn't

got the English, and plenty of it?'

After I left him I went on towards Dunquin, and lay for a long time

on the side of a magnificently wild road under Croagh Martin, where

I could see the Blasket Islands and the end of Dunmore Head, the

most westerly point of Europe. It was a grey day, with a curious

silence on the sea and sky and no sign of life anywhere, except the

sail of one curagh--or niavogue, as they are called here--that was

sailing in from the islands. Now and then a cart passed me filled

with old people and children, who saluted me in Irish; then I

turned back myself. I got on a long road running through a bog, with

a smooth mountain on one side and the sea on the other, and Brandon

in front of me, partly covered with clouds. As far as I could see

there were little groups of people on their way to the chapel in

Ballyferriter, the men in homespun and the women wearing blue

cloaks, or, more often, black shawls twisted over their heads. This

procession along the olive bogs, between the mountains and the sea,

on this grey day of autumn, seemed to wring me with the pang of

emotion one meets everywhere in Ireland--an emotion that is partly

local and patriotic, and partly a share of the desolation that is

mixed everywhere with the supreme beauty of the world.

In the evening, when I was walking about the village, I fell in with

a man who could read Gaelic, and was full of enthusiasm for the old

language and of contempt for English.

'I can tell you,' he said, 'that the English I have is no more good

to me than the cover of that pipe. Buyers come here from Dingle and

Cork and Clare, and they have good Irish, and so has everyone we

meet with, for there is no one can do business in this place who

hasn't the language on his tongue.'

Then I asked him about the young men who go away to America.

'Many go away,' he said, 'who could stay if they wished to, for it

is a fine place for fishing, and a man will get more money and

better health for himself, and rear a better family, in this place

than in many another. It's a good place to be in, and now, with the

help of God, the little children will all learn to read and write in

Irish, and that is a great thing, for how can people do any good, or

make a song even, if they cannot write? You will be often three

weeks making a song, and there will be times when you will think of

good things to put into it that could never be beaten in the whole

world; but if you cannot write them down you will forget them,

maybe, 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 the middle

of the field, and a little to the side of it a large crowd was

struggling for tickets at one of the wheeled houses in which the

acrobats live. I went round the tent in the hope of getting in by

some easier means, and found a door in the canvas, where a man was

calling out: 'Tickets, or money, this way,' and I passed in through

a long winding passage. It was some time after the hour named for

the show, but although the tent was almost filled there was no sign

of the performers; so I stood back in a corner and watched the crowd

coming in wet and dripping from the rain, which had turned to a

downpour. The tent was lighted by a few flaring gas-jets round the

central pole, with an opening above them, through which the rain

shot down in straight whistling lines. The top of the tent was

dripping and saturated, and the gas, shining sideways across, made

it glitter in many places with the brilliancy of golden silk. When a

sudden squall came with a rush from the narrow valleys behind the

town, the whole structure billowed, and flapped and strained, till

one waited every moment to see the canvas fall upon our heads. The

people, who looked strangely black and swarthy in the uncertain

light, were seated all round on three or four rows of raised wooden

seats, and many who were late were still crushing forward, and

standing in dense masses wherever there was room. At the entrance a

rather riotous crowd began to surge in so quickly that there was

some danger of the place being rushed. Word was sent across the

ring, and in a moment three or four of the women performers, with

long streaming ulsters buttoned over their tights, ran out from

behind the scenes and threw themselves into the crowd, forcing back

the wild hill-side people, fishwomen and drunken sailors, in an

extraordinary tumult of swearing, wrestling and laughter. These

women seemed to enjoy this part of their work, and shrieked with

amusement when two or three of them fell on some enormous farmer or

publican and nearly dragged him to the ground. Here and there among

the people I could see a little party of squireens and their

daughters, in the fashions of five years ago, trying, not always

successfully, to reach the shilling seats. The crowd was now so

thick I could see little more than the heads of the performers, who

had at last come into the ring, and many of the shorter women who

were near me must have seen nothing the whole evening, yet they

showed no sign of impatience. The performance was begun by the usual

dirty white horse, that was brought out and set to gallop round,

with a gaudy horse-woman on his back, who jumped through a hoop and

did the ordinary feats, the horse's hoofs splashing and possing all

the time in the green slush of the ring. An old door-mat was laid

down near the entrance for the performers, and as they came out in

turn they wiped the mud from their feet before they got up on their

horses. A little later the clown came out, to the great delight of

the people. He was followed by some gymnasts, and then the

horse-people came out again in different dress and make-up, and went

through their old turns once more. After that there was prolonged

fooling between the clown and the chief horseman, who made many

mediaeval jokes, that reminded me of little circuses on the outer

boulevards of Paris, and at last the horseman sang a song which won

great applause:

Here's to the man who kisses his wife,

And kisses his wife alone;

For there's many a man kissed another man's wife

When he thought he kissed his own.

Here's to the man who rocks his child,

And rocks his child alone;

For there's many a man rocked another man's child

When he thought he rocked his own.

About ten o'clock there seemed to be a lull in the storm, so I went

out into the open air with two young men who were going the road I

had to travel. The rain had stopped for a moment, but a high wind

was blowing as we made our way to a public-house to get a few

biscuits and a glass of beer before we started. A sleepy barmaid,

who was lolling behind the counter with a novel, pricked up her ears

when she heard us talking of our journey.

'Surely you are not going to Ballydavid,' she said, 'at such an hour

of a night like this.'

