them that looked singularly desolate and far away. At every turn I
came on multitudes of rabbits feeding on the roadside, or on even
shyer creatures--corncrakes, squirrels and snipe--close to
villages where no one was awake.

Then the sun rose, and I could see lines of smoke beginning to go up
from farm-houses under the hills, and sometimes a sleepy,
half-dressed girl looked out of the door of a cottage when my feet
echoed on the road. About six miles from Aughrim I began to fall in
with droves of bullocks and sheep, in charge of two or three dogs
and a herd, or with whole families of mountain people, driving
nothing but a single donkey or kid. These people seemed to feel
already the animation of the fair, and were talking eagerly and
gaily among themselves. I did not hurry, and it was about nine
o'clock when I made my way into the village, which was now thronged
with cattle and sheep. On every side the usual half-humorous
bargaining could be heard above the noise of the pigs and donkeys
and lambs. One man would say:

'Are you going to not divide a shilling with me? Are you going to
not do it? You're the biggest schemer ever walked down into
Aughrim.'

A little further on a man said to a seller: 'You're asking too much
for them lambs.' The seller answered: 'If I didn't ask it how would
I ever get it? The lambs is good lambs, and if you buy them now
you'll get home nice and easy in time to have your dinner in
comfort, and if you don't buy them you'll be here the whole day
sweating in the heat and dust, and maybe not please yourself in the
end of all.'