Then they began looking at the lambs again, talking of the cleanness
of their skin and the quality of the wool, and making many
extravagant remarks in their praise or against them. As I turned
away I heard the loud clap of one hand into another, which always
marks the conclusion of a bargain.

A little further on I found a farmer I knew standing before a
public-house, looking radiant with delight. 'It's a fine fair,
Mister,' he said, 'and I'm after selling the lambs I had here a
month ago and no one would look at them. Then I took them to
Rathdrum and Wicklow, getting up at three in the morning, and
driving them in the creel, and it all for nothing. But I'm shut of
them now, and it's not too bad a price I've got either. I'm after
driving the lambs outside the customs (the boundary where the fair
tolls are paid), and I'm waiting now for my money.' While we were
talking, a cry of warning was raised: 'Mind yourselves below there's
a drift of sheep coming down the road.' Then a couple of men and
dogs appeared, trying to drive a score of sheep that some one had
purchased, out of the village, between the countless flocks that
were standing already on either side of the way. This task is
peculiarly difficult. Boys and men collect round the flock that is
to be driven out, and try to force the animals down the narrow
passage that is left in the middle of the road. It hardly ever
happens, however, that they get through without carrying off a few
of some one else's sheep, or losing some of their own, which have to
be restored, or looked for afterwards.

The flock was driven by as well as could be managed, and a moment
later an old man came up to us, and asked if we had seen a ewe