We told her we were going to a place which was further away.

'Well,' she said, 'I wouldn't go to that place to-night if you had a

coach-and-four to drive me in, and gave me twenty pounds into the

bargain! How at all will you get on in the darkness when the roads

will be running with water, and you'll be likely to slip down every

place into some drain or ditch?'

When we went out, and began to make our way down the steep hill

through the town, the night seemed darker than ever after the glare

of the bar. Before we had gone many yards a woman's voice called out

sharply from under the wall: 'Mind the horse.' I looked up and saw

the black outline of a horse's head standing right above me. It was

not plain in such darkness how we should get to the end of our

ten-mile journey; but one of the young men borrowed a lantern from

a chandler in the bottom of the town, and we made our way over the

bridge and up the hill, going slowly and painfully with just light

enough, when we kept close together, to avoid the sloughs of water

and piles of stones on the roadway. By the time we reached the top

of the ridge and began to work down carefully towards Smerwick, the

rain stopped, and we reached the village without any mishap.

I go out often in the mornings to the site of Sybil Ferriter's

Castle, on a little headland reached by a narrow strip of rocks. As

I lie there I can watch whole flights of cormorants and choughs and

seagulls that fly about under the cliffs, and beyond them a number

of niavogues that are nearly always fishing in Ferriter's Cove.

Further on there are Sybil Head and three rocky points, the Three

Sisters then Smerwick Harbour and Brandon far away, usually covered

with white airy clouds. Between these headlands and the village

there is a strip of sandhill grown over with sea-holly, and a low

beach where scores of red bullocks lie close to the sea, or wade in

above their knees. Further on one passes peculiar horseshoe coves,

with contorted lines of sandstone on one side and slaty blue rocks

on the other, and necks of transparent sea of wonderful blueness

between them.

I walked up this morning along the slope from the east to the top of

Sybil Head, where one comes out suddenly on the brow of a cliff with

a straight fall of many hundred feet into the sea. It is a place of

indescribable grandeur, where one can see Carrantuohill and the

Skelligs and Loop Head and the full sweep of the Atlantic, and, over

all, the wonderfully tender and searching light that is seen only in

Kerry. Looking down the drop of five or six hundred feet, the height

is so great that the gannets flying close over the sea look like

white butterflies, and the choughs like flies fluttering behind

them. One wonders in these places why anyone is left in Dublin, or

London, or Paris, when it would be better, one would think, to live

in a tent or hut with this magnificent sea and sky, and to breathe

this wonderful air, which is like wine in one's teeth.

Here and there on this headland there are little villages of ten or

twenty houses, closely packed together without any order or roadway.

Usually there are one or two curious beehive-like structures in

these villages, used here, it is said, as pigsties or storehouses.

On my way down from Sybil Head I was joined by a tall young man, who

told me he had been in the navy, but had bought himself out before

his time was over. 'Twelve of us joined from this place,' he said,

'and I was the last of them that stayed in it, for it is a life that

no one could put up with. It's not the work that would trouble you,

but it's that they can't leave you alone, and that you must be ever

and always fooling over something.'

He had been in South Africa during the war, and in Japan, and all

over the world; but he was now dressed in homespuns, and had

settled down here, he told me, for the rest of his life. Before we

reached the village we met Maurice, the fisherman I have spoken of

and we sat down under a hedge to shelter from a shower. We began to

talk of fevers and sicknesses and doctors--these little villages

are often infested with typhus--and Maurice spoke about the

traditional cures.

'There is a plant,' he said, 'which is the richest that is growing

out of the ground, and in the old times the women used to be giving

it to their children till they'd be growing up seven feet maybe in

height. Then the priests and doctors began taking everything to

themselves and destroyed the old knowledge, and that is a poor

thing; for you know well it was the Holy Mother of God who cured her

own Son with plants the like of that, and said after that no mother

should be without a plant for ever to cure her child. Then she threw

out the seeds of it over the whole world, so that it's growing every

place from that day to this.'

I came out to-day, a holiday, to the Great Blasket Island with a

schoolmaster and two young men from the village, who were coming for

the afternoon only. The day was admirably clear, with a blue sea and

sky, and the voyage in the long canoe--I had not been in one for

two or three years--gave me indescribable enjoyment. We passed

Dunmore Head, and then stood Out nearly due west towards the Great

Blasket itself, the height of the mountains round the bay and the

sharpness of the rocks making the place singularly different from

the sounds about Aran, where I had last travelled in a curagh. As

usual, three men were rowing--the man I have come to stay with, his

son, and a tall neighbour, all dressed in blue jerseys, homespun

trousers and shirts, and talking in Irish only, though my host could

speak good English when he chose to. As we came nearer the island,

which seemed to rise like a mountain straight out of the sea, we

could make out a crowd of people in their holiday clothes standing

or sitting along the brow of the cliff watching our approach, and

just beyond them a patch of cottages with roofs of tarred felt. A

little later we doubled into a cove among the rocks, where I landed

at a boat slip, and then scrambled up a steep zig-zag pathway to the

head of the cliff where the people crowded round us and shook hands

with the men who had come with me.

This cottage where I am to stay is one of the highest of the group,

and as we passed up to it through little paths among the cottages

many white, wolfish-looking dogs came out and barked furiously. My

host had gone on in front with my bag, and when I reached his

threshold he came forward and shook hands with me again, with a

finished speech of welcome. His eldest daughter, a young married

woman of about twenty, who manages the house, shook hands with me

also, and then, without asking if we were hungry, began making us

tea in a metal teapot and frying rashers of bacon. She is a small,

beautifully-formed woman, with brown hair and eyes--instead of the

black hair and blue eyes that are usually found with this type in

Ireland--and delicate feet and ankles that are not common in these

parts, where the woman's work is so hard. Her sister, who lives in

the house also, is a bonny girl of about eighteen, full of humour

and spirits.

The schoolmaster made many jokes in English and Irish while the

little hostess served our tea and then the kitchen filled up with

young men and women--the men dressed like ordinary fishermen, the

women wearing print bodices and coloured skirts, that had none of

the distinction of the dress of Aran--and a polka was danced, with

curious solemnity, in a whirl of dust. When it was over it was time

for my companions to go back to the mainland. As soon as we came out

and began to go down to the sea, a large crowd, made up of nearly

all the men and women and children of the island, came down also,

closely packed round us. At the edge of the cliff the young men and

the schoolmaster bade me good-bye and went down the zig-zag path,

leaving me alone with the islanders on the ledge of rock, where I

had seen the people as we came in. I sat for a long time watching

the sail of the canoe moving away to Dunquin, and talking to a young

man who had spent some years in Ballyferriter, and had good English.

The evening was peculiarly fine, and after a while, when the crowd

had scattered, I passed up through the cottages, and walked through

a boreen towards the north-west, between a few plots of potatoes and

little fields of weeds that seemed to have gone out of cultivation

not long ago. Beyond these I turned up a sharp, green hill, and came

out suddenly on the broken edge of a cliff. The effect was

wonderful. The Atlantic was right underneath; then I could see the

sharp rocks of several uninhabited islands, a mile or two off, the

Tearaught further away, and, on my left, the whole northern edge of

this island curving round towards the west, with a steep heathery

face, a thousand feet high. The whole sight of wild islands and sea

was as clear and cold and brilliant as what one sees in a dream, and

alive with the singularly severe glory that is in the character of

this place.

As I was wandering about I saw many of the younger islanders not far

off jumping and putting the weight--a heavy stone--or running

races on the grass. Then four girls, walking arm-in-arm, came up and

talked to me in Irish. Before long they began to laugh loudly at

some signs I made to eke out my meaning, and by degrees the men

wandered up also, till there was a crowd round us. The cold of the

night was growing stronger, however, and we soon turned back to the

village, and sat round the fire in the kitchen the rest of the

evening.

At eleven o'clock the people got up as one man and went away,

leaving me with the little hostess--the man of the house had gone

to the mainland with the young men--her husband and sister. I told

them I was sleepy, and ready to go to bed; so the little hostess

lighted a candle, carried it into the room beyond the kitchen, and

stuck it up on the end of the bedpost of one of the beds with a few

drops of grease. Then she took off her apron, and fastened it up in

the window as a blind, laid another apron on the wet earthen floor

for me to stand on, and left me to myself. The room had two beds,

running from wall to wall with a small space between them, a chair

that the little hostess had brought in, an old hair-brush that was

propping the window open, and no other article. When I had been in

bed for some time, I heard the host's voice in the kitchen, and a

moment or two later he came in with a candle in his hand, and made a

long apology for having been away the whole of my first evening on

the island, holding the candle while he talked very close to my

face. I told him I had been well entertained by his family and

neighbours, and had hardly missed him. He went away, and half an

hour later opened the door again with the iron spoon which serves to

lift the latch, and came in, in a suit of white homespuns, and said

he must ask me to let him stretch out in the other bed, as there was

no place else for him to lie. I told him that he was welcome, and he

got into the other bed and lit his pipe. Then we had a long talk

about this place and America and the younger generations.

'There has been no one drowned on this island,' he said, 'for forty

years, and that is a great wonder, for it is a dangerous life. There

was a man--the brother of the man you were talking to when the

girls were dancing--was married to a widow had a public-house away

to the west of Ballydavid, and he was out fishing for mackerel, and

he got a great haul of them; then he filled his canoe too full, so

that she was down to the edge in the water, and a wave broke into

her when they were near the shore, and she went down under them. Two

men got ashore, but the man from this island was drowned, for his

oilskins went down about his feet, and he sank where he was.'

Then we talked about the chances of the mackerel season. 'If the

season is good,' he said, 'we get on well; but it is not certain at

all. We do pay four pounds for a net, and sometimes the dogfish will

get into it the first day and tear it into pieces as if you'd cut it

with a knife. Sometimes the mackerel will die in the net, and then

ten men would be hard set to pull them up into the canoe, so that if

the wind rises on us we must cut loose, and let down the net to the

bottom of the sea. When we get fish here in the night we go to

Dunquin and sell them to buyers in the morning; and, believe me, it

is a dangerous thing to cross that sound when you have too great a

load taken into your canoe. When it is too bad to cross over we do

salt the fish ourselves--we must salt them cleanly and put them in

clean barrels--and then the first day it is calm buyers will be out

after them from the town of Dingle.'

Afterwards he spoke of the people who go away to America, and the

younger generations that are growing up now in Ireland.

'The young people is no use,' he said. 'I am not as good a man as my

father was, and my son is growing up worse than I am.' Then he put

up his pipe on the end of the bed-post. 'You'll be tired now,' he

went on, 'so it's time we were sleeping; and, I humbly beg your

pardon, might I ask your name?' I told him.

'Well, good night so,' he said, 'and may you have a good sleep your

first night in this island.'

Then he put out the candle and we settled to sleep. In a few minutes

I could hear that he was in his dreams, and just as my own ideas

were beginning to wander the house door opened, and the son of the

place, a young man of about twenty, came in and walked into our

room, close to my bed, with another candle in his hand. I lay with

my eyes closed, and the young man did not seem pleased with my

presence, though he looked at me with curiosity. When he was

satisfied he went back to the kitchen and took a drink of whisky and

said his prayers; then, after loitering about for some time and

playing with a little mongrel greyhound that seemed to adore him, he

took off his clothes, clambered over his father, and stretched out

on the inner side of the bed.

I awoke in the morning about six o'clock, and not long afterwards

the host awoke also, and asked how I did. Then he wanted to know if

I ever drank whisky; and when he heard that I did so, he began

calling for one of his daughters at the top of his voice. In a few

moments the younger girl came in, her eyes closing with sleep, and,

at the host's bidding, got the whisky bottle, some water, and a

green wine-glass out of the kitchen. She came first to my bedside

and gave me a dram, then she did the same for her father and

brother, handed us our pipes and tobacco, and went back to the

kitchen.

There were to be sports at noon in Ballyferriter, and when we had

talked for a while I asked the host if he would think well of my

going over to see them. 'I would not,' he said 'you'd do better to

stay quiet in this place where you are; the men will be all drunk

coming back, fighting and kicking in the canoes, and a man the like

of you, who aren't used to us, would be frightened. Then, if you

went, the people would be taking you into one public-house, and then

into another, till you'd maybe get drunk yourself, and that wouldn't

be a nice thing for a gentleman. Stay where you are in this island

and you'll be safest so.'

When the son got up later and began going in and out of the kitchen,

some of the neighbours, who had already come in, stared at me with

curiosity as I lay in my bed; then I got up myself and went into

the kitchen. The little hostess set about getting my breakfast, but

before it was ready she partly rinsed the dough out of a pan where

she had been kneading bread, poured some water into it, and put it

on a chair near the door. Then she hunted about the edges of the

rafters till she found a piece of soap, which she put on the back of

a chair with the towel, and told me I might wash my face. I did so

as well as I was able, in the middle of the people, and dried myself

with the towel, which was the one used by the whole family.

The morning looked as if it would turn to rain and wind, so I took

the advice I had been given and let the canoes go off without me to

the sports. After a turn on the cliffs I came back to the house to

write letters. The little hostess was washing up the breakfast

things when I arrived with my papers and pens, but she made room for

me at the table, and spread out an old newspaper for me to write on.

A little later, when she had finished her washing, she came over to

her usual place in the chimney corner, not far from where I was

sitting, sat _down_ on the floor, and took out her hairpins and

began combing her hair. As I finished each letter I had to say who

it was to, and where the people lived; and then I had to tell her if

they were married or single, how many children they had, and make a

guess at how many pounds they spent in the year, and at the number

of their servants. Just before I finished, I the younger girl came

back with three or four other young women, who were followed in a

little while by a party of men.

I showed them some photographs of the Aran Islands and Wicklow,

which they looked at with eagerness. The little hostess was

especially taken with two or three that had babies or children in

their foreground; and as she put her hands on my shoulders, and

leaned over to look at them, with the confidence that is so usual in

these places, I could see that she had her full share of the passion

for children which is powerful in all women who are permanently and

profoundly attractive. While I was telling her what I could about

the children, I saw one of the men looking with peculiar amazement

at an old photograph of myself that had been taken many years ago in

an alley of the Luxembourg Gardens, where there were many statues in

the background. 'Look at that,' he whispered in Irish to one of the

girls, pointing to the statues; 'in those countries they do have

naked people standing about in their skins.'

I explained that the figures were of marble only, and then the

little hostess and all the girls examined them also. 'Oh! dear me,'

said the little hostess, 'Is deas an rud do bheith ag siubhal ins an

domhain mor' ('It's a fine thing to be travelling in the big world').

In the afternoon I went up and walked along the narrow central ridge

of the island, till I came to the highest point, which is nearly

three miles west of the village. The weather was gloomy and wild,

and there was something nearly appalling in the loneliness of the

place. I could look down on either side into a foggy edge of grey

moving sea, and then further off I could see many distant mountains,

or look out across the shadowy outline of Inishtooskert to the

Tearaught rock. While I was sitting on the little mound which marks

the summit of the island--a mound stripped and riddled by rabbits--a

heavy bank of fog began to work up from the south, behind

Valentia, on the other jaw of Dingle Bay. As soon as I saw it I

hurried down from the pinnacle where I was, so that I might get away

from the more dangerous locality before the clouds overtook me. In

spite of my haste I had not gone half a mile when an edge of fog

whisked and circled round me, and in a moment I could see nothing

but a grey shroud of mist and a few yards of steep, slippery grass.

Everything was distorted and magnified to an extraordinary degree;

but I could hear the moan of the sea under me, and I knew my

direction, so I worked along towards the village without trouble. In

some places the island, on this southern side, is bitten into by

sharp, narrow coves, and when the fog opened a little I could see

across them, where gulls and choughs were picking about on the

grass, looking as big as Kerry cattle or black mountain sheep.

Before I reached the house the cloud had turned to a sharp shower of

rain, and as I went in the water was dripping from my hat. 'Oh!

dear me,' said the little hostess, when she saw me, 'Ta tu an-rhluc

anois' ('You are very wet now '). She was alone in the house,

breathing audibly with a sort of simple self-importance, as she

washed her jugs and teacups. While I was drinking my tea a little

later, some woman came in with three or four little girls--the most

beautiful children I have ever seen--who live in one of the nearest

cottages. They tried to get the little girls to dance a reel

together, but the smallest of them went and hid her head in the

skirts of the little hostess. In the end two of the little girls

danced with two of those who were grown up, to the lilting of one of

them. The little hostess sat at the fire while they danced, plucking

and drawing a cormorant for the men's dinner, and calling out to the

girls when they lost the step of the dance.

In the evenings of Sundays and holidays the young men and girls go

out to a rocky headland on the north-west, where there is a long,

grassy slope, to dance and amuse themselves; and this evening I

wandered out there with two men, telling them ghost stories in Irish

as we went. When we turned over the edge of the hill we came on a

number of young men lying on the short grass playing cards. We sat

down near them, and before long a party of girls and young women

came up also and sat down, twenty paces off on the brink of the

cliff some of them wearing the fawn-coloured shawls that are so

attractive and so much thought of in the south. It was just after

sunset, and Inishtooskert was standing out with a smoky blue outline

against the redness of the sky. At the foot of the cliff a wonderful

silvery light was shining on the sea, which already, before the

beginning of autumn, was eager and wintry and cold. The little group

of blue-coated men lying on the grass, and the group of girls

further off had a singular effect in this solitude of rocks and sea;

and in spite of their high spirits it gave me a sort of grief to

feel the utter loneliness and desolation of the place that has given

these people their finest qualities.

One of the young men had been thrown from a car a few days before on

his way home from Dingle, and his face was still raw and bleeding

and horrible to look at; but the young girls seemed to find romance

in his condition, and several of them went over and sat in a group

round him, stroking his arms and face. When the card-playing was

over I showed the young men a few tricks and feats, which they

worked at themselves, to the great amusement of the girls, till they

had accomplished them all. On our way back to the village the young

girls ran wild in the twilight, flying and shrieking over the grass,

or rushing up behind the young men and throwing them over, if they

were able, by a sudden jerk or trip. The men in return caught them

by one hand, and spun them round and round four or five times, and

then let them go, when they whirled down the grassy slope for many

yards, spinning like peg-tops, and only keeping their feet by 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 hostess asked me after

a while if I would like to shave myself before dinner. I told her I

would, so she got me some water in the potato-dish and put it on a

chair; then her sister got me a little piece of broken

looking-glass and put it on a nail near the door, where there was

some light. I set to work, and as I stood with my back to the people

I could catch a score of eyes in the glass, watching me intently.

'That is a great improvement to you now,' said the host, when I had

done; 'and whenever you want a beard, God bless you, you'll have a

thick one surely.'

When I was coming down in the evening from the ridge of the island,

where I spent much of my time looking at the richness of the

Atlantic on one side and the sad or shining greys of Dingle Bay on

the other, I was joined by two young women and we walked back

together. Just outside the village we met an old women who stopped

and laughed at us. 'Well, aren't you in good fortune this night,

stranger,' she said, 'to be walking up and down in the company of

women?'

'I am surely,' I answered; 'isn't that the best thing to be doing

in the whole world?'

At our own door I saw the little hostess sweeping the floor, so I

went down for a moment to the gable of the cottage, and looked out

over the roofs of the little village to the sound, where the tide

was running with extraordinary force. In a few minutes the little

hostess came down and stood beside me--she thought I should not be

left by myself when I had been driven away by the dust--and I asked

her many questions about the names and relationships of the people

that I am beginning to know.

Afterwards, when many of the people had come together in the

kitchen, the men told me about their lobster-pots that are brought

from Southampton, and cost half-a-crown each. 'In good weather,'

said the man who was talking to me, 'they will often last for a

quarter; but if storms come up on them they will sometimes break up

in a week or two. Still and all, it's a good trade; and we do sell

lobsters and crayfish every week in the season to a boat from

England or a boat from France that does come in here, as you'll

maybe see before you go.'

I told them that I had often been in France, and one of the boys

began counting up the numerals in French to show what he had learnt

from their buyers. A little later, when the talk was beginning to

flag, I turned to a young man near me--the best fiddler, I was

told, on the island--and asked him to play us a dance. He made

excuses, and would not get his fiddle; but two of the girls slipped

off and brought it. The young man tuned it and offered it to me, but

I insisted that he should take it first. Then he played one or two

tunes, without tone, but with good intonation and rhythm. When it

was my turn I played a few tunes also; but the pitch was so low I

could not do what I wanted, and I had not much success with the

people, though the fiddler himself watched me with interest. 'That

is great playing,' he said, when I had finished; and I never seen

anyone the like of you for moving your hand and getting the sound

out of it with the full drag of the bow.' Then he played a polka and

four couples danced. The women, as usual, were in their naked feet,

and whenever there was a figure for women only there was a curious

hush and patter of bare feet, till the heavy pounding and shuffling

of the men's boots broke in again. The whirl of music and dancing in

this little kitchen stirred me with an extraordinary effect. The

kindliness and merrymaking of these islanders, who, one knows, are

full of riot and severity and daring, has a quality and

attractiveness that is absent altogether from the life of towns, and

makes one think of the life that is shown in the ballads of

Scotland.

After the dance the host, who had come in, sang a long English

doggerel about a poor scholar who went to Maynooth and had great

success in his studies, so that he was praised by the bishop. Then

he went home for his holiday, and a young woman who had great riches

asked him into her parlour and told him it was no fit life for a

fine young man to be a priest, always saying Mass for poor people,

and that he would have a right to give up his Latin and get married

to herself. He refused her offers and went back to his college. When

he was gone she went to the justice in great anger, and swore an

oath against him that he had seduced her and left her with child. He

was brought back for his trial, and he was in risk to be degraded

and hanged, when a man rode up on a horse and said it was himself

was the lover of the lady, and the father of her child.

Then they told me about an old man of eighty years, who is going to

spend the winter alone on Inishvickillaun, an island six miles from

this village. His son is making canoes and doing other carpenter's

jobs on this island, and the other children have scattered also;

but the old man refuses to leave the island he has spent his life

on, so they have left him with a goat, and a bag of flour and stack

of turf.

I have just been to the weaver's, looking at his loom and

appliances. The host took me down to his cottage over the brow of

the village, where some young men were finishing the skeleton of a

canoe; and we found his family crowded round a low table on green

stools with rope seats, finishing their dinner of potatoes. A little

later the old weaver, who looks pale and sickly compared with the

other islanders, took me into a sort of outhouse with a damp feeling

in the air, where his loom was set up. He showed me how it was

worked, and then brought out some pieces of stuff that he had woven.

At first I was puzzled by the fine brown colour of some of the

material; but they explained it was from selected wools of the

black or mottled sheep that are common here, and are so variegated

that many tints of grey or brown can be had from their fleeces. The

wool for the flannel is sometimes spun on this island; sometimes it

is given to women in Dunquin, who spin it cheaply for so much a

pound. Then it is woven, and finally the stuff is sent to a mill in

Dingle to be cleaned and dressed before it is given to a tailor in

Dingle to be made up for their own use. Such cloth is not cheap, but

is of wonderful quality and strength. When I came out of the

weaver's, a little sailing smack was anchored in the sound, and

someone on board her was blowing a horn. They told me she was the

French boat, and as I went back to my cottage I could see many

canoes hurrying out to her with their cargoes of lobsters and crabs.

I have left the island again. I walked round the cliffs in the

morning, and then packed my bag in my room, several girls putting

their heads Into the little window while I did so, to say it was a

great pity I was not staying on for another week or a fortnight.

Then the men went off with my bag in a heavy shower, and I waited a

minute or two while the little hostess buttered some bread for my

lunch, and tied it up in a clean handkerchief of her own. Then I bid

them good-bye, and set off down to the slip with three girls, who

came with me to see that I did not go astray among the innumerable

paths. It was still raining heavily, so I told them to put my cape,

which they were carrying, over their heads. They did so with

delight, and ran down the path before me, to the great amusement of

the islanders. At the head of the cliff many people were standing

about to bid me good-bye and wish me a good voyage.

The wind was in our favour, so the men took in their oars after

rowing for about a quarter of a mile and lay down in the bottom of

the canoe, while one man ran up the sail, and the host steered with

an oar. At Dunquin the host hired me a dray, without springs, kissed

my hand in farewell, and I was driven away.

I have made my way round the foot of Dingle Bay and up the south

coast to a cottage where I often lodge. As I was resting in a ditch

some time in the afternoon, on a lonely mountain road, a little girl

came along with a shawl over her head. She stopped in front of me

and asked me where I was going, and then after a little talk:

'Well, man, let you come,' she said; 'I'm going your road as well as

you.' I got up and we started. When I got tired of the hill I

mounted, and she ran along beside me for several miles, till we fell

in with some people cutting turf and she stopped to talk to them.

Then for a while my road ran round an immense valley of magnificent

rich turf bog, with mountains all round, and bowls where hidden

lakes were lying bitten out of the cliffs.

As I was resting again on a bridge over the Behy where Diarmuid

caught salmon with Grania, a man stopped to light his pipe and talk

to me. 'There are three lakes above,' he said, 'Coomacarra,

Coomaglaslaw and Coomasdhara; the whole of this place was in a great

state in the bad times. Twenty years ago they sent down a 'mergency

man to lodge above by the lake and serve processes on the people,

but the people were off before him and lay abroad in the heather.

Then, in the course of a piece, a night came, with great rain out of

the heavens, and my man said: "I'll get them this night in their own

beds, surely." Then he let call the peelers--they had peelers

waiting to mind him--and down they come to the big steppingstones

they have above for crossing the first river coming out of the

lakes; my man going in front to cross over, and the water was high

up covering the Stones. Then he gave two leps or three, and the

peelers heard him give a great shriek down in the flood. They went

home after--what could they do?--and the 'mergency man was found

in the sea stuck in a net.'

I was singularly pleased when I turned up the boreen at last to this

cottage where I lodge, an looked down through a narrow gully to

Dingle Bay. The people bade me welcome when came in, the old woman

kissing my hand.

There is no village near this cottage, yet many farms are scattered

on the hills near it; and as the people are in some ways a leading

family, many men and women look in to talk or tell stories, or to

buy a few pennyworth of sugar or starch. Although the main road

passes a few hundred yards to the west, this cottage is well known

also to the race of local tramps who move from one family to another

in some special neighbourhood or barony. This evening, when I came

in, a little old man in a tall hat and long brown coat was sitting

up on the settle beside the fire, and intending to spend, one could

see, a night or more in the place.

I had a great deal to tell the people at first of my travels in

different parts of the county, to the Blasket Islands--which they

can see from here--Corkaguiney and Tralee; and they had news to

tell me also of people who have married or died since I was here

before, or gone away, or come back from America. Then I was told

that the old man, Dermot (or Darby, as he is called in English), was

the finest story-teller in Iveragh; and after a while he told us a

long story in Irish, but spoke so rapidly and indistinctly--he had

no teeth--that I could understand but few passages. When he had

finished I asked him where he had heard the story.

'I heard it in the city of Portsmouth,' he said. 'I worked there for

fifteen years, and four years in Plymouth, and a long while in the

hills of Wales; twenty-five years in all I was working at the other

side; and there were many Irish in it, who would be telling stories

in the evening, the same as we are doing here. I heard many good

stories, but what can I do with them now and I an old lisping

fellow, the way I can't give them out like a ballad?'

When he had talked a little more about his travels, and a bridge

over the Severn, that he thought the greatest wonder of the world, I

asked him if he remembered the Famine.

'I do,' he said. 'I was living near Kenmare, and many's the day I

saw them burying the corpses in the ditch by the road. It was after

that I went to England, for this country was ruined and destroyed. I

heard there was work at that time in Plymouth; so I went to Dublin

and took a boat that was going to England; but it was at a place

called Liverpool they put me on shore, and then I had to walk to

Plymouth, asking my way on the road. In that place I saw the

soldiers after coming back from the Crimea, and they all broken and

maimed.'

A little later, when he went out for a moment, the people told me he

beats up and down between Killorglin and Ballinskelligs and the Inny

river, and that he is a particular crabby kind of man, and will not

take anything from the people but coppers and eggs.

'And he's a wasteful old fellow with all,' said the woman of the

house, 'though he's eighty years old or beyond it, for whatever

money he'll get one day selling his eggs to the coastguards, he'll

spend it the next getting a drink when he's thirsty, or keeping good

boots on his feet.'

From that they began talking of misers, and telling stories about

them.

'There was an old woman,' said one of the men, 'living beyond to the

east, and she was thought to have a great store of money. She had

one daughter only, and in the course of a piece a young lad got

married to her, thinking he'd have her fortune. The woman died

after--God be merciful to her!--and left the two of them as poor as

they were before. Well, one night a man that knew them was passing

to the fair of Puck, and he came in and asked would they give him a

lodging for that night. They gave him what they had and welcome; and

after his tea, when they were sitting over the fire--the way we are

this night--the man asked them how they were so poor-looking, and if

the old woman had left nothing behind her.

'"Not a farthing did she leave," said the daughter.

"And did she give no word or warning or message in her last moments?"

said the man.

'"She did not," said the daughter, "except only that I shouldn't

comb out the hair of her poll and she dead."

'"And you heeded her?" said the man.

'"I did, surely," said the daughter.

'"Well," said the man, "to-morrow night when I'm gone let the two

of you go down the Relic (the graveyard), and dig up her coffin and

look in her hair and see what it is you'll find in it."

'"We'll do that," said the daughter, and with that they all

stretched out for the night.

'The next evening they went down quietly with a shovel and they dug

up the coffin, and combed through her hair, and there behind her

poll they found her fortune, five hundred pounds, in good notes and

gold.'

'There was an old fellow living on the little hill beyond the

graveyard,' said Danny-boy, when the man had finished, 'and he had

his fortune some place hid in his bed, and he was an old weak

fellow, so that they were all watching him to see he wouldn't hide

it away. One time there was no one in it but himself and a young

girl, and the old fellow slipped out of his bed and went out of the

door as far as a little bush and some stones. The young girl kept

her eye on him, and she made sure he'd hidden something in the bush;

so when he was back in his bed she called the people, and they all

came and looked in the bushes, but not a thing could they find. The

old man died after, and no one ever found his fortune to this day.'

'There were some young lads a while since,' said the old woman, 'and

they went up of a Sunday and began searching through those bushes to

see if they could find anything, but a kind of a turkey-cock came up

out of the stones and drove them away.'

'There was another old woman,' said the man of the house, 'who tried

to take down her fortune into her stomach. She was near death, and

she was all day stretched in her bed at the corner of the fire. One

day when the girl was tinkering about, the old woman rose up and got

ready a little skillet that was near the hob and put something into

it and put it down by the fire, and the girl watching her all the

time under her oxter, not letting on she seen her at all. When the

old woman lay down again the girl went over to put on more sods on

the fire, and she got a look into the skillet, and what did she see

but sixty sovereigns. She knew well what the old woman was striving

to do, so she went out to the dairy and she got a lump of fresh

butter and put it down into the skillet, when the woman didn't see

her do it at all. After a bit the old woman rose up and looked into

the skillet, and when she saw the froth of the butter she thought it

was the gold that was melted. She got back into her bed--a dark

place, maybe--and she began sipping and sipping the butter till she

had the whole of it swallowed. Then the girl made some trick to

entice the skillet away from her, and she found the sixty sovereigns

in the bottom and she kept them for herself.'

By this time it was late, and the old woman brought over a mug of

milk and a piece of bread to Darby at the settle, and the people

gathered at their table for their supper; so I went into the little

room at the end of the cottage where I am given a bed.

When I came into the kitchen in the morning, old Darby was still

asleep on the settle, with his coat and trousers over him, a red

night-cap on his head, and his half-bred terrier, Jess, chained with

a chain he carries with him to the leg of the settle.

'That's a poor way to lie on the bare board,' said the woman of the

house, when she saw me looking at him; 'but when I filled a sack

with straw for him last night he wouldn't have it at all.'

While she was boiling some eggs for my breakfast, Darby roused up

from his sleep, pulled on his trousers and coat, slipped his feet

into his boots and started off, when he had eaten a few mouthfuls,

for another house where he is known, some five miles away.

Afterwards I went out on the cnuceen, a little hill between this

cottage and the sea, to watch the people gathering carragheen moss,

a trade which is much followed in this district during the spring

tides of summer. I lay down on the edge of the cliff, where the

heathery hill comes to an end and the steep rocks begin. About a

mile to the west there was a long headland, 'Feakle Callaigh' ('The

Witch's Tooth '), covered with mists, that blew over me from time to

time with a swish of rain, followed by sunshine again. The mountains

on the other side of the bay were covered, so I could see nothing

but the strip of brilliant sea below me, thronged with girls and men

up to their waists in the water, with a hamper in one hand and a

stick in the other, gathering the moss, and talking and laughing

loudly as they worked. The long frill of dark golden rocks covered

with seaweed, with the asses and children slipping about on it, and

the bars of silvery light breaking through on the further inlets of

the bay, had the singularly brilliant loveliness one meets

everywhere in Kerry.

When the tide began to come in I went down one of the passes to the

sea, and met many parties of girls and old men and women coming up

with what they had gathered, most of them still wearing the clothes

that had been in the sea, and were heavy and black with salt water.

A little further on I met Danny-boy and we sat down to talk.

'Do you see that sandy head?' he said, pointing out to the east,

'that is called the Stooks of the Dead Women; for one time a boat

came ashore there with twelve dead women on board her, big ladies

with green dresses and gold rings, and fine jewelleries, and a dead

harper or fiddler along with them. Then there are graves again in

the little hollow by the cnuceen, and what we call them is the

Graves of the Sailors; for some sailors, Greeks or great strangers,

were washed in there a hundred years ago, and it is there that they

were buried.'

Then we began talking of the carragheen he had gathered and the

spring tides that would come again during the summer. I took out my

diary to tell him the times of the moon, but he would hardly listen

to me. When I stopped, he gave his ass a cut with his stick, 'Go on

now,' he said; 'I wouldn't believe those almanacs at all; they do

not tell the truth about the moon.'

The greatest event in West Kerry is the horse-fair, known as Puck

Fair, which is held in August. If one asks anyone, many miles east

or west of Killorglin, when he reaped his oats or sold his pigs or

heifers, he will tell you it was four or five weeks, or whatever it

may be, before or after Puck. On the main roads, for many days past,

I have been falling in with tramps and trick characters of all

kinds, sometimes single and sometimes in parties of four or five,

and as I am on the roads a great deal I have often met the same

persons several days in succession--one day perhaps at

Ballinskelligs, the next day at Feakle Callaigh, and the third in

the outskirts of Killorglin.

Yesterday cavalcades of every sort were passing from the west with

droves of horses, mares, jennets, foals and asses, with their owners

going after them in flat or railed carts, or riding on ponies.

The men of this house--they are going to buy a horse--went to the

fair last night, and I followed at an early hour in the morning. As

I came near Killorglin the road was much blocked by the latest

sellers pushing eagerly forward, and early purchasers who were

anxiously leading off their young horses before the roads became

dangerous from the crush of drunken drivers and riders.

Just outside the town, near the first public-house, blind beggars

were kneeling on the pathway, praying with almost Oriental

volubility for the souls of anyone who would throw them a coin.

'May the Holy Immaculate Mother of Jesus Christ,' said one of them,

'intercede for you in the hour of need. Relieve a poor blind

creature, and may Jesus Christ relieve yourselves in the hour of

death. May He have mercy, I'm saying, on your brothers and fathers

and sisters for evermore.'

Further on stalls were set out with cheap cakes and refreshments,

and one could see that many houses had been arranged to supply the

crowds who had come in. Then I came to the principal road that goes

round the fair-green, where there was a great concourse of horses,

trotting and walking and galloping; most of them were of the cheaper

class of animal, and were selling, apparently to the people's

satisfaction, at prices that reminded one of the time when fresh

meat was sold for threepence a pound. At the further end of the

green there were one or two rough shooting galleries, and a number

of women--not very rigid, one could see--selling, or appearing to

sell, all kinds of trifles: a set that come in, I am told, from

towns not far away. At the end of the green I turned past the

chapel, where a little crowd had just carried in a man who had been

killed or badly wounded by a fall from a horse, and went down to the

bridge of the river, and then back again into the main slope of the

town. Here there were a number of people who had come in for

amusement only, and were walking up and down, looking at each

other--a crowd is as exciting as champagne to these lonely people,

who live in long glens among the mountains--and meeting with cousins

and friends. Then, in the three-cornered space in the middle of the

town, I came on Puck himself a magnificent he-goat (Irish puc),

raised on a platform twenty feet high, and held by a chain from each

horn, with his face down the road. He is kept in this position, with

a few cabbages to feed on, for three days, so that he may preside

over the pig-fair and the horse-fair and the day of winding up.

At the foot of this platform, where the crowd was thickest, a young

ballad-singer was howling a ballad in honour of Puck, making one

think of the early Greek festivals, since the time of which, it is

possible, the goat has been exalted yearly in Killorglin.

The song was printed on a green slip by itself. It ran: